Rules of Entanglement (27 page)

“Jackson, why did the lady at the resort recognize my
real
name?”

Lowering his head to his chest, he scrubbed a hand over his head several times before meeting her gaze again. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before you got Kat’s text.”

“You told the resort my real identity?”

“Not exactly.” He leaned his hips back on the short kitchenette counter and gripped the edge with his hands like it was the only thing holding him upright. “More like the resort has known your real identity the whole time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was trying to explain earlier that from the first time we met, you knocked me on my ass. Intrigue and lust are a damn potent combination that I’d never experienced before. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met, and when you basically told me you had no desire to see me until the wedding…I said the first thing that came to mind that would ensure we had to spend a whole lot of time together.”

Vanessa’s insides began to vibrate, her body’s reaction to what her mind was processing. And still she didn’t want to believe it. “I didn’t have to check in as Lucie. Did I.” She left off the inflection at the end. It wasn’t a question if she already knew the answer.

“No,” he said. “You didn’t.”

“Which means you didn’t need to check in as Reid, or at all for that matter.”

“No. They were aware you would be standing in for Lucie for the week.”

“How deep does the lie go, Jackson? You fed me all that bullshit about the Mau Loa being such an exclusive resort with the high security and strict policies crap. But I’m sure there’s more,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “There always is.”

“The part about guests needing multiple IDs
is
true, and no one has been allowed to accept someone else’s reservation until you.”

She actually snorted at the very idea. “It’s one thing to lie, but don’t insult my intelligence, too, Maris. I know Reid’s a big shot in the world of MMA, but he’s no Donald Trump or Brad Pitt. An exclusive resort—which you’re adamant the Mau Loa is—doesn’t lift one of their strictest policies for someone like him.”

“You’re right,” he said, holding her eyes with a meaningful look. “Unless of course he happens to be friends with one of the owners.”

“Who’s the…” Her voice trailed off as it suddenly dawned on her. Vanessa squinted at him as if through a pair of X-ray glasses that allowed her to see him as he truly was for the first time.

No answer, other than a slight tic in his jaw, which was answer enough for her.

He
was an owner of the Mau Loa? It didn’t add up. He lived out of a run-down cottage, with a Jeep and a surfboard. She’d seen no evidence of any material items to prove he had much more than a pot to piss in, much less had the kind of net worth he was talking about.

“I’m a silent partner, V, and I don’t even own half. But I own enough to make sure I have a real comfortable nest egg should I ever get injured and can’t fight anymore. And it’s enough to break the policies for my sister and her best friend if I need to.”

“Wow.” Staring at a nick in the paneling across from her, she let the familiar feeling of betrayal spread through her like a virus. “I can only imagine the laughs you and God only knows how many other staff members had at my expense all week.”

“Vanessa, that’s not how it was at all. No one there even knows I’m an owner. And to be honest with you—”

“
Now
he wants to be honest,” she mumbled.

“I planned on telling you the truth when I bought you the drink at the bar, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was afraid you’d be pissed and wouldn’t give me the time of day after that.”

“You were probably right.”

“See? So—”

“It doesn’t matter. You
lied
to me, Jackson. And not just once, but every second of every day. And even worse, you made
me
lie, even after you knew how I felt about it,” she shouted. “I’ve heard of guys doing some crazy things to get in a girl’s pants, but you take the fucking cake.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Bullshit! Listen to how pathetic your excuse is. You couldn’t stand the idea of not spending time with me, so instead of being yourself and trying to get back in my good graces, you manipulated the situation so your chances were better.”

She pressed her fingers into her temples to quell the pain that had been a dull ache when she got her sister’s text, but which was now about as dull as a scalpel. Taking some deep breaths through her nose, she tried sorting through the myriad of thoughts spinning in her head…and made a shocking realization.

“My God,” she said softly, dropping her hands and looking up at him. “I broke all my rules for you.”
Lying, relinquishing control, dating a man who used his fists when angered, dating a man whom I’d
thought
wasn’t financially stable, willing to see him more than three days, and I shirked my responsibilities for work on multiple occasions. And then of course, there’s the big one, isn’t there?
“Every. Last. One. I need to get out of here.” She sprang from the couch and brushed by him on her way to the door.

“V—”

True to his M.O., he grabbed her arm to prevent her from leaving until he decided the conversation was over. But she wouldn’t go along with it this time.

“Let go of my arm, Jackson, or so help me God I will claw your goddamn eyes out.”

