* * *
JACK
“You want me to what?” Jack practically growled, not sure he’d heard Stu correctly.
“You heard me.” His brother sounded smug through the phone.
“You want me to prostitute myself?”
“If you consider fucking a prime piece like Vanessa Hartwell prostitution, then that’s your problem. I’d do it. In a heartbeat. But Dana doesn’t want me dipping my wick in anything else while we’re screwing around, and Vanessa Hartwell might be sexy but she’s no Dana Kellerman. And anyway … Vanessa has made it clear she thinks I’m scum.”
“Probably because you hit her sister in the face.” Jack was still not over that. In fact, a seething rage had lived under his skin since the moment Bailey approached him in Lanson’s Grocery to tell him Stu had attacked her in her inn.
She couldn’t prove it was Stu.
But she knew.
And Jack knew it, too, because Ian had been harassing him and his brothers to come up with a way to get the inn out of Bailey’s hands. He’d alluded to them breaking into her office to find something in her accounts that would help them.
And fucking Stu had broken into her inn when he was high on coke.
“How many times do I have to apologize for that shit? I was off my fucking face. You know I never meant to do it. She startled me. I wasn’t thinking. And anyway, I took your beating for it. Fair is fair.”
“Unless you want me to tear out your throat with my bare hands, I’d shut up now, Stu.”
“So sensitive, bro. Anyway, you’re up with Vanessa. She’ll sign over her inn shares if you grease those wheels, if you catch my drift.”
Jack hung up and launched his cell phone into the ocean.
He heaved an angry inhalation and then cursed himself.
Now he’d have to buy a new goddamn phone.
Turning away from the water, he made his way back up to the boards, the moonlight and lights from the boardwalk leading the way.
When Vanessa Hartwell had approached Ian about selling her Hart’s Inn shares, Jack couldn’t believe it. He knew Vanessa and Bailey weren’t close, but to snake her sister like that? And the greedy, conniving witch was playing with the Devlins. She was dangling the inn over his father like bait, all the while coming on to Jack whenever they met to discuss business.
So now he was to prostitute himself?
Fuck that.
He wouldn’t touch Vanessa Hartwell with a barge pole.
Anger burned in Jack’s gut as he moved up onto the boards. He was used to the anger. It was a constant part of him now and growing steadily worse. He was becoming someone he didn’t even recognize.
The boardwalk was busy this time of night. Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to look at Emery’s as he passed. Her store was closed. A familiar ache flared in his chest at the sight of her name on the signage and he glanced away. For some stupid reason, he’d started coming back into her place for his morning coffee.
When he was around her, Jack didn’t feel so angry. It soothed him for the few minutes he got to see her. And she still blushed when he came in. God, he was addicted to seeing that blush. There was no denying it.
Shaking his head at himself, he didn’t look at Cooper’s at all.
His best friend was getting married at the end of summer, to the right woman this time.
And Jack wouldn’t be the best man.
He wouldn’t even get an invite.
The loss cut deep.
Too deep to contemplate.
Right at that second, when he needed it most, a blond-haired angel came in the form of distraction.
Emery.
Jack’s steps slowed as he watched her walk out of Antonio’s with an ice-cream cone in her hand. She wore a dress like the one he first saw her in. Spaghetti straps, long, all the way down to her feet, made of a clingy material that left nothing to the imagination.
Emery Saunders really had the sweetest ass he’d ever seen.
Obviously, she had no idea what she did to a man looking the way she did in a dress like that.
Need, hot and heavy, flooded his groin, and Jack swallowed a grunt of irritation.
She still made him feel like a teenager.
Blissfully unaware of her effect, Emery leaned against the boardwalk railing and licked at her cone as she gazed out at the water.
“Fuck me,” he muttered, his footsteps taking him to her without his permission.
Then suddenly, there was a guy beside her, and Jack slowed to a stop.
Was Emery seeing someone?
A knifelike pain cut through his chest at the thought.
Until he realized Emery had jolted away in surprise. And the guy was now holding out his hand for her to shake.
Who the fuck was this guy?
Jack walked faster now.
His eyes narrowed as Emery used her free hand to tentatively shake the man’s.