Shooting Stars Read online

  She plucked out four pieces of paper and threw them on my desk. I turned the one closest to me around so I could read it, and my face darkened when I saw the name Marian had written on it.

  Patrick fucking Hobbs. The asshole Emilia had dumped when she’d found out he’d been caught on camera fucking a woman at our nightclub.

  He’d been stupid enough to do it right in front of a security camera, one he knew was there. He’d obviously been too drunk to remember or care. One of Connor’s team had recognized Patrick on the feed and had notified his boss, who in turn had called me on Sunday.

  It had been up to me to break the news to Emilia, and as much as I’d grown to dislike Patrick and his increasing possessiveness over my best friend, it still broke my heart to see her so fucking hurt and sad. I had every intention of punching him in the throat the next time I saw him, the prick.

  I’d had his name put on the blacklist for both the nightclub and the strip club, and he’d been removed from all our invitation and mailing lists. He wouldn’t get anywhere near Emilia again, and I’d given permission to our entire security team to use physical force to keep him away if necessary.

  Emilia had called him in my presence on Sunday afternoon, after I’d spent hours comforting her. She’d told him it was over and she’d seen the security footage. She hadn’t, in truth, because she hadn’t wanted to, but I’d watched it that night after Connor sent it to my personal email address at my request.

  Rage had coursed through me as I’d watched Patrick slobbering all over an equally drunk woman as he fucked her up against a wall in a darkened corner where anyone could have happened upon them. The motherfucker hadn’t even put on a condom. Was that the first time he’d cheated on Emilia?

  I suspected not but would never tell her that.

  He wanted to hope he never ran into me any time soon.

  I picked up all the messages from Patrick and tossed them. While I knew Emilia didn’t want to speak to him again, the sadness in her eyes was evident.

  I had to do something to cheer my best friend up.

  A few moments later, I picked up my cell, fired off a quick text to our driver, and stood abruptly. “Go grab your stuff. We’re getting out of here.”

  “We are? Where are we going?”

  “Home.”

  2

  JASE

  Home was a three-level penthouse on the upper East Side of Manhattan that Emilia and I shared. There’d never really been any question about whether we’d live together once we were wealthy enough to buy it.

  We’d been living together since we were teenagers, after meeting in a foster home in Kansas twenty years ago.

  Having aged out of the system after neither of us had been adopted, I spent seven long months on my own after turning eighteen, waiting for Emilia to reach the same age. I’d taken three part-time jobs and had done nothing but work and sleep a couple of hours a night, saving every penny I could so we could get the hell out of Kansas and move to New York.

  I’d managed to buy a run-down, beat-up car for a couple of hundred bucks and it had held up long enough for us to reach our destination before it died completely. The first few years had been tough, living in dives passing themselves off as motels, and taking whatever jobs we could get while studying everything we could online at local libraries.

  We’d made a plan about the direction our lives would take together before we’d left our foster home. Our foster parents had laughed when they’d discovered our notes after snooping in our rooms and had seen fit to inform us we were deluded.

  We were never going to amount to anything and giving ourselves false hope would bring nothing but misery down the track.

  But we were determined, and not even their ridicule and scorn stopped us. We were going to become business partners and build a vast empire that would make us rich beyond our wildest dreams. We studied business, reading books borrowed from the library and digging out discarded magazines from the trash.

  We used the internet at the library and read everything we could get our hands on, educating ourselves about how to run a successful business and learning what we needed to about the financial side as well. We’d even snuck into university classes and listened to some lectures on various subjects, careful not to get caught.

  Watching television programs about flipping properties had gotten us interested in real estate, and after Emilia had located an article about how big the market for sex toys was, we looked further into it and decided it was a smart investment.

  We’d also both taken unpaid internships with a couple of successful businesses one summer. Mine had been in real estate and Emilia had talked her way into working for an escort agency. What she’d learned that summer had sparked what was now an empire that made us millions every single year.

  The business of selling pleasure was something we’d never thought about, but it had made good business sense. After all, everybody had sex. Everybody sought pleasure, whether it was at their own hand or with a partner, at a club or buying discreetly online.

  That was a big selling point with our website. All customers were guaranteed discretion with their purchases. Hidden Pleasures wasn’t listed as the name of the store they purchased from on their credit card statements; instead, it came up as Shooting Stars Enterprises.

  All items were wrapped in plain brown paper before being shipped, so even if they were opened the contents wouldn’t be easily identifiable. The packing slips only showed item codes, not names.

  It was why we had so many repeat customers, and our mailing list had millions of names on it. We were America’s biggest selling online sex toy and lingerie shop, and we were proud of that.

  But our businesses would live without our undivided attention for one afternoon. It was lunch time, and I wanted to get Emilia out of here. She needed a break, something to distract her mind from the cheating douchebag.

  I powered down my laptop and slid it into my bag before stepping outside to instruct Marian to discard any more messages from Patrick. I made a mental note to get Connor to contact him and tell him if he continued to reach out to Emilia we’d have him up on harassment charges, because I knew if I called him myself I’d lose my temper.