His jaw clenched and nostrils flared as his instincts no doubt warred with her command. But after a moment, he released her.

“I’m going to call a cab and wait for it outside. If you so much as step a toe over that threshold, I’ll scream bloody murder until half of Oahu comes, do you hear me?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m getting my things and going to Nashville, alone and without your money. At this point, it would feel like a payment for services rendered,” she said thickly as she begged the tears in her eyes to wait just a little longer, “and I made it a point to never go into the family business.”

He flinched, the look on his face a mix of shock and pain, like he’d just been sucker punched below the belt. But she refused to let it affect her and turned to leave. That was it; she was done. There was nothing left to say.

Then again…

She met his eyes in the reflection of the glass. Her voice shaky. “You were the only person to ever make me break Rule #1.”

“I don’t think you ever told me that rule,” he said, his voice scratchy and barely audible.

She glanced back, and damn it if the motion didn’t jostle the hot tears loose to spill over her cheeks. Swallowing past the painful lump in her throat, she smiled wanly and said, “You’re right. I didn’t.”

The slam of the screen door against its metal frame echoed in the night sky, the death knell for both their perfect day and the small bit of hope she’d harbored for their future.

“What do you mean she checked herself out?” Vanessa demanded in her best prosecutor voice as she stood in the security line at the airport. “She has a concussion. Aren’t you supposed to hold her there for observation?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s nothing more I can tell you,” said the annoyed night-shift nurse. “She refused further treatment and checked herself out about thirty minutes ago.”

The line moved forward all of ten inches. Vanessa readjusted the strap of her carry-on higher onto her shoulder, took a step forward, and pulled her suitcase to her side again. “Well, did she leave on her own or was someone with her? Check with the other nurses; maybe she left me a message.”

In the distant background, she registered the voice of a teenage boy saying something to her, but she didn’t have time to pay attention to him. Kat had vanished, seemingly without a fucking trace, if she was to believe this nitwit of a nurse.

“Again, ma’am, I’d like to help—”

“You don’t understand,” Vanessa pressed. “I’m about to board a plane to come see her. She’s
expecting
me to come to the hospital for her, so why on earth would she leave? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Again, the teenager called something out. Again she ignored him. “Is there someone else I can talk to? Perhaps the nurse who actually took care of her before letting a concussed and beaten woman
leave your damn facility
?”

“Hey, lady!”

Vanessa whipped around to slice the surfer teen to ribbons with her eyes.
“What!”

He flinched, but then gestured to the now ten-
foot
gap between her and the man in front of her. “Can you please move forward?”

Just as she was about to pick up her suitcase and lay into the nurse again, she realized she no longer heard that sound of space that came through a cell phone even when the other side was completely silent. Taking the phone away from her ear, she glanced at the screen to see that her call had ended. Considering she had full service in the airport and the nurse had been speaking on a landline, chances were pretty good the nurse had used the opportunity to hang up on her.

Mumbling a weak apology to the people behind her, she backtracked through the several rows of winding roped-off path and exited the airport in a trance, finally coming to rest on a stone bench.

Fear and worry gripped Vanessa’s chest, squeezing like a vise until she found breathing difficult. Why would Kat have left the hospital? Did those thugs come back to threaten her some more? She supposed it was possible, but generally when someone was given a time frame to come up with money by less-than-savory characters, they didn’t show up a few hours later to reiterate the deal.

Which meant Kat either left on her own even though she knew Vanessa had been on her way with the money…or Lenny had shown up and convinced her it was time to run again.

Fucking Lenny.
Her hands curled into fists so tight she’d probably find crescent-shaped bruises on her palms later. If she ever came face-to-face with that loser, she’d kick him so hard in the balls, he’d choke on his own dick.

“Can I get you a cab,
nani wahine
?”

Vanessa lifted her gaze to see an older man in a porter uniform smiling at her with kind brown eyes. “I’m sorry, what did you call me?”

“
Nani wahine
. It means beautiful woman.”

“Woman,” she said. “So then what does
pupule wahine
mean?”

He chuckled, his big belly jerking up and down with the small effort. “
Pupule wahine
means
crazy
woman.”

Crazy woman.
The beautiful-sounding nickname Jax had given her was…an
insult
? Didn’t that just figure. New tears sprung, and she barked a short, hysterical laugh before covering her mouth with a hand.

The man sat next to her and spoke softly as though afraid of startling her. “You don’t look crazy to me,
ku’uipo
. You look tired. Is someone coming for you?”

She absently fingered the sea star around her neck. No, no one ever came for her. She shook her head.

