Chapter 4
Jake
Day fifteen, and we’ve almost stopped fumbling it.
Two galas. A radio spot where Emilia laughed at something I said before she caught herself. A morning show where she put her hand strategically on my knee on camera.
The headlines have a rhythm now. Billionaire Bad Boy: Reformed?
ran the morning after the first gala. Then Hale’s Hart: Honolulu’s Power Couple Goes Public.
Someone photographed us buying coffee on Tuesday and ran it under Is This the Woman Who Finally Settled Jake Hale Down?
Helen framed that one. It’s on her wall now, between two crisis-management awards, like a trophy.
We’re still figuring out the choreography. Where my hand goes. How close is close enough. How much of this people need to see before they believe it. And how much tips it into acting. How to look like a real couple without being one.
We’re good at it in public. It’s the part with no audience I keep getting wrong.
The foundation offices are quiet at eight thirty on a Thursday night.
Not peaceful quiet. The kind of quiet that happens when Emilia Hart is three feet away and pretending I don’t exist.
I lean back in my chair and watch her work.
She doesn’t notice. Or she’s pretending not to, which with Emilia amounts to the same thing.
Her heels are off. Her hair’s still up, but one piece has fallen out and she keeps tucking it behind her ear without thinking. The laptop screen throws blue light across her face. Pen clicking. Brow slightly furrowed.
“You reorganized my donor list,” I say.
She doesn’t look up. “Your donor list was chaos.”
“It was emotionally intuitive.”
“That’s not a real organizational system.”
“Tell that to the forty-two million we raised with it.”
The pen stops clicking.
She still doesn’t look at me. But the pen stops clicking and her mouth does that thing where she’s fighting a smile and losing slightly.
That’s new. Three days ago she would’ve just looked irritated. Now there’s something underneath the irritation that she’s keeping locked down.
I notice things like that. Always have, where she’s concerned.
I pull up the donor spreadsheet she rebuilt and scroll through it. She’s restructured the entire second tier by relationship depth instead of pledge size. It’s actually better than what I had.
I’m not going to tell her that.
“The Nakamura call went through,” I say instead. “He’s increasing his commitment.”
“I saw.”
“The Morrison Foundation confirmed second-phase funding.”
“I saw that, too.”
“Chen’s office left a message at seven. He wants a sit-down before the Futures launch.”
That one makes her look up. “When did that come through?”
“This morning. I handled it.”
She stares at me. “You handled it.”
“Sent his assistant a calendar invite. Confirmed the venue. Emailed him the preliminary deck.” I tilt my head slightly. “Should I have waited for a spreadsheet template first?”
The look she gives me could strip paint.
But underneath it she looks surprised. Like she expected one thing from me and got something different instead.
Good.
I turn back to my screen.
She goes back to hers.
The city blinks at us through the glass windows. Honolulu at 10:30 p.m. has its own kind of energy: quieter than during the day, warmer, like the whole island breathes differently once the tourists stop looking at it.
We work for another hour without fighting.
Which is weirder than fighting.
She reaches across me for the printed donor brief. Her arm crosses in front of my chest. Her perfume hits me directly, something warm and clean. No idea what it is, only that I’ve been aware of it since she walked into my office this morning.
She doesn’t pull the brief back right away. Her arm still across me, closer than she planned. Her eyes come up to mine and hold there a beat too long. Then she pulls away.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Neither of us says anything. Then she goes back to reading.
I watch the side of her face for about four seconds longer than I should.
She finally closes her laptop. Stands. Stretches her neck slightly to the left. I very deliberately look at the window.
“Go home,” I say.
“I am.” She slides her laptop into her bag and steps into her heels. “Don’t stay too late.”
“Never do.”
“You’re still here at eleven thirty.”
“I’m a night person.”
She slings her bag over her shoulder and walks toward the office door. I should look away. I don’t.
At the door she pauses.
“The Chen meeting,” she says, not turning around. “You got to that before I did.”
“I did. You remembered he prefers morning slots.”
“He told me at the Maui gala two years ago. His daughter has swim practice at four, so he clears out early.”
Silence.
“You remember his daughter’s swim schedule?”
“I remember things about people.”
She turns then. Just slightly. Enough that I can see her profile in the low light.
“I know,” she says quietly.
And then she leaves.
I listen to the elevator doors open. Close.
And I sit in the dark office for a long moment, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor.
I know.
Two words. No edge to them at all. That’s the part I can’t shake.
My office stretches before me. Floor-to-ceiling windows, the Pacific churning black and silver under the moonlight. Beautiful. Expensive. Completely fucking useless.
The cushions sink under my weight as I drop onto the couch, loosening my tie with clumsy fingers. My cock throbs against my trousers, hard enough to make me want to punch something.
This is insane. I’m a grown man. I’ve charmed my way through boardrooms and yacht parties and more bedrooms than I care to count, and I’m sitting here half-crazy over a woman who looks at me like I’m a problem she needs to solve.
Emilia.
Her name settles heavy in my chest, and I can still smell her perfume, something warm and clean that’s been haunting me since she walked into my office this morning.
I close my eyes, and the darkness behind my lids becomes a projector screen.
Her voice first low and precise, cutting through the conference room like a blade.
Jake’s contributions to the Pacific initiative have been instrumental in its success.