  Fucker.

  Emilia slipped out of her office, her large handbag on her shoulder and her laptop in her arms. I took the latter from her and slipped it into my bag next to my own as I smiled at Marian. “We’re taking the afternoon off and heading home. Think you can manage without us?”

  “I’ll try my very best.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “Have fun, you two.”

  I took Emilia’s hand and led her to the elevator which took us down to the parking garage underground. Our personal driver, Stuart, was waiting for us by our town car. He opened the door for Emilia and closed it behind me after I climbed in.

  The traffic wasn’t heavy, given it was early afternoon on a Tuesday, and since we only lived nine blocks uptown from the office, the drive was thankfully short.

  I let Stuart know we were done for the day and he could head home himself. He was on call round the clock, but only worked when we needed him. What he did in the hours in between was up to him, and since he didn’t live too far from us, he could get to us whenever we needed him.

  Once inside our spacious penthouse, we separated to go change after placing our laptops in the home office we both used.

  Emilia and I each lived on one floor. The top floor of the penthouse was where our private elevator arrived, and it contained the living room, kitchen, formal dining room, a bathroom, and the doorway to the private balcony that held our pool and outdoor entertainment area with a barbecue.

  The middle floor was Emilia’s. She had a dressing room and walk-in closet attached to her bedroom, along with an en suite. She also had a library for her vast collection of books.

  The bottom floor was mine and was similar in design to hers. I also had a dressing room and walk-in closet, the space required for all my designer suits. While my closet w
asn’t quite as big as my best friend’s, it was still bigger than some apartments in Manhattan.

  Both floors had a couple of guest bedrooms and separate bathrooms, but the truth was we rarely had guests staying with us. Our home was our sanctuary, our private space where we could just be Jase and Em, two kids from Kansas who’d made something of their lives.

  Marian had stayed with us on occasion, as had one of our closest friends, Victoria Nolan. Together with her father, Joseph, the stunning redhead ran a hotel empire which spanned the globe. Their luxury hotels and resorts were second to none and had made them both billionaires.

  While Victoria was based here in New York, she wasn’t in town often because her job required her to constantly travel the world. We always managed to catch up when she was here, though. Smart and beautiful with a wicked sense of humor and forthright manner, she was a delight to be around and we were both very fond of her.

  Although we didn’t flash our wealth around, we certainly enjoyed it. We had our own private company jet and we weren’t shy about using it to take a short break somewhere when we needed it. We generally favored Hawaii or the Caribbean if some sun and sand was in order.

  I supposed some people wondered how we could stand being around each other all the time, but nobody knew how tough it had been growing up in the foster home we had. Our foster parents, Gary and Angela Johnson, had been religious zealots. Those outside the house had believed they were good Christian people doing God’s work, but the truth had been so much darker.

  I pushed them out of my mind, not wanting to take a trip down that particular memory lane. Not today. I wanted to focus on my best friend and making her heart a little lighter.

  We met back in the large living room. I picked up the television remote and held it between us. “Do you want to pick the movie, Em, or shall I?”

  Her brows furrowed as she stared at the device, then me. “Movie? You brought me home to watch a movie? Jase, we have a company to run.”

  “Yes, but it’s not going to fall apart if we take one afternoon off. Now pick a movie while I fix us something to eat.”

  I made some sandwiches and a large bowl of popcorn to share, and once we’d settled on our large, comfortable sofa next to each other, we put our feet up on the footstool and watched the comedy she’d chosen.

  We’d both seen it before, but it was one of our favorite films, and she laughed throughout it. But when I realized her laughter had turned into sobs, I paused the movie and pulled her into my arms, holding her tightly and stroking her hair while she cried.

  “How could he do it to me, Jase?” she whispered against my chest. “How could he cheat on me like that? In our club?”

  I kissed her head. “I don’t know, sweetheart. He’s a fucking douchebag and I’ll rip his throat out if I ever see him again.”

  Despite her pain, she let out a small laugh and looked up at me. Fat tears clung to her lashes, her beautiful brown eyes glistening. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d make Connor do it.”

  I reflected on that for a moment. “Yeah, that’s probably true.”

  She managed a smile before burying her face in my chest, her arms sliding around me as she cried some more. I simply held her, rocking her gently and wiping her tears away.

  “Can I ask you a serious question and you’ll give me an honest answer?” Her face was turned up again, her eyes searching mine.

  “You know you can.”

  She sucked in a deep breath before speaking. “Why am I so unlovable?”

  Her question hit me like a punch to the solar plexus, and my heart hurt inside my chest. I looked straight at her so she could see I was telling the truth. “You are not unlovable, Emilia Lucille.” My lips pressed against her face. “You are an amazing woman. Kind, intelligent, beautiful, and caring. Any man would be lucky to have you in his life.”

  I wrapped my arms more tightly around her. “I know I am, and guess what? I love you.”

  Her hands came up to frame my face and she brushed her lips against mine affectionately. “I love you, too.”