“Then let me help you to a cab so you can get wherever you’re going and get some rest, hmm?”

Rest? While her heart bled for a man who wasn’t worth it and her sister was injured and most likely on the run to God knew where? At this point, rest was a pipe dream, but she nodded anyway. She couldn’t sit outside the Honolulu airport all night.

After instructing the driver to take her to the farthest hotel from the Mau Loa and a fifteen-minute drive, she checked in and slipped the guy at the counter a fifty dollar bill to change her name in the computer so she couldn’t be tracked down. Just in case.

She found her room, entered, and almost jumped out of her skin when the heavy door slammed back into place and echoed against the artless walls. The hum of the window AC unit was deafening in the silence, the air shooting from the vents billowing the tacky window treatments covered in, what else, but— “Sea stars.”

Swallowing past the tightness in her throat, she dropped her bags and sat on the scratchy bedspread that matched the curtains.

“Definitely the farthest thing from Mau Loa,” she mumbled.

Vanessa toed off her shoes, grabbed a pillow, and curled onto her side. Her stomach hurt from clenching into knots all night, her eyelids felt lined with sandpaper, and her chest physically ached where her heart still beat. The slow and steady rap against her ribs defied her to claim it broken.

Logic told her it was no less healthy than the day she arrived in Oahu. But the tears streaming from the corners of her eyes to darken the faded sea stars under her cheek told a much different story.

Day 6: Friday

Jackson strode through the lobby of the Mau Loa and out into the lavish pool area. It was just past noon on a typically beautiful Hawaiian day. Not a cloud in the powder blue sky, sun beating down to warm the white sandy beaches, and the aquamarine waves ebbed and flowed in perfect rhythm. And Jax noticed none of it.

All night he’d paced in his trailer, out of his trailer. Laid down to sleep and only tossed left before turning right, punching pillows and adjusting his sheets as if they were the reasons for his discomfort and not his guilty-as-fuck conscience.

He should have never let her leave. Not alone. Not like she did. The hurt in her eyes and the tears on her cheeks had pierced him through the chest. He hadn’t been able to breathe, much less move, for several minutes. And when he finally snapped out of it enough to get his shit together, he fought with himself on whether or not to act on his instinct and go to her or respect her wish for space.

After grabbing the door handle and releasing it at least half a dozen times, he watched her cab pull up and whisk her away from him once again. Only
this
time he wouldn’t do anything to trick her into giving him another chance. He’d already learned that lesson the hard way. A lesson he knew damn well to begin with but was too much of a pussy to own up to, and look where that had gotten him. Hurting the only woman he’d ever loved other than his mother and sister.

His sandals sank into warm sand. He blinked and realized he’d somehow successfully navigated through the throng of guests without remembering a single step. He wondered if this was how prisoners on Death Row felt on the way to their sentence. Because when he reached his destination and told Lucie he was leaving, she was going to kill him. And if she didn’t, Reid would. Jax mentally shrugged in resignation—it didn’t matter who wanted him dead; nothing they could say would change his mind—and continued walking.

I just need one more chance.
But honestly, did he even deserve one? That was the question that had plagued him all morning as he forced himself through a training session at the gym. Hitting the bags and running on the treadmill until puking had felt cathartic.

In the end, he made the decision he’d known he would all along. He was flying to Nashville to find Vanessa, help her help her sister, and take care of the money drop with the thugs. He just hoped to Christ he wasn’t too late.

“Maris!”

Jax turned his head in the direction of a familiar voice coming from the Moana Bar on the beach. Changing his direction, he walked over to embrace his best friend in a manly, no-more-than-three-seconds, back-thumping hug.

“Lookin’ a little soft in the middle there, Andrews. Is it retirement or my sister that’s turning you into a marshmallow?”

“You’re full of shit,” Reid said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m still in top physical condition. Besides, you and I both know all it would take is one right hook from me and you’d be on your ass.”

Jax scoffed. “You tried that once before and I caught you in a flying arm bar, if I remember correctly.” He gave his friend a wicked grin and poured a little salt on the old wound. “Had you tapping out like a little bitch.”

Reid narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger at him. “That happened
once
and it was a lucky finish.”

Jax slapped his hand away and they both laughed, turning to the bar. “So why are you here and not with Lucie?”

“I’m playing the role of dutiful husband-to-be and getting her one of those blue drinks she saw everywhere. She said something about it officially kicking off her vacation.”

Jax stared past Reid’s shoulder to the azure water and grunted at the memory of Vanessa wanting the same thing.

