Page 4 of Crossed By the Stars
“Dax?” Dawson’s voice brought me back.
The knot in my chest eased only enough for me to speak in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. It was much deeper, more guttural, as if I were a phone sex operator. “I’m here.”
“You know I wouldn’t ask…” Dawson trailed off.
“Unless it was urgent,” I finished for him. “What happened?”
“We don’t know. She’s just gone all silent-but-strong on us, putting up that damn shield she hides behind. If we send Raisa or Jersey, she’ll fool them with her cool customer act.”
“What makes you think she won’t fool me?” I said, pretending for all of twenty seconds that it was true. That Jada Mori could get something past me when we both knew she couldn’t. I read every single emotion she tried to keep hidden behind her deep brown eyes that matched mine. We were similar in so many ways. Unfortunately, it was our differences that mattered most, and those kept an electric trip wire dragged down the space between us, ready to go off at any moment.
Dawson scoffed, “Come on. Give me some credit. We both know better.”
I didn’t reply.
“You’ll be in San Francisco for the boat show, right?” he asked.
The latest version of our yacht would be unveiled today and would stay on display during the five-day event. This new model was a thing of beauty. Art instead of mere transportation. I’d carefully chosen the platinum metallic paint accented with red, white, and blue stripes to represent the flags of the United States and France?our homelands. When we’d first seen the boat completed, it had almost brought me to tears, and Dawson had been equally choked up. He hated missing the reveal to the public, but his love for a certain purple-haired genius was stronger than his love of our yachts.
My chest tightened back up—this time with longing. I wanted that…to love someone so much that the world faded away. My parents had it. My best friend had it with Violet. I craved it like a tree craved water. The only problem was, I wanted it with someone I could never have.
“I arrived in San Francisco yesterday,” I told him.
“Jada just got back from her grandmother’s. You might be able to catch her at the penthouse this morning before she goes into theVioletteoffices.”
“She was in New York?” It was more shock than a question that rolled through my voice. She was rarely in the city these days, and going to her grandmother’s place on 5th Avenue had been forbidden. So, why had she broken the tenuous agreement?
I shook my head. I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t know.
“Her grandmother had hip surgery,” Dawson offered, his tone conciliatory. “She might just be acting weird because she’s knee-deep in something she wants to surprise Violet with, but Vi won’t relax until we know for sure.”
“Fine,” I said, feeling anything but.
Dawson breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thanks, Dax. I owe you…”
“You already owe me. I think our scales are pretty much tipped with you needing to give me your firstborn child in order to balance them out.”
“Good luck with that. Violet would poison you first.” His voice had a smile to it. “And if she didn’t succeed, I still have my Glock.”
“Get back to making your firstborn and leave the real world to us imbeciles stuck in it,” I teased back.
I was rewarded with a soft laugh.
I hung up after promising he’d hear back from me soon, and then I sat there, fighting waves of emotions.
“Putain,” I said softly and then dragged my ass into the shower.
Twenty minutes later, I was in the back of an unmarked SUV with my bodyguard and driver, Cillian, at the wheel.The Irish man was one of the largest men I’d ever met—even bigger than Dawson and his brother, Truck, who were both almost Hulk-like. But one look at Cillian’s face with scars barely hidden below his caramel-colored beard that matched the shaved inches on his head, and most people stayed away. He was pretty much the only security I needed these days, but we still had a full team standing by everywhere I went just in case.
Cillian pulled up outside the building where Jada lived across the hall from Dawson and Violet, and I was out on the curb before he could even turn the engine off.
“I’ll text you when I’m ready,” I leaned back in to tell him.
I straightened up, and the sights and sounds of the city hit me, horns and car engines muffled slightly by the hint of fog that still laid over the streets. The sun battling through made the day dreamlike.The wind was chilly, bringing in thesalt and fish smells of the bay. I wasn’t a fan of San Francisco any more than I was a fan of Paris. As I got older, the quiet of my family’s villas in Italy and on St. Micah in the Caribbean appealed to me more.
I tugged at the cuffs of my light-blue suit jacket tailored to move with me like a second skin. I’d partnered it with a gray Merino-wool T-shirt and expensive suede sneakers. A careful mix of formal and casual thatPapawould approve of as I would be showing his vision of day-casual to the world at the same time as I was unveiling Armaud Racing’s new boat. Two birds, one stone.
I left the street behind to enter the lobby where the man at the desk nodded to me with a smile. He knew me well. Knew me enough to just buzz open the doors of the private elevator leading to the top floor and the four suites that resided there. Jada’s was the largest of them, and it was the only one with two levels.
