Page 21 of Crossed By the Stars
MON BIJOU: No, Armaud. I’ll be at the office all day, trying to catch up.
ME: I can bring it to you.
“Dax?” My father’s voice brought me back.
“I promise I’m thinking about it. That’s all I can give you at the moment,” I told him.
He grunted and murmured something under his breath.
“I love you. Please kissMamanfor me,” I said. I missed them both, but my mother and I had been passing in the night for too many years now. With her still filming Bollywood movies and me racing, building a company, and helpingPapa,I was rarely in the house at the same time as she was. Not to mention that I’d spent the last two years purposefully galivanting around the globe with Benita.
“We love you too. Stay safe, my boy,” my father said.
After we hung up, the wordsafeechoed in my head. While my parents had always been around growing up to ensure I’d been safe, refusing to leave my care solely to nannies like many of their peers, no one had been there for Jada. She’d grown up essentially alone in an apartment of employees. And now, with her father and whoever else was coming after her, she had even less protection.
As if she could feel my thoughts of her over the distance between us, Jada finally messaged me back.
MON BIJOU: Don’t let yesterday go to your head. You were a needed distraction, that was all.
If I didn’t know Jada so well, I would have been offended by her response, but I knew that behind her sarcasm was a woman who didn’t want anyone to be dirtied by the darkness of her father’s world. She was so determined to protect everyone else in her life that she would gladly put herself in front of the target to do so.
The problem was, deep in my heart, I wanted to be a distraction for other reasons. The skin-tangled-with-skin kind of distraction. The blending-of-our-souls kind of distraction. But I’d settle for being the friend I’d first been to her in the early days of our acquaintanceship.
Jada looked stunning, sitting at her family’s table at the biggest charity event of the London season.The mahogany depths of her eyes sparkled, and her black hair shimmered with white lightsthat mimicked the diamonds on her neck. Her gentle curves were on display in a bright-blue dress that made it hard to look away from her.
While I was there withMaman, Jada was all alone. My heart lurched.
She was always alone.
It was one of the reasons I’d first asked her to dance when we’d met a year ago. A dance that had led toMamanwarning me to stay away from her. A softly whispered admonishment about the Moris being bad news. Talk of her father’s criminal organization and howPapa’sbusiness couldn’t withstand the gossip if we were seen together by the paparazzi.
She’s too young for me, anyway,I told myself. Not that my sixteen to her fourteen was that great of a gap, but we were lightyears apart inlife experiences. She was completely sheltered, raised in her grandmother’s penthouse in New York City, surrounded by servants and nannies who shuffled her from place to place and made sure everyone stood ten steps away. Whereas, I’d been raised by parents who wanted me to see and experience the real world and not just the illusionary bubble our wealth created.
As I watched, Jada got up and walked to the dessert table with a grace one might not expect of a girl her age in heels that high. Before I realized it, I was following her and staring down at the treats laid out on white linen decorated with flowers and gold chains.
As Jada reached for a plate of tiny bonbons, I said, “They’re not as good as the ones in Paris.”
She turned to me, taking in every inch of me in my tuxedo before returning to my face.
“Dax Armaud talking to a Mori again. You better make sure your mother doesn’t see you, or you’ll be banished.” While I’d spoken in English, she’d responded in a French that was almost perfect, as if she’d been raised in Paris instead of New York City.
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Maybe that would be a reward and not a punishment,” I teased. She just stared at me, eyes going to my mouth as I talked. I liked her lips way more than I should have, the way the middle was peaked and the corners tugged upward. The soft-pink shade she’d painted on them was almost her natural color. I wanted to touch them. My body actually ached to do so.
When she hadn’t said anything back, I asked in French, “Why are you alone?”
A flicker of emotion wavered over her face at my question. Then, her shoulders went back, and she replied, “I was the only one who could make it.”
My breath caught at the loneliness I thought I’d seen as much as the way she hid it, and even though I knew I should walk away, I did the opposite.
“Want to get out of here?” I asked.
She looked around the room, taking in the world’s elite gathered there in gowns and gems, as if trying to find a reason to stay. Then, she shrugged in acquiescence.
I led the way out of the ballroom and down to the first-floor lobby. As we neared the entrance, I looked down at her stilettos.
“You going to be okay if we take a walk?”
