Read Online In Too Deep by Stella Rhys - Free Book Online Page B

question?”
    “No.”
    With steely eyes, he stared for another second before ripping the sheets off his body and getting out of bed.  “I have an important meeting at noon.”
    I was thankful for the topic change.  “With the other Monarch investors?”
    “Someone else,” Jackson answered, his voice hard.  “You need to meet him so get showered and dressed.  We’re running late.”

Chapter Thirteen
    I stared in disbelief at Jackson but he looked decidedly out the window as we turned onto Nineteenth Street.  I couldn’t believe what he had just told me so casually, as if it weren’t extraordinary news.  “Babe, how can you be so nonchalant about this? You do realize that I’ve never even met him before, right?”
    We were on our way to meet Jacob, Jackson’s younger brother, who had flown into New York that morning – for the first time in five years.
    The first night I’d met Jackson, he had been changing into one of Jacob’s tuxes.  His new home gym had paid off in new muscle but had cost him money by rendering his wardrobe useless, too narrow for his new form.  Luckily, he had, at his mother’s request, kept all of Jacob’s old tuxes.
    “He doesn’t need them where he is,” Jackson had explained to me with a laugh.
    “And where is he?”
    “Australia, Morocco.  He’s somewhere new every year but wherever he is, it’s definitely not New York, and he’s definitely not wearing a tux.”
    Jackson was decidedly quiet about Jacob, so my knowledge of him was paltry.  But over the years, I’d picked up more bits and pieces of information.  He was in architecture and real estate, or something like that.  I knew early on that Jacob had taken their father’s death particularly hard.  He disliked the fact that his mother remarried so quickly and clashed instantly with their troubled stepsister, Audra.  Jackson had also implied on a few occasions that Jacob had left at a disastrous time – a time when he had needed him most.  But whenever I inquired about what he had needed him for, darkness clouded Jackson’s face and he reverted to the same reply every time: “He was my best friend for twenty years.  I just wanted him around.”
    It was too simple of an answer and I knew that there was much more to the story.  But since meeting Jackson, neither Jacob nor Audra were very present in his life, so I didn’t ask.  It was an obvious sore subject that reminded me of how I’d grown up hating my neighbors’ questions about where on Earth my sister had gone, so I kept my mouth shut.  I was just happy to know that every once in awhile, Jackson went to visit Jacob in whichever exotic city he was living in, and that he always came back on a high, rambling on and on about Jacob’s boat and whatever water sports they’d done.
    But every time, he’d go back to being quiet about him within days.  “Please just drop it, Lara.  It’s not going to happen,” he’d say whenever I asked if Jacob might visit New York next time around.  It broke my heart.  In our four years together, I started regarding Jacob Kinsley as a myth.  A legend.  Something I’d never live to see.
    So it was a miracle for me to get into the car and hear the words, “ We’re meeting Jacob for lunch.  He flew into LaGuardia this morning.”
    I smacked Jackson playfully on the arm.  “Are you looking out the window to hide your excitement, you nerd?” I asked.  I didn’t care that we’d been fighting just this morning.  Jacob’s return called for all-around forgiveness so we could sooner celebrate the occasion.  “Jackson! Stop pretending that you aren’t happy right now.”
    “Lara,” his voice came back at me sternly.  But when I leaned forward to look at him, I caught his smile.  “Stop it,” he laughed when I gasped and cupped his jaw, facing him to me.
    “Oh my God.  You are so excited, Jackson Kinsley.”
    He rolled his eyes, trying but failing to bite back a grin.  “Yes, I’m very