Julie James - A Lot Like Love

He held out his hand, waiting. “Sweetie?”

Right. In a couple of slow strides, Jordan crossed the distance between them and slid her hand into Nick’s. His grip was warm, firm, and strong. She caught the satisfied expression on his face. “You’re enjoying yourself quite a bit this evening, aren’t you?”

He laughed, tilting his head in acknowledgment.

“More than I’d thought, Rhodes. I’ll give you that.”

FROM A CORNER in the far end of the VIP room, Xander Eckhart stood in a circle of his friends. He watched as Jordan and Stanton walked in and made their way over to the bar. When she smiled at something Stanton said, Xander’s eyes narrowed.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Will Parsons, one of Bordeaux’s two managers. “Excuse me for a moment. I need to check on something.” Xander stepped away from the group.

“Seems like the night is going well so far,” Will said when he approached.

Sure, Xander thought. Except for the part where he had to watch some jerk-off who owned rental property and didn’t know the first thing about wine get cozy with the woman who was supposed to be with him tonight.

“I need you to call Gil Mercks for me,” he said, referring to the man they often used for what one might consider “sticky” situations. “Tell him I need to see him immediately. He should go around to the back door and call me on my cell phone when he gets here. It’s important the guests don’t see him.”

Will sounded surprised. “You need Mercks tonight? Is there a security issue? I just checked the cellar and spoke to the guard. He wasn’t aware of any problem.”

If there was one thing Xander didn’t like, it was people who asked too many questions. “It’s a personal matter. Just call Mercks and tell him to get here as soon as possible.”

XANDER WAITED DOWNSTAIRS in his office. Mercks had left him a message, letting him know that he was five minutes from Bordeaux. He appreciated the notice, having needed a few minutes to slip away from the many guests who wanted to corner him and gush about the wine. Normally he basked in such adoration, but not tonight.

He eased back in his desk chair and ran his hand through his hair. For five months he’d foolishly waited to make a move on Jordan. He’d had his chance that afternoon in her store, when they’d talked about her Napa trip, but her damn assistant had cock-blocked him. Then her brother had pulled his Twitter stunt and she’d become consumed with family matters. After a few weeks had passed without the right moment arising, and then a couple months, he had decided to create the perfect moment himself – at his party. Wine was their thing, after all, a passion they shared. Jordan would know what he’d been trying to tell her when she saw the tasting menu, without him even having to say the words.

So much for the best-laid plans.

Xander had the business side of his life nailed down. He was the top restaurant and nightclub owner in Chicago, and a year ago he’d set some things in motion to expand far beyond that. With the very private assistance of the notorious – but powerful – Roberto Martino, he planned to take on the big four scenes in the nightclub industry: New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami. In exchange for mixing Martino’s drug money into the cash flow of Bordeaux and his other clubs and restaurants, Martino – through a tangled web of dummy corporations – financially backed the projects Xander had in development. That included the properties he had purchased in Los Angeles and New York, clubs that were set to open this summer, as well as a sixth restaurant in Chicago that he planned to renovate and reopen the following spring.

Sure, in exchange he had to deal with Trilani and the annoying cash drop-offs and accountings for all money running through his various clubs. And, of course, there was the small problem that what he was doing for Martino was illegal. But Xander had never been afraid to bend the rules when it came to business – in fact, some would claim that he was downright ruthless – and in his opinion, the payoff was worth skirting around a few federal laws. The way he saw it, the world was his oyster, and he planned to slurp it down with a bone-dry Sancerre.

His personal life, on the other hand, had not been blessed with the same abundance of riches.

He was a picky man. Sure, he’d fucked plenty of the gorgeous women who came to his clubs and restaurants, but that was just mindless sex. To date, he’d only come across one woman who he considered his equal, both with her business savvy and her love of wine, and that was Jordan Rhodes.

And the half billion dollars she stood to inherit one day sure as hell sweetened the pot.

With that kind of money at his fingertips, he wouldn’t need Roberto Martino’s financial backing – an arrangement he certainly didn’t plan to continue indefinitely. Which meant that Jordan Rhodes, and that beautiful, incredible inheritance of hers, was definitely a cause worth fighting for. And the first step in any battle was to know one’s enemy.

Xander’s cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re outside?” he answered.

“At the back door,” Mercks said.

“I’ll be right there.” Xander left his office, being careful to make sure no one was around. He could hear the voices of his guests carrying over from the other side of the staircase. Luckily, the back door was at the far end of the hallway in the opposite direction of his wine cellar and tasting room, which meant that nobody should see him with Mercks.

He punched the code into the security panel next to the back door, silently deactivating the alarm. When he opened the door, Mercks stepped inside. He was an average-looking man with glasses and nondescript thinning brown hair. He wore a gray overcoat and appeared entirely innocuous. Xander supposed that was the point.

“This is a little unusual, Eckhart,” Mercks said. His glasses fogged from the warm air. He took them off and wiped them with the edge of his scarf.

Xander gestured for Mercks to follow him. “This couldn’t wait. Follow me and I’ll explain.” Inside his office, he gestured for the private investigator to have a seat in one of the leather chairs next to the coffee table.

