Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen
Jace’s POV
“Alison! Pick up your goddamn phone!”
The call went straight to voicemail. “Alison here. I’m off being a diva superstar and crushing my enemies. Go get a life or call me back later!”
He reversed out of the driveway so hard the tyres screamed and hit redial one-handed, the other on the wheel, jaw tight.
Voicemail again.
“Fuck.” He threw the phone on the passenger seat. Then picked it up and tried again because he had nothing better to do with his rage, nowhere to put it.
There was no football, no opposition team to beat the shit out of till he won and came out on top and put all that pent-up anger to good use.
The night opened up in front of him and he drove into it with no destination in mind. This was his tradition from whenever things got even shittier than usual. Just drive.
Hard and fast and directionless, so fast that the speed of it burned through whatever was eating him alive from the inside and left something more manageable behind.
His mother always said he’d get into an accident one of these days and kill himself, but that just sounded like a good time to him.
Going off somewhere black and empty where he could finally be at rest, and leave all the other bullshit behind.
He wasn’t calling his father back. That wasn’t happening, that was never happening.
If the hard-headed old man wanted a conversation so badly, then he could get off his ass, get in his car, and come have it face-to-face like an adult instead of calling the house phone like a coward and routing everything through Mom, because he knew she’d do his dirty work for him without question.
So many long years of this. His entire childhood was just one pathetically long call log of phone calls to his dad that he never answered, and messages he deleted and his mother standing in hallways with that look on her face.
An exhausted pitying smile that made his blood boil, because it meant she was about to ask him again. To try again. To be the bigger person again.
As if he hadn’t been the bigger person his entire life. He banged his hand down on his car horn and cursed when it hurt.
The guilt about Martin sat somewhere in the back of his mind and he shoved it back even further. He’d fix it tomorrow, take all the lamps he’d blindly smashed outside to the trash where Martin wouldn’t see them.
Then they’d have breakfast, the good dino-shaped cereal that Martin liked, or maybe the train shop on Caldwell if he could swing it. He’d make it right. He always made it right with his brother.
But he couldn’t concentrate long enough to think about Martin before his head inevitably swung back to Lena.
Right now, infuriatingly, insanely, against every single thing he wanted, he could only think about her.
Lena Hartwell and her pulse hammering in sync with his own. Lena Hartwell, shaking like a leaf but not backing down from a fight, defending her father’s honour.
Those big furious eyes looking straight up at him saying the one thing he’d spent years making sure nobody would ever have the guts to say to him.
You disappoint him, and you can’t do anything to change his mind about you. You’d rather project your insecure bullshit onto me. Am I right?
“Shit,” he said, to nobody.
She’d called him Jason Leslie Dawson, his full government name, middle name included, as if she were his mother. And then in the next breath, she’d called him a bastard and he’d nearly laughed.
Then he’d nearly kissed her.
He pressed the accelerator to the floor, listening with satisfaction as the car revved up.
He’d wanted her gone. That was the truth of it, ugly as it was. He’d said what he said about her father not because he meant it exactly, but because he’d thought it would be the fastest solution to his problem.
Every other girl he’d try to ditch had broken down and given up at ar less. He’d watched it happen a hundred times.
But not this one, this one slapped him so hard his ears had rung. Then stood there trembling and refused to move, daring him to do something back.
And wyenshe wasn’t done it wasn’t his face that ended up hurting, but his ego.
The phone lit up.
Alison calling, the notification said.
“Finally.” He picked up. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“Oh my God, calm down.” Her valley girl voice was bright, breezy, and completely unbothered. He could hear music behind her, and the unmistakable squeak of gym floors. “I was at practice, remember? Coach kept us really late so we’d be in tip-top shape for your game next week.”
“What the hell does that have to do with answering your phone when I call you?”
“I’m sorry, Jay Jay. I swear I literally just saw your messages, all seven of them by the way, very unhinged.”
“Stop counting the damn messages and go get cleaned up for me. I’m already headed to the hotel.”
She laughed. “Oh em geee. You’re insane.”
“Are we doing this or not?”
“We’re doing this.” Her voice dropped half a register, taking on a dusky purring tone she used when she really wanted his attention. “But you can’t come at ten like we planned. It needs to be now, I have an early morning tomorrow, big family breakfast with Senator Dad.”
“Like I said, I’m already driving. If you run late, just tell them you’re studying for a test or some shit at a friend’s house.”
“Perfect.” A pause, then more insufferable giggling. “I got something new to wear. You’re going to lose your mind. You remember our usual room right?”
“I’ll get a key at the desk.” He hung up, turned the car around and headed towards Alison.
The receptionist at the Woodview was a middle-aged man with blank eyes and absolutely no expression whatsoever. He saw Jace come through the door and had the key card on the desk before Jace reached it.
Jace slid the brown envelope across to him without breaking stride.
The man pocketed it without looking down. The whole interaction had finished in less than 5 seconds with no words exchanged.
This was the arrangement and it had been for over a year. It worked so well because they both understood it completely.
His father could never find out that he’d been frequenting a place like this. The man made it his business to know everything, and of all the things Jace did that embarrassed him this one apparently ranked highly.
The heir to the great Dawson empire sneaking into hotels with high school girls, taking stupid risks like an unwanted pregnancy or a secret paparazzi shot that would cause scandal and worry shareholders.
Ergo, he had to pay receptionists to forget his face and not rat him out, the future politician business mogul conducting himself like some back alley degenerate instead of someone with responsibilities and a legacy and a reputation worth protecting.
Jace pressed the button for the fourth floor.
The legacy could go fuck itself.
412 was warm and dim and smelled like Alison’s heady perfume, which hit him the moment he pushed the door open. He found himself comparing it with Lena’s softer fresher scent and groaned.
She was standing near the window wearing something tiny, strapless, white and clearly very expensive. Her hair was loose, and she wore that stunning smile on her face that she’d perfected over years of knowing exactly what effect she had on people.
Her mother’s model blood ran strong in her veins and eye never let anyone forget it.
She opened her mouth to say something, but he didn’t care to hear it.
Instead, he crossed the room in four steps, took her face in both hands and kissed her hard, walking her backwards until she hit the wall, and she gasped into his mouth and grabbed his shirt in both fists and kissed him back with everything she had.
He waited.
His hands moved over her tight body, her fingers in his hair while he ripped the lingerie off her. Her skin warm under his palms, her voice low and breathless making helpless little sounds that usually got him hard and ready for her.
She was supposed to cut through everything else and leave him with just this, just now, just the heat of another body and nothing else to think about.
He waited.
And waited.
And felt absolutely fucking nothing.
No heat, no spark, no edge of something igniting. Just the hollow dull motion of going through steps he’d already memorised with a million other girls.
What the hell was going on with him? Alison was here, warm and naked and willing, grinding hungrily against him. Perfect as always, exactly what he’d come here for.
Yet underneath all of it was Lena Hartwell’s face trembling with fury in his dining room, her chin up while she picked up every bit of his venom and spat it right back at him, matching him toe to toe.
Soft and stubborn and completely, unlike anyone he’d ever put his hands on.
Alison pulled back and searched his face, her nose scrunching up and her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Jay Jay?” She said in her real voice, slightly cautious as she took his ace in her hands. “Babes? You’re not here. Focus on me.”
He looked at her blankly and she looked back at him, understanding dawning on her face.
“Who is she?” Alison said.