Falling for King's Fortune / Seduction, Westmoreland Style

Two

“Her name is Casey. She’s about five foot five, has blond hair and blue eyes.”

“Well,” his assistant Anna Coric mused, “at least that narrows it down. Blue eyes, you say?”

“Funny.” But Jackson wasn’t laughing. He’d awakened to find himself alone and if the scent of lavender hadn’t still been clinging to his skin, if he hadn’t found a pair of white lace panties on the living room floor, he might have convinced himself that the hours with his mystery woman had never happened.

Why the hell would she leave without a word?

Anna, a middle-aged mother of four, worked for Jackson at the King family airfield. She kept ahead of the paperwork and made sure Jackson and the pilots who worked for him were always on top of their schedules. If the military had any sense at all, Jackson had often thought, they’d have hired mothers to be generals. Anna kept his work life running like a fine-tuned engine.

Too bad she couldn’t do the same for his personal life.

He thought of something, snapped his fingers and said, “Wait. She said her full name was Cassiopeia. That should help you find her.”

Anna glanced at him from the cabinet where she was deftly filing last month’s flight plans, gas usage records and pilot hours. She paused in her work, turned amused brown eyes on him and said, “As much as it pleases me to know you think I’m a miracle worker, I’ll need more than her first name and the color of her eyes to find her.”

“Right.”

“Besides,” she said thoughtfully, “don’t you have enough women in your life already?”

He chose to misunderstand her meaning and flashed her a smile. “You’re right, Anna my love. You’re more than enough woman for me.”

She laughed, as he’d known she would. “Oh, you’re smooth, Jackson. I give you that.”

Smooth enough to have managed to change the subject before Anna could start reminding him of things he’d rather not think about at the moment.

Jackson left Anna to her work and walked into his private office. Here on the airstrip, there was a tower, of course, and a main building with a room for their wealthy passengers to wait for their planes in comfort. The boarding room was lavishly appointed with overstuffed sofas and chairs, reading material, plasma TV, plus a fully staffed bar and snack area. Above that main room, were the offices. One for Jackson, one for Anna and one room that was mainly storage.

Jackson’s office, like Anna’s, overlooked the airfield. The walls were a tinted glass that let in light but kept the glare down to a minimum. Also, Jackson had never liked being cooped up, and having walls of glass made him feel less like he was spending time in a box when he absolutely had to be in the office.

Normally, he preferred spending his time on the luxury jet fleet he owned and operated. Sure, he had a staff of pilots working for him, but he enjoyed the footloose lifestyle that running his own business provided. And the chance to fly superseded everything else in his mind. Practically took an act of Congress to get him to do paperwork, but he could fly rings around most other pilots and was happiest in the air.

Today though, he walked to his desk, sat down and deliberately ignored the view. “Casey. Casey what? And why the hell didn’t you get her last name?”

Disgusted, he sat back in his leather desk chair and stared at the phone. This shouldn’t be bothering him. Not like he wasn’t used to one-night stands. But damn it, in the usual scheme of things he was the one who did the slipping away. He wasn’t used to having a woman slink off in the middle of the night. He wasn’t used to being the one left wondering what the hell had happened.

He had to say, he didn’t care for it.

When the phone rang, he grabbed it, more to silence the damn noise than because he was in the mood for talking. “What is it?”

“You’re damn cheerful this morning.”

Jackson frowned at his brother’s voice. “Travis. What’s going on?”

“Just checking to make sure we’re still on for dinner this weekend. Julie’s got her mom lined up as a babysitter.”

Despite his foul mood, Jackson smiled. In the last couple of years, he’d become an uncle. Twice over. First his oldest brother Adam and his wife Gina had become the parents of Emma, now a nearly unstoppable force of nature at a year and a half old. Then it was Travis and his wife Julie’s turn. Their daughter Katie was just a few months old and already had taken over their household.

And though Jackson loved his nieces, after a visit with either of his brothers, he walked into his own quiet, peaceful house with a renewed sense of gratitude. Nothing like being around proud parents and babies to make a man appreciate being single.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting up to lean one arm on his desktop. What with his mystery woman, an upcoming flight to Maine and a plane in for a refit, Jackson had almost forgotten about his dinner date with the family. “We’re still on. We’ve got reservations at Serenity. Eight o’clock. Figured we could meet in the bar for drinks around seven. That work for you?”

