Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
I tried not to think about what an understatement that was. My grandparents had bought a piece of land in Legacy years ago, large enough for them to give each of their children and grandchildren a parcel. At any given time, there were at least a dozen Marians in town and tens of thousands of acres of land under Marian ownership.
I was incredibly glad Rocky wasn’t here to see her “experienced operative” now.
“I know where Legacy is,” Kayla said excitedly. “One of my friends from high school lives there. What’s your cousin’s last name?”
I forced the name Marian back into its hidey-hole and shot her a friendly smile. “Johnson,” I said. “They’re actually my dad’s cousins. Linda and Peter Johnson. Linda works at the grocery store in town, or at least she did the last time I heard anything about them. But it’s been years.”
I felt Locke’s eyes on me as I carefully turned the conversation back around to Kayla, asking her where she’d enjoyed traveling with her job.
After the meal, I pretended to take a nap in order to keep from saying anything else stupid. Thankfully, my exhaustion took care of the rest and turned the fake nap into a real one.
11
LOCKE
I watched Jett sleep in the wide, leather chair across from me.
The man was a mystery.
Prior to bringing him to the Paxis tournament, I’d had my corporate security team run another background check on him to see if there was anything more to learn since I’d last run a check three years ago.
There was nothing new, with the sole exception of his address. Jett’s current address was in Queens, which made no sense based on where Demarius had dropped him off the other night. But this wasn’t a huge surprise. The man was a sex worker. Not, I imagined, a demographic known for consistently sleeping at their legal addresses.
Because of his background and the services I required of him, I’d insisted on a clear STI panel in addition to the updated background check.
It should have been enough to satisfy my curiosity about him.
Was enough, damn it.
I blew out a breath and let my shoulders fall.
I didn’t need his life story to enjoy the services I’d hired him for. I didn’t need to make small talk with him, or worry about entertaining him, or wonder what circumstances had led him to stay somewhere other than at his Queens apartment. He was here for one reason only.
I wanted to own him. If only for a little while.
The memory of him on his knees for me in the back room of the plane made me shift uncomfortably in my seat. Jett’s mouth was as amazing as I’d remembered. Better, if such a thing were possible.
And he was being compensated for it generously, I reminded myself. I owed him nothing more.
But I did owe the Paxis Council my thorough knowledge of the global shipping landscape, the movement of contraband around the world, and recent technological innovations my company had been working on. So I went back to prepping for the tournament.
I tried not to notice every time Jett shifted or made a small sound. But when he wrapped his arms around himself, I nodded to Kayla, silently asking for a blanket and indicating she should drape it over him. He jerked awake when he felt the blanket land on his chest, but when he realized Kayla was only seeing to his comfort, he relaxed and shot her a grateful grin.
She returned his smile and disappeared back to the galley.
I pretended not to notice Jett’s eyes move to me. But I felt the heat of them all the same.
After a few long moments, he shifted in his seat and turned to gaze out the window. Within a few moments, he was softly snoring once more.
And then it was my turn to watch him. Again.
Kayla might not have noticed Jett’s knee-jerk reaction to being suddenly awakened, but I had. He’d looked ready for an attack. Like someone who’d slept on the streets or been in other precarious situations.
Again, not surprising. But it was another piece of the puzzle that made Jett such a strange combination of contradictions.
He sometimes came off as wealthier than he was—an act, I assumed, to fit in better with wealthy clients. On the flight from Atlanta, he’d been wearing nicer clothes than he had in the past—more like a business traveler than someone planning to couch-surf with a friend while looking for a barista job or another dancing gig. He definitely didn’t sound like someone from small-town South Carolina either, which might be for the same reason.
But I suddenly wanted to know… where else had he lived over the years? What jobs had he been taking to get by?
He’d mentioned a family card game his “dads” enjoyed, cousins on his father’s side living in Montana, and a scar he’d gotten from a sister, though the background check had shown him only having a mother and no siblings.