That last game where Cody’s team had been beaten to a pulp by Sailor’s. And where Sailor might’ve taken a little too much pleasure in tackling Cody facedown into the muddy earth.
He always had the most fun at the games that involved Cody. He hadn’t consciously realized why until this instant. No one could arrest you for assault on the rugby field. Not when body-slamming contact was part of the game and bruises expected.
“Back in college,” he said, “do you remember ísa?”
A sudden blink… followed by a tide of creeping red. “Yeah.” Cody dropped his head to stare at the oil-stained concrete of the parking lot. “She was sweet. She never ragged on me like Suzanne does.”
“So why were you such a fucking asshole to her?”
A long silence before Cody sighed. “Suzanne told me if I said those things, she’d go out with me.”
“Are you kidding me?” Sailor’s hands fisted. “You’re blaming your fiancée?”
“I was just going to break up with ísa when Suzanne… when she told me she wanted me, but Suzanne has this thing against ísa.”
Because ísa was blindingly beautiful in both body and spirit. Something Suzanne’s jealous little mind couldn’t handle. “And you went along with this plan to hurt ísa, hurt the girl you were supposed to love? What the fuck kind of man are you?”
Cody looked up with a befuddled frown. “I didn’t know she was your sister.”
That was when Sailor decided there really was no point to the conversation. Instead, he said, “This is for ísa.”
And then he punched Cody.
15
ísa the Barracuda
THE MAN HAD A GLASS jaw. He crumpled to the asphalt with a whimper.
Sitting up afterward, his suit jacket torn at the elbow and his hair no longer so flawlessly combed, Cody cradled his jaw as blood poured from his nose. “What the fuck?” Pinching his nostrils shut, he tilted back his head. “You punched me.” The words came out whiningly nasal.
Sailor flexed, then fisted his hands. “Tell me you didn’t deserve that.”
Going pale when he lowered his head and saw Sailor’s hands, Cody gulped. “Jesus. Yeah, yeah I did.” Weirdly, the words actually sounded genuine.
Sailor watched as the other man sat up on the concrete with his back against his fancy car and dug around in his jacket. Finding a wadded-up tissue, he tore it up and began to plug his nose.
“I think I made the wrong choice that night, Sailor.” A pitiful moan, the torn tissue sticking out from his nose like a fungal growth. “I’ve been thinking about ísa for months. Ever since I saw that photo of her on Trevor’s page. She was at some theater event with her mother that Trevor’s cousin put on.”
Sailor had no idea who Trevor was and he didn’t care. “You’re too late,” he said. “I don’t think she’d give you a chance even if you turned up with a truckload of chocolates and diamonds.” The idea of Cody going anywhere near ísa ever again had him seeing red.
Breathing past the urge to plant another one in Cody’s face—it’d be unsporting against such a pathetic opponent—he said, “And what about your wedding? Bit too late for regrets, don’t you think?”
Cody nodded, face set in glum lines and his white nose growths now faintly pinkish. “Suzanne’s got everything planned. I just have to turn up on the day.” A shuddering sigh, his hand rising to cradle his jaw once more. “Do you know something? Her family doesn’t even have as much money as ísa’s.”
Sailor looked at his scraped knuckles and seriously considered smashing Cody’s nose in, unsporting or not. He managed to control himself only because he realized he’d probably already done a very stupid thing for a man trying to get a new business off the ground, one that required bank loans and the trust of CEOs like Jacqueline Rain.
And yet he couldn’t make himself be sorry.
“If you’re planning to press charges,” he said, “here’s my phone so you can call the cops.” Cody’s phone had fallen out of his pocket when he crashed to the ground; the screen was so cracked it looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.
“I don’t want people to know the real reason why you punched me.” Cody lifted pleading eyes to Sailor. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I’ll make up some story to explain the face and jaw.”
“Fine.” Sailor turned and got back in his truck before he shoved the fungal growths even further up Cody’s nose, his anger at the other man unabated.
Finally getting to his feet, Cody called out, “Hey, so is she your sister or not?”
Sailor thought of ísa’s lips under his, her thighs so sweetly tight around his body, the scent of her drugging his senses, and said, “No ísa isn’t my sister… but she is mine.” He screeched out of the parking lot before Cody could reply.
Sailor had to get to a job, finish the work he’d promised to do.
Again, his eyes fell on the scraped knuckles with which he held the steering wheel. Nope, not sorry. No one had a right to do what Cody had done to ísa.
* * *
íSA MADE IT THROUGH HER first day in the vice presidential office without murdering Jacqueline. She’d never admit it to her mother, but the company had a nice feel to it, the employees cheerful and genuinely happy to be there. As for the work, it was difficult, but to ísa’s intense horror, she understood it all. She couldn’t even fake stupid questions—she was a terrible liar. In desperation, she tried working slowly, so as to annoy Jacqueline, but found that her brain refused to cooperate.
It was like her mother had brainwashed her while she was still in the womb.
Frustrated with herself for being so good at a job she hated, she deliberately took every single break to which she was legally entitled, using that time to work on the poetry that was her outlet and the saver of her sanity. The breaks slowed things down a little. But not anywhere near enough.
When Jacqueline came to see her after lunch, she had a beaming smile on her face. “I knew you’d be perfect for this position,” she said. “Look how well you fit in.”
ísa banged her head against the desk after the door closed behind Jacqueline.
She had to figure out a way to sabotage this without breaking her word, or her mother would be blackmailing her into eternity. But how could she let down Catie and Harlow? Harlow would probably survive—his heart would be broken, pulverized more like it, but he was a smart kid. He’d be all emotionally messed up, but he’d be able to support himself and he’d eventually set up a business to rival Jacqueline’s.
But Catie… Catie needed her mother in ways she’d never articulate. And if Jacqueline cut ísa off in punishment, she’d lose her ability to make sure Jacqueline paid at least some attention to her thirteen-year-old youngest child. Clive certainly wouldn’t be able to manage that—he hadn’t even been able to make mother-child moments happen while he and Jacqueline had been married.
It was a teenaged ísa who’d negotiated time for Catie in her mother’s schedule.
In return, she’d agreed to learn the ropes of the company without complaining.