“It’s fine. Will Marian be joining us?”

Jackson frowned. “Don’t see why she should. She’s not part of the family.”

“She will be.”

“I haven’t proposed to her yet, Travis.”

“But you’re still going to.”

“Yeah.” He’d made the decision more than a month ago. Marian Cornice, only daughter of Victor Cornice, a man who owned many of the country’s largest private airfields.

Joining their families was a business decision, pure and simple. Once he was married to Marian, King Jets would grow even larger. With unlimited access to so many new airports, he’d be able to expand faster than his original business plan had allowed. The Cornice family was wealthy, but compared to the King family fortune, they were upstarts. In the marriage, Marian got the King name and fortune, plus she pleased her father, who admittedly was the spearhead of this match, and Jackson got the airfields. A win-win situation for everyone. Besides, both of his brothers had entered into marriages of convenience and they’d made them work. Why should he be any different?

If an image of his mystery woman floated into his mind, Jackson told himself it was fine because he wasn’t officially engaged yet. Wasn’t as if he were cheating on Marian.

“If you’re seriously going to do this, marry her I mean, it would be a chance for Marian to get used to the family,” Travis pointed out. “But if you’d rather not, fine. I’ll tell Adam about dinner. I’m driving Julie to the ranch so she and Gina and the kids can spend the day together.”

“Man.” Jackson shook his head and laughed a little. “Did you ever picture yourself a father, Travis? Because I’ve got to say, it’s weird for me to think of you and Adam as being dads.”

“It’s weird to be one too,” Travis admitted, but Jackson could hear the smile in his voice, even over the phone. “A good kind of weird, though. You should try it.”

He snorted. “Never gonna happen, big brother.”

“Marian might change your mind.”

“Not likely.” Jackson leaned back into his chair again. “She’s not exactly the maternal type. Fine by me anyway. I can be the world’s greatest uncle, spoil your kids rotten, then send them home.”

“Mistakes happen,” Travis said. “Everybody gets surprised once in awhile.”

Okay, Travis and Julie hadn’t been trying to have a baby, but Jackson wouldn’t make the same mistakes. “When it comes to that sort of thing, I’m Mister Careful. I’m so careful I’m practically covered head to toe in plastic wrap. I’m—” A hideous thought flashed through his mind, jolting him from his chair to his feet.

“You’re mistake-proof, I get it….” Travis prodded, waited for a response and when he didn’t get one said, “Jackson? You okay?”

“Fine,” he muttered, already hanging up when he added, “Gotta go. Bye.”

Careful?

He hadn’t been careful the night before. Hell, he hadn’t even thought of careful until just this minute. Last night, he’d been too caught up in the woman with blue eyes and a luscious mouth. Last night, he’d let himself get lost in the urgency of the moment.

For the first time in years, he hadn’t used a condom.

Jackson muttered a curse, kicked the bottom drawer of his desk and ignored the slam of pain that rocketed from his foot up his leg. Served him right if he’d broken something. How could he have been so stupid? Not only hadn’t he been careful, but he’d been with a stranger. A woman he knew nothing about. A woman who, for all he knew, had deliberately set up the situation to try to get pregnant by one of the wealthy King family.

He shoved one hand through his dark brown hair, then stuffed that hand into the pocket of his black jeans. Every muscle was tensed. His back teeth ground together and he told himself that no matter how difficult this turned out to be, he had to find that woman.

Casey.

Had to find her, discover who the hell she was and what she’d been up to the night before.

Still furious with himself, he stared out the window at the view stretching in front of him. A few of the King Jets were lined up on the tarmac, their deep blue paint shining, their tail fins proudly displaying the stylized gold crown that was the King family logo. Usually, his sense of pride swelled when he looked down on those jets. On the empire he’d taken over at twenty-five and built into one of the most enviable in the world.

Now, as he stared, unseeing, one of those jets roared down the runway, tore into the sky and lifted off to sail into the clouds.

While Jackson stood, earthbound, feeling like he was sinking deeper and deeper into a mire.

He had to find her. Especially now. He couldn’t risk losing this merger with the Cornice family.

And he sure as hell wasn’t ready to become a father.

* * *

A week later, Casey held the phone in a grip so tight her knuckles were white. “You’re sure? There’s no mistake?”