“Hey, man, what’s up with you? You look like pure shit.”

Cutting his eyes back to his friend, he said, “Why did I want to see you again?”

“Cut the bullshit, Jax. What the hell happened between you and Vanessa?”

Jax nearly jumped Reid right then. “You talked to her? What did she say?”

“Whoa!” Reid placed a hand on Jax’s chest and firmly pressed until he was out of his personal space. “I don’t know anything, man. She called Lu just before I came out here. All I know is that she’s not here like she should be and you’re edgy as fuck, which tells me something went down between you two.”

Jax leaned on the bar, ordered a beer, and picked out a swizzle straw from the jar to give his gnashing teeth a reason to gnash. He didn’t want to admit how badly he’d fucked things up with V to his sister or his best friend. It was bad enough he had to admit it to himself.

“Shit, dude.” Reid blew out a heavy breath and leaned on the bar next to him. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”

Jax pointed the thin red straw in Reid’s face. “Shut up, Andrews; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell I don’t.” Where Reid’s voice had lost some of its volume, it gained in agitation. “I asked you to make sure everything was taken care of this week as my friend—as Lucie’s
brother
—and you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants long enough not to chase off the maid of honor.”

Straightening from the bar, Jax turned to face his best friend. Though they towered over everyone else around them, they met each other at eye level, and both pairs threw daggers across the space between.

“I’m warning you, Andrews. You don’t know the situation—”

“I don’t care if she was strutting around naked. You should’ve found yourself a piece of ass somewhere else.”

Growling, Jax fisted his hands in Reid’s expensive polo and spun him around until his back slammed against the trunk of a nearby palm tree. Reid grabbed Jax’s wrists but didn’t attempt to pull him off. “If you ever fucking talk about her like that again, you’ll be walking down the aisle without a single goddamn tooth in your head.”

“
Jackson Thomas Maris!
What are you doing?”

Jax didn’t look away from Reid’s narrowed glare to address the woman bearing down on them. “Just saying hello to your fiancé, Lucie.” Releasing Reid, he finally turned to face his baby sister. “Hey there, shorty. You look thin. This joker feeding you?”

Lucie jammed her hands on her hips. “I just spent most of the week unable to eat, smartass. And don’t ‘hey shorty’ me. What’s your—” Her brows gathered with her frown. “Jesus, you look like hell.”

Smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt, Reid stepped to Lucie’s side and put his arm around her shoulders. “That’s what I said, sweetheart.”

Jax scowled. “Fuck you, Andrews.”

“That’s enough,” Lucie ordered. Her voice was stern, but those big gray eyes of hers softened. Suddenly, he felt stripped bare of all his defenses. A talent his sister had when it came to him. Sighing, she said, “Come here, you big jerk.”

The tightness in his chest loosened some as he enveloped his little sister in a bear hug. The feel of her arms around his waist grounded him, giving him a few moments of peace from the incessant anxiety threatening to tear him apart at his seams.

“It’s good to see you, girl,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “And you look as beautiful as ever.”

Leaning back to look into his eyes she said, “Mmm-hmm. Don’t start trying to sweet talk me. I want to know what’s going on with you.”

“I bet I can guess,” Reid interjected. “Our dearest Jax here is in love with your best friend, but he did something to fuck it up.”

Jax wanted to lash out at the man, maybe throw a punch to knock that smirk off his face. But that wouldn’t do anything but give him a split second of satisfaction and a pissed-off sister when her groom had a shiner in their wedding photos.

Lucie looked up at him for confirmation. “Jackson?”

Releasing her, Jax took a step back and scrubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t bothered grooming after his shower earlier, so his usual five o’clock shadow was now the start of a decent beard. Another couple of days and he could get a job as a model for lumberjack fashion wear.

He cleared his throat, glanced at Reid’s smug face, then met his sister’s inquisitive stare. “That pretty much sums it up, yeah.” A slow smile spread over her face.
Oh, shit.
“Shorty, don’t start getting all mushy on me, okay?”

“What?” she asked innocently. “A girl can’t be happy her big brother finally found love? And with my
best friend
, of all people?”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you. She doesn’t even want to
see
me, much less date me. But she’ll just have to deal with me today because I’m going to Nashville whether she wants me there or not.” Then he remembered Reid had said Lucie had been on the phone with V. “She’s not answering my calls. Call and tell her not to do
anything
until I get there. I don’t want her around those criminals, and I sure as hell don’t trust Kat’s boyfriend to—”

“Jackson!”

