I conjure a smile. “Hey, I woke up and came out here for some air.”
“Me, too,” he says, hurrying up the steps to my side. “Girls?”
I hold up the receiver.
He searches my face. “How long have you been out here?”
“Oh.” I shrug. “Not that long. I saw you on the beach with someone.” My voice sounds strange to my ears, and I want to kick myself. I’m not sure what he was doing, but I know he wasn’t doing anything nefarious. Certainly he’s not cheating on me. That’s not something I’d ever believe.
But keeping secrets…
Well, I’m not so sure about that.
“Jenny,” he says. If he’s noticed that strangeness in my tone, it’s not reflected in his voice. “That dog of hers again...”
“Seriously?” Jenny and Phil Neeley own the property next to ours, and their house is about a half-mile down the beach from ours. “Did she find him?”
“He was having a grand time racing up and down the beach in the surf.” He holds out his arms and folds me into his embrace. “God, you feel good. It’s been a hell of a day.”
I nod silently and tighten my arms around him, holding him tight.
After a moment, we both relax, then pull away just enough to look into each other’s eyes. “Do you know how much I love you?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, shocked by how much of a weight seems lifted from my shoulders. “I do.”
13
I’m walking the path by the tennis courts that take up a good chunk of the Foundation’s property when I hear a familiar male voice call my name. I turn to find my brother-in-law, Jackson Steele, striding toward me, his hand up in a wave. Like Damien, he’s dark and magnificent, a corporate god standing at the helm of an empire.
“Hey,” I say, smiling into his Arctic blue eyes as he pulls me into a hug. “I thought I’d see you this morning when we dropped off the kids.”
“I thought so, too. But duty called.”
I nod. When Damien and I arrived with the girls at Jackson and Sylvia’s house, Jackson was already gone. “The Domino?”
He shakes his head. “Thankfully, no. This was just a high maintenance, but very high-profile, client.” He lifts a shoulder. “I could have sent someone else, but he’s one of my favorite directors and she starred in some of my favorite movies as a kid.”
I bite back a laugh. In the world of architecture, Jackson Steele is about as famous as they come. So it’s pretty adorable to see him playing fanboy. “Did you get an autograph?” I tease.
“Hell, yes,” he says, and we both laugh. “And I didn’t stop you just to say hi,” he adds, pulling out his phone. “I wanted to show you this text from Moira. Hang on.” He taps the screen, then passes me the phone, now displaying an adorable video of my girls waving wildly, along with their cousins, Ronnie and Jeffery. “Looks like they’re having a great time.”
“They always do when they’re together,” I say. “You guys still off to Europe tomorrow?”
“The whole lot of us,” he says. “I’m trading on family and using one of my brother’s jets.”
“No better way to travel,” I say with a grin. Jackson already knows that, of course. His company owns several private jets, too, but none set up for trans-Atlantic flights. “Is Ronnie taking her camera?” I gave Ronnie a camera last Christmas, and Sylvia and I have since taken her out for photography sessions several times. She’s got quite a good little eye.
“Oh, yes. All packed and ready.”
“Excellent. Tell her I can’t wait to see her pictures. Oh, and tell Syl to find me later, would you? Right now, I need to check in and find out if there’s anything else I’m supposed to do before my keynote.”
I also want to find Damien. But since that’s pretty much my constant state of mind, I don’t bother saying as much.
He promises to relay the message, then continues down the path, calling out a greeting to someone I’m pretty sure I once met at a cocktail party, but can’t recall at the moment.
The Beverly Hills property is huge, and Damien and I walked the perimeter upon arriving, since we both like to interact as much as possible with the kids that the two main Stark foundations support. The original foundation—which Damien started before I met him—was the Stark Education Foundation, with its mission to identify and help underprivileged kids with an aptitude for math or science.
Then, after the dirty truth about Damien’s childhood came out in the context of his murder trial, he funded the Stark Children’s Foundation, the primary mission of which is to help abused kids recover through play and sports therapy.