“Honey, I checked and rechecked.” Casey’s best friend Dani Sullivan’s voice came through loud and clear with just a touch of sympathy. “There’s no mistake.”

“I knew it.” Casey sighed, leaned back against the kitchen wall and stared up at the rooster clock hanging on the wall opposite her. The hands went to five o’clock and the rooster crowed. Why had she ever bought such a ridiculous clock? Who needed a rooster crowing every hour on the hour?

And who cared about the stupid rooster?

“Thanks for putting a rush on this, Dani.” Dani worked full-time at a private lab and she’d done the testing herself, just so Casey could not only get the results faster, but be absolutely sure about those results. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem sweetie,” she said. “But what are you going to do now?”

“Only one thing I can do,” Casey said, straightening up and walking across the room to grab her iced tea off the kitchen counter. The old fashioned wall phone’s cord was stretched to its limits and slowly reeled Casey back in. “I’ve got to go see him.”

“Hmm,” Dani said thoughtfully, “considering what happened the last time you went to see him face-to-face, maybe you should consider a phone call instead.”

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” The whole point of a best friend was having someone you could tell your deepest, darkest secrets to. So naturally, she’d spilled her guts to Dani. The downside was, Dani wasn’t shy about offering her opinion.

“The point is, you haven’t forgotten it, have you?”

“No,” Casey said. She hadn’t forgotten. Worse, she’d dreamed of Jackson almost every night. She kept waking up hot and flushed, with the memory of his hands on her skin. And that memory, rather than fading, was only getting stronger. With only a small effort, she could almost taste his kiss again.

And she didn’t want to admit just how often she expended that effort.

“But,” she said, lifting her chin before taking a sip of her tea, hoping the icy drink would cool her off a little, “that doesn’t mean I’d make the same mistake again. Once bitten and all that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, a little support wouldn’t be out of line,” Casey said, frowning.

“Oh, I’m supportive,” Dani argued, her voice low enough that no one else who worked with her could overhear, “but I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to meet him face-to-face, so to speak, again. With the kind of news you’re going to deliver, I really think you’d be better off making a phone call from a safe distance.”

Probably. But she couldn’t do that. She really resented being put in this position, but there was nothing she could do about it now. By all rights, Casey never should have had to make this decision. Things had changed though and she’d been backed into a corner. So there was really only one thing to do. The right thing.

“Nope,” she said. “I have to tell him. And I have to do it while I’m looking at him.”

“Never could change your mind once it was made up,” Dani muttered.

“True.”

“Just be careful, okay?” her friend said. “He’s one of the Kings, you know. They practically own half of California. If he decides to, he could make your life really difficult.”

Fear curled in the pit of Casey’s stomach. She’d considered that already. But she’d done her homework. She’d done research on Jackson. She knew he was the playboy type. The footloose and fancy-free kind of man. The kind who didn’t want entanglements.

So she was pretty sure that despite the news she had to deliver, he wasn’t going to make trouble for her. He’d probably thank her for the information, offer to write her a check—as if she’d take money for this—and then quietly go back to his lifestyle of easy women and mega money.

“He won’t,” Casey said firmly, wondering if she were trying to convince herself or Dani.

“I hope you’re right,” her friend said. “Because you’re certainly betting a lot on the outcome of this.”

Oh, Casey was well aware of that.

Three

Jackson looked across the table at the woman he was planning to marry and felt the slightest buzz of interest for her. But compared to what he had felt for his mystery woman, it was the voltage of a double A battery alongside the frenzied energy of a nuclear power plant.

He’d assumed that whatever attraction there was between them would grow with time. Hadn’t happened yet though and he was forced again to remember the instant chemical reaction between he and Casey Whoever during their one night together. And what kind of statement was it that he’d had a better time with a perfect stranger than he was having with the woman he was expected to propose to? Images of Casey smiling, Casey naked, reaching for him, filled his mind and despite everything, Jackson felt his body burn and his chest tighten.

His mystery woman.

What had she been after?

She’d deliberately seduced him. Gone out of her way to entice him, then disappeared without a backward look. Who did that? And why?

If he didn’t get answers soon, he was going to go nuts.

“My father says you’re interested in the airstrip in upstate New York,” Marian said, snapping Jackson’s focus back to her.

