Chapter 2 Jackson
Jackson
“Run that by me again?”
Jackson took a gulp of lukewarm coffee to buy himself a moment. He curled his fingers around the pen on his desk, clicking the nib in and out with an agitated thumb.
Satisfaction coated his father’s voice. “I’ve signed the contracts on the Kingswater plot.”
It sounded just as bad the second time around. “The cash reserves aren’t there to do that right now. We’ve discussed this.”
“We’ve done bigger developments than this one.”
“Yes, but only when we had the resources. Not to mention the manpower.”
His dad shrugged that off. “Waiting for the funds to free up will take too long. To secure the site now makes more sense. If we’re spread too thin, we’ll increase the construction crew.”
Hale Evolution, the family business, was an established architectural and project management firm with an in-house construction division.
Mainly, they redesigned current workspaces to improve productivity and image.
Sometimes they worked on commercial developments from scratch.
His father had set up the business twenty-five years ago and there were currently over thirty staff on the payroll, with contractors taken on for each project.
“With what money?” Jackson pushed the three words out between his teeth.
Right now, they were juggling three other sizable jobs, all at varying stages of completion and all of which seemed to be hitting delay after complication after hiccup.
Signing off on a whole new plot required a level of funding that went way beyond tightening their belts or cutting staff.
And neither he nor his father had the money immediately available for a personal injection of capital.
“I took out a short-term loan to tide us over.”
“From the bank?”
His father slid his cell from his pocket, checked the time, and tucked it away again.
“I tried the bank but they wouldn’t agree the loan against your grandmother’s house unless I could prove I was the beneficiary and we were still waiting on the will.
The Addlestone-Blacks were poised to move on the Kingswater plot if I held off any longer.
I wasn’t letting Max take it from under my nose so I took a calculated risk.
Then your grandmother left the house to you and not me—which is why we’re having this conversation. ”
“We should have had this conversation before you signed the damn contract.”
“Watch your tone, son.” Even when he was in the wrong—and seated—his dad could still manage to look down his nose.
“Decisions like this impact us both.”
“And yet it’s my company.”
Jackson clamped his jaw until he knew he wasn’t going to say something he might regret. “Where did the money come from?”
His father shifted in his chair and crossed his legs, the picture of relaxation. “Landon Peake is a friend of a friend at the country club.”
“People at the country club use loan sharks?”
“Landon Peake isn’t a loan shark. He’s a perfectly respectable businessman who had the funds available to help out. It’s just a bridging loan. It was fortunate for us he was keen to step in.”
“How much did you borrow?”
“$1.4 million.”
“Jesus Christ, Dad,” Jackson hissed. That wasn’t a calculated risk. It was reckless. “What the hell were you thinking?”
His dad’s eye contact never wavered, though his lips pursed. “I was thinking my mother might leave her house to her only child. I didn’t imagine my inheritance would go to you.”
Jackson curled his fingers into the back of his neck. “That is not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was. But if you’re serious about your commitment to Hale Evolution, the means to show it has been gift-wrapped and laid in your lap.
Get the house on the market and sell it.
And do it fast. I’m counting on you, son.
” His father’s stony expression showed every doubt he had about the fact.
“We don’t need to do this. We could take the company in a different direction. I know I’ve said it before but there’s money to be made in renovations. Especially high-end ones. Old properties.” Jackson was desperate to make his dad see sense. “The outlay would be far less. The risk lower.”
“And the potential profits lower still.” His father pushed back his chair and stood up. An intimidating figure, as always. Six feet and three inches of relentless disapproval. “That’s why I’m the ideas man. I’m looking to move forward, not backward.”
Jackson absorbed the blow, his dad’s words filling him with the same sense of inadequacy he’d felt as an underachieving eight-year-old, holding out a dismal report card.
Forever his brother’s less accomplished stand-in.
Small. His father had always made him feel so small.
Even now, when Jackson was tall enough to look him straight in the eye.
Jackson clenched his hands into fists and stood up.
“I’ll get Florian to send you a copy of the site details,” his dad said dismissively, naming his right-hand man. “You’ll change your mind about the deal when you see it in writing.”
Jackson doubted that.
