He’d been a photographer then, and she his model. A position of power and of trust, and he’d twisted that around, making it vile and dirty.
He’d hurt the girl, and he’d damaged the woman.
And Jackson couldn’t think of anything bad enough that could happen to the man.
He closed his eyes and thought of Sylvia. Her small, slim body that felt so right in his arms. The gold that highlighted her dark brown hair, making her face seem luminous. Christ, he wanted her beside him now. Wanted to twine his fingers with hers and hold her close. He wanted her strength, though she didn’t even realize how strong she was.
But this was something he had to do alone. And he needed to do it now.
He slid off the stool, then dropped a fifty on the bar. “Keep the change,” he said, as Phil’s eyes went wide.
He left the bar, moving quickly through the hotel’s glittering lobby to the main entrance that opened on South Grand Avenue. Stark Tower was just up the hill to the east. It was a cool October night, and the building glowed against the coal-black sky. Right now, Damien Stark was in the penthouse apartment with his wife, Nikki, probably unpacking after their long weekend in Manhattan.
Stark’s second assistant, Rachel Peters, had called Jackson that morning. “He’ll be back from New York this evening,” she’d said. “And he wants to see you tomorrow at eight sharp before the regular Tuesday briefing.”
“About the resort?” He’d asked the question casually, as if he couldn’t imagine any other reason that Stark would want to see him.
“He didn’t say. But I thought—I mean, I assumed—” He heard her draw a deep breath before her voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Well, don’t you think it’s probably about the arrest? And all the press coverage?”
He shook his head at the memory, half-irritated and half-amused. Fucking summoned.
If this was only about work, he would have waited until morning and gone at the appointed time. But this was personal, and he needed to do it now.
He’d already called security, and he knew that Stark’s helicopter had landed over an hour ago. He also knew that Stark was staying in the Tower apartment overnight, not bothering to make the drive to his Malibu house.
It was eight o’clock on a Monday night, and it was time for Stark to know the truth.
As he trudged up the hill, Jackson thought about how quickly things had changed. A month ago, he would have rather eaten nails than worked for Damien Stark. But then Sylvia had approached him with the kind of project that is any architect’s wet dream. To design a resort from the ground up. And not just any resort, but one located on its own private island. And she was handing him a blank slate.
The overture had surprised him for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that five years ago she’d ripped a hole in his heart, when she brutally and permanently ended things between them.
The loss had devastated him, and he’d eased his anger in the ring and in his work. Winning—and losing—fight after fight. Burying himself in his commissions, his reputation growing as his projects became more and more ambitious.
Work may have been his savior, but working for her—hell, working for Stark—was not something he was prepared to do. He knew damn well he couldn’t bear the pain of being around Sylvia. Of working so intimately with her.
And as for Stark … well, Jackson had plenty of reasons not to work for or trust the man, not the least of which was that Jackson didn’t want to see his work overshadowed by the Stark name and logo.
But revenge is a powerful motivator.
So he’d said yes, fully intending to take her to the edge of pleasure. To reclaim her. To bind her so close to him that she could see no one else, feel no one else, dream of no one else. And then, when she was stuck fast in his web, he would clip the strands and walk away, leaving the resort to flounder, and leaving Sylvia exactly the way that she had left him, drowning in pain and loss and misery.
Dear god, he’d been a fool.
He’d accepted the offer to design The Resort at Cortez for the worst of reasons. To hurt the woman who’d hurt him. To screw with the half-brother who had been the focal point of so much shit in his life. Who’d tugged hard and unraveled the threads of his life. Pulling his father away. Ripping his family apart.
Now the woman meant the world to him, and he would enthusiastically destroy anyone who hurt her.
Now the job was his passion, a project that was already fully formed in his imagination and sketches.
And as for the brother, nothing much had changed. Once again, it was Damien Stark who had the power. Who could, in one quick, violent motion, tear the world out from under Jackson’s feet.