Trouble in Paradise (3 page)

She stared off into the distance as if recounting the story brought her pain and while he wanted to know what happened he didn’t want her to have to relive it, to explain it, to talk about it. But maybe talking helped her. Talking wasn’t helping him; it was making him want to track down the bastard now and get the justice she never got.

“Back then there were many nights where I wished somebody would one day separate him from the only thing declaring him a man—violently, painfully. I know I shouldn’t have, but I wished a thousand painful deaths on that man. I wished for the evil he had within him to destroy him. And one day I realized I had to move on—not forgive him, but move on if I wanted to live my life, to have a chance to be happy. I finished school. I worked for a while before starting my company, and then I met your father and signed a life changing deal with him and life is good to me. Despite what happened I survived.”

“But you haven’t dated.”

“Jocelyn,” he growled.

“Well she hasn’t.”

She laughed. “At first that was part of the reason. I figured nobody would want me. I grew up with very morally and religiously ethical parents. Sex outside of marriage wasn’t something they promoted. And sex for the sake of sex definitely wasn’t. My mom always said if it happened that I lay down with a man before we were married to be sure it was a man I loved and who loved me, who deserved me. I hadn’t dated because I hadn’t come across that man.”

“Hadn’t,” she grinned. He noticed the same words and he wondered if she had now. Was there some man she had taken an interest in? He wanted her for himself. He didn’t want her to fall in love with anybody else.

“I’m going to go over there and sleep,” she said as she got to her feet. “Sounds to me like you two need to have a discussion about your born again virgin question.” She quickly left them. He knew it was her way of putting distance between them so she could pull herself together and get her emotions under control. The only place to escape when on the plane and in the air was to go over to the larger area and sleep on the couch.

“Jocelyn, you have to learn there are some things you shouldn’t ask people. There are some things that might be painful for them.”

She nodded. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but I’m thinking about it now.”

He saw the way Jocelyn looked over to the other area where Bambi was curled up in a near fetal position on the couch.

“Next time think before you speak. Process it through in your mind and ask yourself do you have the right to know or should you yield to their right to privacy.”

She nodded.

“Now about this born again virgin thing, what’s going on?”

She sighed. “Rochelle and I were talking when she came over to visit so we could study for school. I would have preferred to go to her place, but her mother wasn’t going to be home so she had to come to ours. Anyway, she has been with her boyfriend like that. She says I should date and have sex too. I told her I wanted to wait. She said if we did it while in high school then we would be born again virgins if we waited until after college to do it again.”

“Sounds like her mother needs to talk with her about some hard life facts.”

She nodded. “Yeah, she didn’t even know how to protect herself. I told her though. Thanks to you I know about this stuff. But Jordana overheard the conversation at that point and she called me a slut. Now she calls me a slut cunt or just a cunt. I really hate her, Dad. I know she’s supposed to be my mother, but I hate her.” She curled up against him with her head on his shoulder. He repositioned his arm around her to hold her close as he placed the palm of his hand on her head.

“I’ll talk with your mother when I get back. She won’t keep this up. I will do whatever I have to do to protect you, even if the protection you need is from her.”

Jocelyn looked back to Bambi. “Do you think she’s okay? Should I go over there and apologize?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Give her some time. Go in my office and play on the computer—you and I both know you want to.”

She laughed. “So true, Dad.” She jumped off the couch and did a brisk jog back to his office. Everything that needed to be secured was. He never left confidential and classified files unlocked or in the open.

He looked over to Bambi and then walked over to where she was. He sat down and stared at her. Her breathing wasn’t shallow as it would be when she slept. He had watched her enough to know the difference. “You can stop pretending now. I know you’re awake.”

“You know me too well.”

Obviously he didn’t know her well enough. He had done a background check on her before he even offered her the time of day for a meeting. How had he missed something as big as what happened to her? How had a skilled man who could find anything on anybody miss that?

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Then we’ll talk about something else.”

“Sterling Lancaster giving up,” she sat up and stared at him. “I don’t believe it. That was easy.”

He shrugged. “For now,” he eyed her posture and noticed the air of discomfort within her. “I can give you some time, but we are going to talk about this eventually.”

“Why? Just let it go. I have.”

“No you haven’t.” He could tell she knew he was right. “But for now let’s talk about something less hostile. Let’s talk about filming. Are you ready?”

A genuine smile lit up her face as she nodded fervently. That was what he wanted to see—her smiling like she owned the world and nobody could take it from her. She talked incessantly about her excitement and he found himself hanging on to every word until she stopped and looked at him earnestly.

“What?”

“You’re dying to ask, aren’t you?”

He chuckled. Of course he was. He was trying to give her some space on the topic, but he had questions and he wasn’t a man who did well waiting for answers.

