Chapter Fifty-Six
She’d thought nothing else would be able to shock her the way she’d been shocked when she learned of Eden’s identity. She’d been wrong, because the world as she knew it had just stopped on its axis.
Rey was on it. “You’ll take that, okay?” Rey said slowly, as if to a child. “But you need to get with it. You need to get out of there. Listen later, okay? When you’re out of there.”
Unthinkingly, she put the recorder back in the ziplock and dropped it in her backpack.
Time was slipping away too quickly, and there was nothing else she could take that wouldn’t be missed immediately.
At least this had been in the way back, probably not thought of for a long while.
She checked everything once more, ensuring that nothing would leap out to Jackson immediately if he opened his safe.
Just as she was closing the safe and sliding the panel back in place, headlights swept across the room.
“Oh shit, he’s back,” she said urgently.
“I gotta turn the jammer off and the system back on, or else he’ll notice it’s not armed.
” She pushed herself to her feet, looking around for a way out.
The sliding doors. But as she was about to cross the doorway to get to them, the front door opened, and Jackson was nearing the hallway, in view.
She darted to the nearest hiding place—the closet.
She went in, closed the wooden slatted door, and squeezed herself behind his full rack of clothes, stilling them just as he walked into his room.
Jackson’s footsteps were heavy as he entered.
Through the slats of the closet door, Isla watched him as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves.
He paused, a curious expression on his face as he scanned the room.
He started on the buttons on his chest, taking a few more steps.
He faced the dresser, opening his shirt.
Then he spun around quickly, his laser-sharp blue eyes narrowing and sweeping the room, as if he could tell something was off.
Shit, had she forgotten something? Had she forgotten and worn a fragrance still lingering in the air that he found unfamiliar—or familiar—and was connecting to her?
Isla held her breath, willing for some sort of divine intervention, because this wouldn’t be like some TV show.
He had a recording of Eden from God knows when.
He was literally capable of anything. She was afraid he could hear the pounding of her heart, and she was brought back to that hunting party, when she was alone, being terrorized in the woods.
That same feeling of terror crept up on her again.
Why hadn’t she hurried and gotten out sooner?
Had she disturbed something in the room?
He approached the closet, his movements slow and deliberate, a cat about to pounce on its prey. He stopped on the other side of the door. His body blocked the light, and he moved to open the door. Isla knew this was it for her. The door began to open. She braced for the worst.
Until the front door beeped and Brooke’s voice called from the doorway.
“Jackson? Are you in here?”
Jackson froze, then let go of the handle, leaving the door open a sliver.
As he turned, his expression was a mix of irritation and surprise.
“Where else would I be? My damn car’s in the drive,” he muttered to himself.
“I just left you, Brooke. What are you doing here?” he asked, meeting her at the bedroom’s doorway.
“And I told you about letting me know when you were going to come over. We need to be careful. Now more than ever with that woman hanging around.”
“Don’t mention that brat,” Brooke said. “She’s like a buzzing mosquito with all her endless questions.
You know, Bennett says that she came out of Victor’s office right before he pulled Bennett and Danny out of the LA office and accused them of being behind that whole ordeal with that man, that Larry man. ”
“Leonard.”
“Whatever. That old buzzard said they set Leroy up. But I bet she was the one who told Victor and told the press. With all her snooping around. What if Victor’s onto us and hired her secretly to expose how we’ve been working to solidify Bennett’s position to take over?
The whole article shit was a ploy. I always thought it was ridiculous the way she just waltzed into our home and suddenly became Diane Sawyer. ”
Jackson laughed. “Now the poor girl is a secret agent? Have some wine, Brooke. You need it.”
Isla’s hands clenched as they talked about her, but she was too scared to be pissed about it.
“You sure you’re not just jealous of her? She’s pretty. Sexy. Young. All the men are putty in her hands,” Jackson teased.
Isla adjusted her position, her legs cramping and her heart slowing down. She watched them through the slats; they were still lingering in the doorway.