Inside his grandmother’s front door, a pair of black sneakers cluttered the mat, toed off and dumped in a hurry. He trod on one before he saw it, turning his ankle with a fractured curse. Jackson’s scowled deepened as he tried to push the door closed.
“You’ll need to put your shoulder to it—it sticks!” The voice came from deeper inside the house. For Christ’s sake. Why had he not been told there would be someone here?
He gave the front door a vicious shove until the latch caught.
The foyer was dark, square, and spacious.
A grand fireplace took up one entire wall, and claret-carpeted stairs swept upward from the far corner.
Faded floor tiles in black and white hinted at the footfalls of countless visitors welcomed over the past century.
Jackson’s shoes echoed as he crossed to the nearest doorway and stood on the threshold of a vast living room that hadn’t changed since his childhood visits.
He was used to space aplenty in his parents’ mid-century Oak Brook home in the Chicago suburbs—and his own condo nearby was far from poky—but the dimensions of this room were immense.
Though the bones of Amity Court might claim to reflect an Italianate villa, much of the original Victorian grandeur was hidden by less elegant influences.
It could have been stunning, but it wasn’t.
An oatmeal shagpile carpet covered the floor, worn through in patches and discolored around the perimeter.
Old, burgundy wallpaper darkened the interior, with wooden boards cladding the ceiling like the upside-down deck of a ship.
Flipping a light switch, Jackson grunted as the visibility went from dull to dim.
Above his head, an ominous patch in the corner of the ceiling explained the slight smell of damp.
There was no one there. The voice hadn’t come from the living room.
He retraced his steps to the foyer and headed for the back hallway.
To the right, sunshine spilled from an open door.
Turning toward it, he found himself on the threshold of the study—a cluttered room with bookshelves lining most walls, papers on the floor, numerous lamps and ornaments dotting every surface.
In the middle of it all, a colorful figure perched on top of a vintage desk, scribbling in a notepad.
She had a mass of hair the color of licorice bundled into a messy ponytail and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses on her nose.
“Who are you?” A twitch pulled at Jackson’s eyelid.
She threw him a generous smile. He found its friendliness unaccountably irritating. “I’m Leah Raven. I was your grandmother’s secretary. Or personal-assistant-slash-researcher. I do her social media marketing, too. I’m never quite sure what to call myself.”
Hopping down from the table, she stuck out a small, pale hand for him to shake. The top of her head could have easily tucked under his chin, and the chunky sweater that almost swallowed her whole looked like it belonged to someone twice Leah’s size. Jackson ignored her hand.
The smile splintered but flared again, the edges of it laced with determined goodwill.
“I had a call from the attorney to say you were coming. I planned to cook later—you’re welcome to share if you’re feeling brave.
And there’s some banana bread if you’d like a snack?
I didn’t make that so it should be nice. ”
“Esther is dead. What are you still doing here?”
“I live here. And I’m really sorry for your—”
“I don’t think so.” His own smile was hard. This needed nipping in the bud.
She blinked at him once. Twice. “I don’t really know what to say to that. I’ve been living and working here for more than two years. I have permission to stay.” Her shoulders braced, shadows flickering behind her eyes.
If the pint-sized pixie thought that arrangement was going to continue, she could think again. Jackson spun in the doorway. “Not from me, you don’t. I suggest you start packing, Ms. Raven.”
Halfway back to the living room, he cursed and turned, almost tripping over Leah who had followed him out of the study. She bounced off his chest. Jackson grabbed her shoulders to steady her, releasing his grip almost immediately and pushing her away from him.
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” He bit out the words, each one covered in ice.
“It’s ‘ghost hyphen pig hyphen OINK.’ All in lower case, apart from the ‘OINK’ which is capitals.”
“Of course it is.”
“The signal’s not great here, but if you stay somewhere near the study you’ll get the clearest reception. And if you’re in the living room, keep the Wi-Fi door open.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Wi-Fi door. The one from the living room into the back hallway. It keeps the signal out if you shut it.”
Jackson rubbed at his temple. “You know Wi-Fi doesn’t work like that, don’t you?”
Leah’s expression hinted at his naivety. “Sure. You try telling that to the Wi-Fi door.”