  We only had each other to love and turn to in our lives. Although we surrounded ourselves with people we could trust to help run our businesses, had a handful of people we could call friends, and we’d dated others over the years, our inner sanctum consisted of exactly two people.

  Me and her.

  I pressed my lips to hers again, letting them linger, although it was a chaste kiss. We’d kissed like this plenty of times over the years but had never crossed the line to lovers.

  Emilia and I had come to an agreement a long time ago that being in a romantic relationship would complicate everything we’d worked so hard to achieve. We worried that if the romantic aspect didn’t work out it would jeopardize the business side, even though we were sure we’d always be able to make our friendship work.

  No, that line had been clearly drawn in the sand a long time ago. We were best friends and business partners, equals in everything, and that was how it would always be.

  How it had to be.

  But in that moment, as she lay in my arms, her tears wetting my T-shirt, I began to wonder why the line existed at all.

  3

  EMILIA

  Several weeks later, I woke suddenly and looked over at the fancy alarm clock that sat on my bedside table. It was just after one and I’d been having a bad dream. I had them from time to time, and they were always the same. Me wandering around the foster home in Kansas as an adult, looking for Jase but never being able to find him.

  They always rattled me, those dreams about losing him. I didn’t know what they meant—I was too afraid to ask—but the only thing that would soothe me back to sleep was my best friend. Being close to him. Being able to touch him, to reassure myself he wasn’t truly gone.

  I climbed out of bed after my heartbeat slowed a little, not bothering to change out of my silk pajamas. He wouldn’t care what I had on, and it wasn’t as though he’d never seen me in pajamas before.

  I padded down the stairs with only socks on my feet and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see the lights in our home office were burning brightly. Seemed I wasn’t the only one awake in the early hours of the morning, and I wondered if Jase had also awoken for the same reason.

  Pushing open the door, I found him sitting back in his chair. He hadn’t bothered to change either, clad in pajama bottoms, a tee, and socks, just like me. His eyes were closed, and he just looked exhausted. My heart ached because I knew he was exhausted. We both were. We worked long hours and sleep was an elusive beast neither of us got much of.

  “Bad dream?” I kept my voice quiet.

  One eye opened as he peered over at me. “No. You’ve got to fall asleep to have one of those.”

  My brows furrowed and I crossed the room to his side. Without a word, he pushed his chair back and I perched myself on his lap, placing an arm around his shoulders. “What’s troubling you enough that you can’t sleep?”

  His arms snaked around me, holding me close. It was only in moments like this, when we were alone and able to let down our guard, that we were affectionate in such a manner. “There’s something about Wells I don’t like.”

  Samuel Wells was a property developer who’d approached us recently about purchasing some real estate from him in Little Italy. We’d checked it out and had liked what we’d seen, but no deal had yet to be confirmed. I hadn’t noticed anything about the man that was different from every other property developer out there; he was loud and pushy, but men like him were a dime a dozen. Nothing we couldn’t handle.

  I brushed back a stray lock of hair from Jase’s face. “Okay, so we’ll pass on the property.”

  He frowned, his expression serious. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. If he gives you a bad vibe, then we don’t do business with him. It’s not like this deal will make or break us. There’s plenty of real estate out there.”

  “You liked the property.”

  “Sure, but there’s other
property out there I’ll like just as much.” I grasped his face in my hands. “Jase, we’re lucky enough that we can pick and choose who we work with now. We’re partners, remember? Either we’re both all in or there’s no deal at all. End of story.”

  I gave him a smile and rested my head on his shoulder. We sat together in silence as he brought up a financial website with stock prices. We both looked over the figures, scoping out our business rivals on the stock market.

  Although others had tried to persuade us in the past, we’d never listed our company on the stock exchange and never would. It wasn’t something we knew enough about and we agreed the idea of giving up any sort of control made us both uncomfortable. We’d busted our asses for years to build the empire we owned now, and we weren’t giving that up for any amount of money.

  A loud growling sound broke the silence, and Jase laughed. “Hungry?”

  I hadn’t realized until that moment the growl came from my stomach. “Guess I must be. Could you eat?”

  “How about our usual from the diner?”

  His smile made one of my own appear. “Sounds like a plan.”

  He picked up his phone and ordered us a meal from the little diner located on the corner of our block. We’d been patronizing it since we’d moved to New York all those years ago. The food was good and cheap. It was a family-run business that’d been around for decades, and they’d always been good about delivering our order to us, so we tipped them well.

  Twenty minutes later, we were tucking into burgers, fries, and chocolate milkshakes. The early morning meal of champions. Neither of us talked as we ate. Jase got his burger with maple bacon, egg, onion rings, and cheddar cheese, while I favored bacon, avocado, Swiss cheese, and ranch dressing. Both burgers were gone within minutes.

  Jase wiped his hands on a napkin while I picked up a fry and dipped it into my milkshake. It was something I used to do as a kid on the rare occasion I got to eat fast food. My grandmother, Lucille, would spoil me as a treat, but she was an excellent cook and always insisted I eat well. Dipping my fries had always made her smile, and I suddenly, fiercely missed her as I ate the milkshake-covered fry.