The way she said my name.
Measured. Careful. Like I was something dangerous.
Then her fingers on my tie earlier. A brush so brief I almost convinced myself I imagined it. Silk tightening against my throat. Her knuckles grazing my collarbone. That flicker in her eyes before she pulled away.
My pulse kicks harder.
Then the memory shifts again, Emilia defending me in that investor meeting last month, her spine straight, voice sharp enough to draw blood.
If you’d done your research, you’d know Jake’s work speaks for itself.
She didn’t even look at me when she said it. She didn’t need to.
And the worst part?
I think I would’ve let her destroy that man for another five minutes just to hear her keep saying my name.
I let my eyes close. Let my head sink deeper into the leather cushion. Let the darkness take me.
The dream comes fast and vivid.
Emilia standing between my knees in the dark office, her blouse slipping slowly off her shoulders while she watches me with those steady green eyes.
“I’m tired of pretending I don’t want this,” she whispers.
Then she’s kissing me.
The first touch of her mouth undoes me instantly.
I drag her into my lap hard enough to make her gasp, and the sound goes straight to my cock. Her thighs settle on either side of mine, heat pressing through the thin fabric of her panties while my hands slide hungrily over her waist.
Christ.
She feels too good there. Too natural.
My mouth moves down her throat while I push the silk off her shoulders completely. Her breasts spill into my hands, soft and warm and fucking perfect. I palm her slowly, watching her head tip back when my thumbs brush over her nipples.
“Jake.” Her voice is breathless now.
I suck one nipple into my mouth and she arches against me immediately, her fingers twisting into my hair while her hips roll down onto my erection.
The pressure nearly blacks my vision out.
I slide my hand up her thigh, shoving her skirt higher until I can feel the damp heat between her legs. She shudders when I touch her slit, already wet, grinding against my hand like she can’t get close enough.
“Fuck,” I groan against her skin.
She kisses me again, messy this time, desperate in a way Emilia never is.
“I need you,” she whispers against my mouth.
That destroys whatever control I have left.
I drag her panties aside and sink into her in one hard thrust.
The feeling is unreal.
Hot and tight and deep enough to knock the air from my lungs.
She moans my name, her forehead falling against mine while I grip her hips hard enough to leave bruises as I drive deeper.
The dream blurs after that.
Heat.
Her mouth on mine.
The slick drag of her body over my cock.
My hands all over her skin while she rides me harder and harder, both of us losing rhythm, losing control.
Mine.
The thought hits me like a punch.
Mine.
I wake up hard and disoriented, my pulse hammering against my ribs.
“What the hell?”
The words come out rough.
I press the heel of my palm against my erection, willing it to subside, but the pressure only makes it worse. I’m still half-caught in the dream, my body convinced Emilia was just here, just on top of me, just—
I sit up.
I’ve wanted Emilia for years in the way I want things that are impractical, distant, and permanently filed under not happening. She’s Mason’s sister. She’s too sharp and too controlled and she looks at me like I’m a liability she hasn’t decided what to do with.
That feeling used to be manageable.
This, whatever the dream just made clear, is not.
I run a hand through my hair. Look out at Honolulu and try to remember all the very good reasons why Emilia Hart is a disaster waiting to happen.
She has rules. Four of them. Written down.
She doesn’t like me.
She works for me.
Mason would bury me alive with his bare hands and feel good about it.
I’m still thinking through the list when my phone lights up on the cushion beside me.
Unknown number. California area code.
I stare at it for a second.
It’s late enough that it could be a wrong number. But something in my gut says answer it anyway.
I pick up. “Hale.”
“Mr. Hale.” A male voice. Professional. His tone very careful. “My name is David Reeves. I’m an attorney with Calloway Family Law in San Diego. I apologize for the hour, I’ve been trying to reach you through several channels.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “What’s this about?”
A pause.
“This is a sensitive matter. I want to make sure I’m speaking with Jacob Hale, formerly associated with Rachel Donovan, approximately five years ago.”
Everything slows down.
Rachel.
I haven’t heard that name in four years. We lasted barely a handful of months, she was warm and easy to be around, and then she moved back to California and we just...stopped. No drama. No fallout. Nothing that felt like anything except two people going in separate directions.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know Rachel.”
Another pause. Longer.
“Mr. Hale, I’m very sorry to inform you that Ms. Donovan passed away six weeks ago.
She’d been ill for some time. She had a daughter,” the attorney continues.
“Four years old. Rachel’s parents have been caring for her since the passing, but they’re in their seventies and struggling.
Rachel left documentation, a guardianship designation and DNA records. ”
The city lights blur slightly.
“DNA records,” I repeat.
“Establishing paternity.” The attorney’s voice stays careful. Measured. “Mr. Hale, are you still there?”
“Yeah.” My voice comes out steady. No idea how. “I’m here.”
“I understand this is a significant amount of information. If you need time—”
“The girl.” I cut him off. “What’s her name?”
“Mr. Hale…her daughter’s name is Poppy.”
I don’t move.
The city blinks at me through the glass, forty stories down. All those lights, all that noise, all those people who went to sleep tonight with uncomplicated lives and I stand in the dark with a phone in my hand and a name I’ve never heard before already rearranging everything inside me.
Poppy.
For the first time in years, I have no idea what to do next.