Stark International supports numerous other charities, both social and educational, but those are the two that are closest to Damien’s heart. And to mine. And while both are independent organizations, there is some overlap in the kids the foundations serve, especially when a particularly bright child comes from an abusive background.
Today’s event celebrates that overlap, and kids from both organizations are being honored, funds are being raised for both foundations, and after my keynote, I’ll be announcing myself as a new Stark Youth Advocate, a position that’s formally affiliated with the SCF.
The brunch isn’t being served for another hour, and we’re ninety minutes away from me taking the podium, so I’m walking leisurely back toward the main building, waving and chatting as I meander the path past the stables where several kids are taking turns riding the gentle horses around the arena. I see Lyle Tarpin—a Hollywood A-lister and the original Stark Youth Advocate—leading a white horse on which sits a blonde haired little pixie of a girl.
He catches my eye and grins, then flashes a thumbs-up at the little princess, who responds in kind, her smile so bright you’d think it was Christmas.
I’m so busy waving that I almost walk right into Evelyn Dodge, who takes me by the shoulders and steers me to the side of the path. “Texas! I was hoping I’d get the chance to talk to you. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
I give her a huge, heart-felt hug. I may technically have a mother, but it’s Evelyn I asked to stand with me at my wedding. That was before I met my father, of course, but even if I’d known Frank back then, I still would have wanted this woman by my side. She’s brash and opinionated and her sense of humor leans toward raunchy, but she’s also brilliant and loyal and kind.
Plus, she’s one of the few people other than me who Damien trusts wholeheartedly, and I know she’d protect him—and his kids—with her life.
And that’s more than enough for me.
“You’re coming to the house next weekend, right? Lara will be despondent if you’re not at their birthday party.”
“Miss my girls’ party? Never happen. Frank and I will be there with bells on.”
My father’s a travel photographer who’s currently in either Sweden or Switzerland—I honestly can’t remember. But I know that he’s supposed to return next week. And considering the amount of time he spends with Evelyn when he’s in town, I’m not surprised they’re coming together.
She hooks her arm with mine, and we continue walking toward the main building. “I bumped into your boy a few minutes ago,” she says, and I smirk at her reference to Damien as my boy. “He says you and he will be adding a new Blaine original to your collection.”
“We will,” I say, keeping my eyes straight ahead even though I’m dying to look sideways so that I can read her expression. “We stumbled onto a gallery in Beverly Hills and found a piece that called to both of us. I got the impression that he’s doing really well.”
“That’s what I hear.” There’s a deliberate lightness in her tone that is very un-Evelyn-like.
I frown, trying to read her, but not having a clue. “Do you guys stay in touch?” When I first met Evelyn, she and Blaine were hot and heavy despite a more than fifteen-year age difference. She was his biggest champion and supported his career, sponsoring showings, getting him into galleries, and generally playing the role of patron.
&n
bsp; “A bit. He’s supposed to be in LA soon, so I’ll probably see him. Or not.” Her tone is light and airy, as if suggesting it doesn’t matter one way or the other.
But I know Evelyn, and as she gives me a hug and hurries ahead to catch up with a client she’s just seen, I can’t help but think it matters. In fact, I think it matters a lot.
“You’re frowning.”
I blink, then realize that I’ve been so focused on watching Evelyn disappear down the path that I hadn’t even noticed Jamie’s arrival. She looks amazing, as always, but with a heavier layer of makeup than the occasion calls for, which to me translates as a very bad sign. “Tell me you’re not covering my speech.”
She bites her lower lip. “Sorry. You’re news and the Foundation’s news. And when someone like Lyle is involved in the organization that makes it entertainment news. So it was either me or Lacey.” She raises both shoulders almost up to her ears. “I figured you’d rather it was me. Or am I wrong?”
I roll my eyes. “Not wrong. Be kind.”
“Oh, please. You’ll be fabulous. When have you ever choked on a stage?”
She’s right about that. In fact, my stage presence was probably my biggest downfall. I kept winning pageants, and my mother kept entering me in them, one after the other after the other, until the only way I could escape from that nightmare of a life—from her hellish grip and sick, restrictive rules—was to take control in the only way that was left to me.