Hearing Lucie yell his name made him realize she’d tried interrupting him a couple of times before that. “What?”

“Vanessa isn’t in Nashville. She’s still on the island.”

Relief that she’d never left and concern for why she hadn’t flooded his system from opposite sides of his body, colliding somewhere in the center of his chest. “Tell me where she is.”

His sister’s eyes turned sad. “I can’t.”

He took a step forward and lowered his voice just above a growl. He must have looked pretty menacing if Reid felt the need to place himself half in front of his fiancée. As if Jax would ever lay a finger on his sister. The dude had gone all Tarzan over her. He would’ve respected Reid for that protective instinct if he wasn’t on the verge of losing his shit over Vanessa. “Lucie, I’m not playing. I want to know where she is.”

Lucie stepped around Reid while giving him her famous
back off, Cujo
look she used to use with Jax when he got too parental with her. And just as Jax had done years ago, Reid gave in. A little. “I mean, I can’t tell you because she won’t tell
me
. And when I asked why she switched hotels, she told me about Kat and said she didn’t want to bring me into her funk.”

That sounded exactly like something she’d say. That was his V. Always trying to save the ones she loved in one way or another. “She was supposed to go to Nashville to bail her sister out of a problem.”

“Yeah, I know.” Lucie tucked her long brown hair behind her ears and looked as though she debated on how much she should tell him. “Before she got on the plane last night, she found out Kat had taken off. Vanessa got a text from her this morning saying that she didn’t want Nessie getting mixed up in her problems.”

Jax snorted in disgust. “In other words, her boy Lenny told her they were better off doing another cut-and-run instead of facing the music that could very well be his death march.”

Lucie nodded. “More than likely. And if the future can be predicted by looking at the past, Kat will probably be off-grid for several months again. It’s nothing Nessie’s not used to. She’ll be fine; she just needs some time to herself.”

“Fuck that,” he growled. That’s not what she needed at all. Left by herself, she’d do what she’d always done: bury the hurt and the guilt until she couldn’t see it anymore. Feel that somehow, no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t enough. And that was bullshit. She was
more
than enough. She was everything to him, and he needed to tell her. To show her.

But in order to do that, he needed to stop hiding.

Vanessa deserved a man who owned up to who he was in life. Not a fighter who pretended not to own part of an exclusive resort so he wouldn’t have to deal with the publicity and responsibilities that came along with it. And certainly not a brother who hid his true identity for fear of losing his place in his sister’s life.

“Lucie,” he rasped. “I need to talk to you.” He flicked a glance at his best friend, who gave him a nod of understanding. “Alone.”

The corners of her mouth lifted slightly as she held out her hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk, big brother.”

Lucie’s private bungalow sat on the outskirts of the resort property facing the crystal blue waters of the Pacific. Jackson sat on the wood steps that led to the porch, forearms resting on his knees, one hand clasping his other wrist in the middle. He closed his eyes and sucked the salty sea air deep into his lungs, then regulated his breaths with the sounds of the waves hitting the shore.

When Lucie had sat him down for their talk, he’d been prepared for the worst reaction possible. Not because he truly believed his sister would abandon him, but because he couldn’t let himself hope for something more if she wasn’t able to give him that much.

Now he was ashamed of himself for thinking she’d react any differently than with the compassion, understanding, and love she’d shown him. Lucie truly was one in a million. When he told her about finding his adoption papers after their parents’ deaths, he expected her to quietly process the information in that Lucie way he knew so well. Not only did she surprise him by responding without thinking, but the first thing out of her mouth completely leveled him.

“I won’t lie and say this isn’t the last thing I expected you to tell me. But Jackson,” she said, gazing at him with her dove gray eyes, “I don’t care who gave birth to you. It doesn’t make you any less of a Maris than I am. And it sure as hell doesn’t change the fact that you’re my big brother.”

More than fifteen years’ worth of keeping his secret crashed over him, and he’d been helpless to stop the tears from flooding to the surface. Lucie wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed for all her tiny frame was worth. He wasn’t sure how long they held each other like that, but when they finally separated he had himself back under control.

They spent the next hour talking about everything from the real reason he moved to Hawaii to learning to accept not knowing why their parents never told him the truth. They speculated some, but in the end they both agreed that it probably wasn’t something they meant to keep to themselves forever. Neither of their parents could have ever predicted being taken from their children so early. Not telling Jackson sooner in life may not have been the wisest course of action, but they must have had their reasons.