“Parsons said this was some kind of personal matter,” Mercks led in.

“Yes.” Needing to return to the party before he was missed, Xander got straight to the point. “There’s a man here who has become a problem. His name is Nick Stanton.”

“What kind of problem?” Mercks asked.

“He’s with the woman I was supposed to be with tonight.”

Mercks nodded. “Ah. And what can I do to help?”

“I want you to follow him. I want to know everything there is to know about him.”

“Done,” Mercks said without batting an eye. “What do you know so far?”

“Not much. He says he’s in real estate. Rental property. Time is of the essence with this. I need you to dig up whatever dirt you can before he and the woman get too close. That’s why I asked you to come here tonight – I want you to start following him now.”

“I’ve got a guy who can be waiting outside in five minutes,” Mercks said. “Just two things we need to be clear on before we get started: first, this kind of surveillance and background check isn’t going to be cheap.”

Xander waved this off. “Money’s not a problem. Not when it comes to this woman.”

“Second, there’s always a chance I might not find anything on this guy. For all you know, he’s a boy scout.”

Xander thought back to the dark expression on Nick’s face when he’d found him on the terrace with Jordan.

“This guy is no boy scout,” he assured Mercks. “You’ll find something. There’s always something.”

NICK HATED TO admit it, but Huxley had been right.

All evening, people studied him curiously. They went out of their way to engage him in conversation, and – with the exception of Eckhart – made polite inquiries about him and Jordan without crossing the line into being intrusive or rude. Mostly, they wanted to know how they’d met. After all, if she liked him, that was good enough for them.

This philosophy carried over into wine, he noticed. People waited to hear her reaction to a wine before commenting themselves, and then almost always vocalized a similar opinion. Perhaps her palette was simply that good, but he suspected the consensus also had something to do with the fact that others viewed Jordan with no small degree of fascination. She was smart, beautiful, ridiculously wealthy (or at least she would be one day), and her family recently had been plagued with a very public scandal. In any setting, this would make her a person of interest. In the staid circles of the Chicago wine community, it made her a star.

Nick watched as she spoke to a couple in their midthirties, wondering if she realized how much influence she held. If pressed, he would have to admit that she was turning out to be not what he’d expected when they’d first met. He kept waiting for her to display some sign of weirdness and/or snobbery, but so far she seemed relatively, well, normal. A somewhat irritating conclusion to arrive at, given how much he hated to admit that he’d been wrong.

“So how did you and Jordan meet?” the man standing across from Nick asked.

How Nick wished he could shake things up, considering this was the sixth time he had been asked that question in the last half hour. Interesting story, actually. We met in her wine store, when I offered her a deal to get her brother out of prison in exchange for cooperating in a covert FBI investigation. “It was just one of those things,” he began, launching into their now familiar tale of romance. “I’d dropped by Jordan’s store to buy a bottle of wine for my property manager. He’d gotten engaged over the weekend and I thought I should – ” He frowned when he felt his cell phone vibrating inside his blazer. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, apologizing. “Sorry. I need to check this for work.”

He looked at the number on the caller ID and instantly knew.

Something was wrong.

He caught Jordan’s curious look. “It’s Ethan. I should grab this.”

She nodded – understanding there obviously was no Ethan – and managed an affectionate smile. “Of course.”

Nick stepped out into the hallway, away from the others. He answered his phone with a casual tone. “Ethan, I’m surprised to hear from you. Don’t you ever take a night off?”

Jack answered, short and to the point. “You’ve picked up a tail. Someone is going to follow you and Jordan home tonight.”

Nick’s jaw tightened. “Any idea how that happened?”

“Eckhart’s making a play for Jordan. He hired a guy to follow you and dig up whatever dirt he can on Nick Stanton.”

Just what they needed. “I’ll have to call you back to discuss this further,” Nick said. “But obviously, this changes our position in the matter.”

“There is some good news,” Jack noted.

“What’s that?” Nick asked.

“At least we know the bugs in Eckhart’s office are working.”

HAVING PICKED UP on the “Ethan” code, Jordan was impatient for answers.

Nick did a great job of maintaining the charade with everyone else, but she noticed a subtle change in his demeanor after the mysterious phone call he’d received.

Xander’s party was typically an event she looked forward to every year, but on this night she counted the minutes until she and Nick could leave without bringing attention to themselves. A long two hours later, they made their way to the waiting Town Car and settled into the backseat. As soon as the driver shut the back door, Jordan opened her mouth, needing to know something.

Nick put his hand on her leg, just above her knee, and squeezed. He held her gaze and shook his head in a barely noticeable gesture. Don’t.

She closed her mouth and watched him for some further sign.

The driver climbed into the car and looked at them in the rearview mirror. “Back to your house, Ms. Rhodes?”

“Yes,” Nick answered for her. He turned back to Jordan and acted as if nothing was amiss. “Did you have a good time tonight?”

Jordan may not have had a clue what was happening, but she understood that she needed to play along with the small talk. “I did. You?”

“I found my introduction to the wine scene very interesting. And speaking of interesting, remember that project Ethan and I have been working on? I got an e-mail from him this evening with some unexpected news. I’ll show it to you.”