As it should be. Didn’t he have the damned engagement ring in his pocket? Wasn’t he planning on proposing tonight? He had plans for his life and they didn’t include mystery women, so best for him to get on with this.

“Yes, it’s big enough for several flights a day and I’ve already worked out a new schedule with my pilots,” he said, lifting his coffee cup for a sip. Dinner was over and there was only dessert left on the table. Naturally, Marian would no more eat the chocolate mousse she’d ordered than she would dance naked on the tabletop.

If there was one thing Jackson had learned about the woman over the last couple of months, it was that she was far more interested in how things looked than how things really were. She was painfully thin and ate almost nothing whenever they went out. And yet, she always ordered heartily, then spent her time pushing the food around on her plate with her fork.

His mystery woman, he recalled, had had curves. A body designed to allow a man to sink into her softness, cradle himself in her warmth.

Damn it.

Marian was watching him through calm brown eyes. Her dark brown hair was tucked into a knot on the back of her neck and her long-sleeved, high-necked black dress made her look even thinner and less approachable than usual. Why was he suddenly looking at Marian with different eyes?

And why couldn’t he stop?

The small velvet box in the pocket of his suit coat felt as if it were on fire. Its presence was a constant reminder of what he was there to do and yet, he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to ask the question Marian was no doubt waiting to hear.

When he felt the vibration of his cell phone, Jackson reached for it gratefully. “Sorry,” he said. “Business.”

She nodded and Jackson glanced at the screen. He didn’t recognize the number, but flipped the phone open anyway and said, “Jackson King.”

“This is Casey.”

His heart jumped in his chest. Even if she hadn’t identified herself, he would have recognized that voice. He’d been hearing it in his sleep for days. But how the hell had she gotten this number? A question for another time. He shot a quick look at Marian, watching him, then keeping his own voice low and level, he said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Now’s your chance,” she said and he heard the hesitation in her tone. “I’m at Drake’s coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway.”

“I know the place.”

“We need to talk. How soon can you get here?”

Jackson looked at Marian again and felt a small stab of relief at being able to escape this dinner and avoid asking the question he’d come there to ask. “Give me a half hour.”

“Fine.” She hung up instantly.

Jackson closed his phone, tucked it into his pocket and looked at the woman opposite him.

“Trouble?” she asked.

“A bit,” he said, grateful she wasn’t going to demand explanations. No doubt she was used to her father bolting out of dinners to take care of business. Reaching into his wallet, he pulled out the money required for the bill and a hefty tip. Then he stood up and asked, “I’ll take you home first.”

“Not necessary,” she said, lifting her coffee cup for a sip. “I’ll finish my coffee and get myself home.”

That didn’t set well. Bad enough he was leaving her to go meet another woman. The least he could do was see her home. But Marian had a mind of her own.

“Don’t be foolish, Jackson. I’m perfectly capable of calling a cab. Go. Take care of business.”

He shouldn’t have felt relief, but he did. Another small tidal wave of it splashing through him. “All right then. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She nodded, but he’d already turned to weave his way through the diners seated at linen-draped tables. He hardly noticed his surroundings. His mind was already fixed on the coming meeting. He would finally see his mystery woman again. Finally discover just what she’d been up to when she’d come onto him. He’d find out if she’d been protected during their night together.

And if she played her cards right, maybe the two of them could share another night of amazing sex.

Forty-five minutes later, he was parked outside Drake’s. The place was practically an institution in this part of California. Around for more than fifty years, Drake’s was cheap, the food was good and they never closed.

A far cry from the quiet dignity of the restaurant he’d just left, when Jackson pulled the door to Drake’s open, he was met by a cacophony of sound. Conversations, laughter, a baby’s cry. Silverware being jangled into trays and the crash of dirty plates swept into buckets by harried busboys. The overhead lighting was bright to the point of glaring and the hostess, inspecting her nail polish, looked just as bright when she spotted Jackson.

He hardly noticed though. Instead, his gaze swept over the booths and tables until he found the person he was looking for. Blond hair, pale cheeks, and blue eyes focused on him.

“Thanks,” he said, walking past the hostess, “I found my table.”

Walking down the crowded, narrow aisle between booths, he kept his gaze locked with Casey’s and tried to read the emotions flashing one after the other across her features. But there were too many and they changed too quickly.

His gut fisted. Something was definitely up.