CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jacine
Hell.
I watched Cole, Jersey, and Rory cuffed and placed into police cruisers, and I watch my career drive away with them. Level-headed, Tobias put his arm around my shoulder.
“We’ll fix this.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. Never before in my life did I taste a defeat as bitter as this.
“Jacy,” he said. “If anyone could, you can.”
“This is all my fault,” I groan.
“How’s that?” he said gently. Tobias guided me back into the house, and it was good to have a sturdy shoulder I could lean against. I needed this calm, reliability, stability. Everything Tobias had to offer.
“They. I. Oh, I don’t know.” How can I explain that I crossed the line with not just one but all three of my clients? Sure, shenanigans like this were commonplace in Star land, but not at Alexander and Wells.
“Are you trying to tell me you think you led them on?”
Leave it to Tobias to get to the heart of the matter. I swallowed hard, not able to think a clear path out of this mess.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “These guys are used to getting whatever woman they want at the drop of a hat. The problem is, as I see it, no one got anything they wanted.”
“But I shouldn’t have—it was inappropriate—” I can’t even speak in complete sentences. “When the press—” My voice failed again. I am a grown woman, used to making multi-million dollar decisions and three overgrown teenagers have stolen my ability to think constructively.
Tobias lead me to the sofa, the scene of my last crime, and I groaned again. He kept his arm firmly around me and it was a comfort to have his strong and familiar shoulder to lean on.
“Jacy, these guys are the masters of inappropriate,” he said. “They knew what they were doing all along. The problem is, Princess, that they don’t know you. They don’t know how difficult relationships are for you since your mother left your father.”
Oh god. Not that again. But he was right. My world crashed and burned when my mother took off with an asshole movie producer. Her overdose at his hands was the icing on the cake. He got ten years in jail. I got a lifetime of doubting my choices in men because any boyfriend I had was just like that jerk—too much glitz and glamour. The words “just like your mother” didn’t play well with me because it held the possibility that I could fail as badly as her. So I had sworn off men and buried myself in my work. But apparently, the magic spell of duty and responsibility had melted under the glitter and tinsel of three rock stars; as it would have with my mother. And I knew better. I fucking did.
“But I should have—”
“Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. You’ll get on the phone, call your team, and start the next round of spinning things.”
“But if they go to jail—”
“Might be the best thing for them. Maybe I’ll ask the judge to try them together and then ask for work release on the day of the concert. I can see it now. All three of them delivered to the Bowl in their LA county prison garb. We’ll call the concert “Work Release.”
The idea was so ridiculous I laughed through my incipient tears. But it was also genius. I could see the press releases now.
“You know what? That idea is so outrageous; it’s a winner. But it’s a misdemeanor charge, at best. They can’t get much time for it.”
“You’d be surprised. Up to a year in County Jail and a thousand dollar fine.”
“I should know that, damn it.”
“You are being too hard on yourself, Jacine. Your father is in the hospital and you took on three impossible clients.”
The scent of him, flannel wool and his woodsy cologne wafted in a comforting haze. He kissed the top of my head and instinctively I leaned into him. Tobias, handsome, strong, reliable Tobias held me and soothed away my fears. It was a damned hard couple days and on top of that my sexual frustration threatened to send me over the edge. I could still feel Rory’s hands on my breasts performing magic on my body. The slightest touch of Tobias’s fingers on my thigh sends tingles through me that ignite my desire.
I made the slightest of gasps, and Tobias lowered his lips to mine. Every fantasy I ever had about Tobias flashed through my mind, how I wanted him to hold me and kiss me drove me to get closer to him. Shifting my body, I turn toward him and slipped my hand to his tie and tugged his head closer to mine.
With infinite tenderness his lips touched mine. And yet, it was filled with such passion my mouth burned with the taste of his mouth. The bristles of his five o’clock shadow scraped my chin sparking a shower of tingles through me.
Tobias ran his fingers on either side of my head and held my mouth to his, kissing me with such tenderness that my heart thawed and opened up to him. This was beyond bodies touching, or doing the right things to stoke desire. It was the sharing of two hearts and it took my breath away.
“Why,” he asked, “would you want any of those boys when you could have a real man?”
I gasped at his words. Why would I? Why wouldn’t I? Why not Tobias and not any of them? But I can’t answer. My mind jumbles with images of all four men, and to tell you the truth, they all stun me in their own way. They all had qualities I liked and admired, Cole’s romantic nature hidden under his balls-to-the-wall attitude, Jersey with his artistic sense, Rory’s pragmatic gentleness, and Tobias’s steadiness. Like a potato chip, I couldn’t have just one.
I was very confused.
My phone rang to save me from answering Tobias’s question and desperately I reached for it in the pocket of my duster.
“Leave it,” he breathed and then kissed me again with a kiss so sweet I might go into diabetic shock. Oh, damn, oh damn, I am going straight to hell. I know this and I don’t even believe in fiery damnation.
“It might be the hospital,” I gasped.
Sensibly, he nodded and pulled away. But it was the one call I did not want to take, but absolutely had to. What if something was wrong?
“It is my father.”
Tobias’s face turned a peculiar shade of white as if he was caught doing something wrong.
“How are you doing, dad?”
“Damn it, Jacine. What the fuck is going on?”
“Dad, you shouldn’t get yourself excited.”
“Excited? What the hell is this on the television about a fight at my house, and Kane, Dys and Holmes getting arrested?”
I flushed embarrassed that I was making out with our business lawyer while my clients were jailed.
“Um, well they all showed up here, and apparently they can’t be in the same space for ten minutes without turning on each other. Tobias and I were just discussing our next steps.
“Marshall’s there? Put him on the line.”
I held the phone out to Tobias. “My dad wants to talk to you.”
Tobias put on his lawyer face while he held the phone to his ear.
“Uh huh. Yes. Sure. I’ll get right on it.”
He handed the phone back to me.
“Handle it,” my father growled. And the line went dead.
“Whoa,” I said. “I’ve never seen him this angry. Not even when I took his precious Jag without asking him when I was sixteen.”
“Yes, I remember that. But this is different.”
“How’s that?”
“That was only a car. Today he thinks you crashed his reputation.”