“Ask,” she granted him permission.

“Why didn’t I find anything on this when I did the background check on you?”

“Money, money and more money,” she shook her head. “The DA said it would be best for everybody involved if I dropped any insistence that he prosecute a case that wasn’t “winnable” and while I wanted to press forward I knew the chances were slim that I would get justice. With the DA ready to sell me out I figured a judge would be next. So in exchange for my silence, I got him kicked out of school. They dismissed him and all of the paperwork on the case magically disappeared,” she sighed. “I found out later that the dismissal wasn’t much of anything. His parents bought his way into another major high end university and his records weren’t tarnished. He left and the paperwork listed it as being due to a family emergency.” She snorted. “Some good my efforts did. But you know, at least I was able to finish school without having to see him on campus or fearing that one day he would sneak up on me again. So I’m okay. I wish things had been different, but I can’t change any of that now.”

He nodded. “I wish I had known you back then. I would have protected you.”

Her lips turned upward. “I wish I had known you back then too. Things would have been different.”

She had no idea just how different they would have been, not just for her, but for him too. Life could have been some kind of wonderful for both of them.

“Jocelyn is growing up so fast. I can’t believe it because it seems like just yesterday she was that twelve year old wide eyed girl you had me pick up from band practice.”

He laughed. “Time flies. I can’t believe how fast either. I’m getting old.”

She laughed hard. “Oh please. You’re still young yet. Thirty-five is not old.”

“I turn thirty-six in two weeks.”

She shrugged. “Still not old.” She patted his leg. They touched more frequently now. At first they were business only, but somewhere from beginning until now they had gotten comfortable with each other. A shoulder rub, a gentle pat on the arm or leg, and his signature move of softly placing his hand on her lower back whenever the opportunity presented itself. He knew she liked that spot, her hot spot, and he loved turning up the heat.

They were laughing and talking when the captain alerted them to their near landing status. Sterling went and pulled Jocelyn away from the computer. She was there watching more fitness videos. He was near certainty that she was going to go into the fitness and nutrition program just like Bambi because she seemed to love it so much. Whenever she could ask Bambi questions or pick her brain for new workout routines she was doing it and then, his little girl, had taken that information with her back to her friends. She was basically doing a three day a week workout routine during the year with them. He hated to keep her away for a month from her routine activities, but she had left her friends with nutrition and exercise plans and had promised to do video workouts from wherever she landed. He had promised to make sure she had access to his technologies so she could do it. She was going to love this. He had arranged everything with her and Bambi in mind. While Bambi was filming on the beaches of Tahiti, Jocelyn could be conferencing with her friends from her room at the beach home he acquired for the month. He, of course, would be working most of his stay, but he was still going to take some time off to spend with his daughter while at the same time, saving time for seducing Bambi. By the time they made it back he wanted her to know he was ready to turn up the heat on their relationship and go from friends to lovers, to partners in everything. He wanted her to be his wife, and he planned to see that she became Mrs. Lancaster by the end of the year. The problem was he wasn’t sure she would want to be Mrs. Lancaster.

“Tahiti!” Jocelyn bounced up and down as Rick, their driver, loaded the bags into the executive car. Bambi had always wondered why Sterling had set up a hub in Tahiti until he told her that even rich people loved the beach with his Sterling signature smile that could melt a woman’s panties off her and the wink that could ignite a firestorm of need inside her.

He had said it was a hot spot for a lot of their clients to either vacation or take on second homes. While the hub wasn’t a big one like the main division or even some of the other International locations, the Tahiti connection was fully equipped to handle everything. With ten employees, both administrative and security personnel included, Tahiti had been hooked up. Their best assets in the Tahiti location was Trenton and Emerson Hildegrant—the twins that nobody with half a brain messed with.

Trenton was only five nine, his brother five eleven. Trent had the black hair that came down in a ponytail that hit between his shoulder blades.
He had that smooth near cream meets hint of island caramel skin that screamed island.
He was born in the Bahamas and loved everything about the island life. He, just like Sterling, had gone into the Army which is where they met. Only Sterling came out whole while Trent had been broken on so many levels. He had gotten back on his feet thanks to Sterling and Emerson. Sterling had provided the career that allowed him to feel like he was needed, making a difference and still protecting the innocent—relatively innocent, while Emerson had been the one to pull his brother out of the bottle.

Both men had muscles, but Trent looked like he gained muscles from working manual labor like lifting bags of dry cement, while Emerson had the body of a man who definitely lifted weights—religiously lifted them. He was bulky, but still kind of attractive even though she didn’t personally go for the look of bulk on a man. She liked the runner’s meets climber’s body like Sterling had.