Brooke playfully hit him on the chest. “Don’t joke around. You’re lucky I’ve kept you around all this time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Kept me around?” There was an edge to him now. Isla itched to get out of there.
Brooke repeated, “Kept you around, just like before I married the man. You’re on my team. You’re here when I need you, and you like being right where you are, nothing more, nothing less.”
“That’s all I am to you? Like a servant?”
Brooke pouted. “You know what I mean. You’ve had my back from the very beginning. Don’t be like that. Let’s just get that damn bitch out of my house.”
Jackson hesitated a beat before slipping his arms around her waist, drawing her to him. “She’s a child,” he said. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“She’s probably a gold digger. I just can’t tell which she’s going for: Myles, with no personality, or—God forbid—Bennett.” She giggled as Jackson buried his face in her neck. “She’s a problem we need to take care of.”
Jackson groaned, pulling away. “What? I thought you were here for something else.” He tugged at her top, revealing a lacy black bra and an ample chest underneath.
Brooke pouted. “Jackson.”
“I will handle her.”
Isla’s stomach twisted. In her ear, Rey whistled low, hearing it as well. There was no time to think about how she was going to be handled. She was still in his closet, and if he found her there . . . she didn’t want to imagine what handle meant.
Brooke asked, “It’s done, then, finalized? Victor’s revised will?”
“It’s done,” Jackson said, his voice clipped as he pushed past her, the sizzle between them dying down since she wanted to talk business rather than getting down to business.
“And he’ll get it all? And we will get more shares?” Isla heard as Brooke followed him, their voices ringing clear.
“Of course. He’s my goddamn son, isn’t he?”
Isla clamped her hand over her mouth. Bennett was Jackson’s son.
How the hell had Brooke pulled this off for thirty years?
What if Bennett had come out looking more like his true father than Victor?
Would Brooke have claimed it was from the white side of her family, being biracial herself?
And Jackson—was money important enough for him to have spent so long working for the man who was raising his son?
And on top of it, they were conspiring to change Victor’s current will to an heir who wasn’t his biological child.
“If I push too hard, he’ll be suspicious. You know your husband. If you hadn’t coddled Bennett so much, he’d be better at handling issues on his own and wouldn’t require me to step in to clean up his messes. Maybe he’d even screw up less.”
“Don’t worry,” Brooke said. “We’ve waited this long. We just need to bide our time a little bit longer to pave the way for Bennett. He’s going to name him his successor anyway. Myles doesn’t want it.”
“There’s no guarantee Victor will. As for Myles, don’t easily believe he’s really as passive as he’s making himself out to be.
Just don’t get too comfortable. I’ve waited my entire life for this, Brooke.
I’ve sat by for thirty years because you said it would pay out in the end.
” His frustration was reaching a boiling point.
“And it will,” she said coyly. Isla heard them kiss. “Let me start paying you back now, hmm?”
Isla heard a zipper and other sounds she’d rather have not. Where were they, and could she get out without alerting them?
“What do I do?” she whispered.
“Give them a sec,” Rey replied.
When it sounded like they were totally engrossed, Isla opened the door inch by inch, thankful that it didn’t squeak loudly enough for them to notice, not that those two would.
She eased out of the closet, her movements as silent as possible, hitching the backpack up on her back.
She crept to the door and checked to see if they were in her line of vision.
She couldn’t see them, only hear them. She rushed past the doorway to the other side of the room, the sliding glass door just within her reach.
She fumbled with the tiny latch. The tiny click as it unlocked sounded like a foghorn.
She only opened the door as much as her body could squeeze through, then closed it softly behind her. She moved as fast as she could, begging her sore body to not give out just yet. She pushed her way through his wall of hedges to come across on the other side.
She didn’t breathe normally until she made it back to the car she’d borrowed to get there, which was parked blocks away.
She couldn’t move just yet. Her hands trembled, her mind unable to comprehend what she’d never imagined.
That Jackson was Bennett’s father or that he’d have a recording of Eden that no one ever knew about locked away in a safe.