Rush

By Jove Chambers

Beck “Blaze” Lockwood
Years trapped and tortured in a hole have changed me.
I used to snap my fingers and have women ready to please me.
I used to use and lose them like it was nothing.
But now, I have only one driving force.
Revenge.
It’s all I have time for, not that pretty girl Isabella or the way she undoes me.
William Baines has to die.

Isabella Tucker
I remember Beck Lockwood from college.
He was a sleazeball of the highest order.
Maybe a sexy, hot sleazeball, sure. Maybe a sleazeball with amazing arms.
But I would never give in to him and his games.
No matter how different and damaged he seems now.
No matter how hard it seems to get him out of my head.

• Language: English
• Publisher: V. J. Chambers
• Release date: Jul 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463580257

Jove Chambers

Jove Chambers is the dark romance pen name for USA Today bestselling author, V. J. Chambers. Most of her books were originally published under that name.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Beck

I grabbed the arm of the first woman in a suit I saw as I entered the area just outside of William Baines’s office. I need to make an appointment with Mr. Baines.

The woman turned on me, long honey-colored hair whipping away from her startling green eyes, and I was taken aback.

I’d been back home for nearly a month now. All the time I’d been away, stuck down in that hole, I’d thought that the minute I got free, I’d be balls deep in pussy. But then, I did get back, and I didn’t think about pussy at all, and women didn’t even look that good to me, and I still hadn’t gotten my dick wet, and I didn’t even miss it. It was like some part of me had been burned out in that dark place.

Or maybe, it had been filled up with rage and hatred for William Baines. That was what I had told myself. I’d convinced myself that if I took care of Baines, I’d feel better, and everything would go back to normal, and I might even be interested in chasing some skirts again.

Except this woman…

She was affecting me. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than me, and she had a sort of flawless, classic beauty that I liked. Her gray suit skimmed over her curves. She had breasts and hips and a tapered waist and legs for miles, and…

I swallowed.

And I let go of her as if she’d scalded me.

Beck Lockwood, she said. What the hell are you doing here?

Wait, she recognized me? I didn’t know this woman. I’d never seen her before. I would remember. I was sure of it. And while there had been a little bit of press when I was found, it wasn’t as though my face had been plastered across the media or anything. Most people never knew who I was back before the crash, and people still didn’t know. If I’d been recognizable, I wouldn’t have been able to do the kind of work that I’d done, after all.

I fumbled with my clothes, smoothing at my tie, trying to find my voice. I need to make an appointment with Mr. Baines, I finally said, repeating the only other sentence I’d uttered.

Yes, I heard you say that, she said.

Well, can you help me?

Why would I be able to help you?

You’re his secretary, aren’t you?

She smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. No, her green eyes grew cold. That’s just like you, I suppose. You come into a room, and you see a woman, and you immediately assume that she must have the most menial job.

You’re not his secretary, I said. Okay. Sorry. Listen, have we met? I don’t seem to recall—

Well, a guy like you wouldn’t recall, would you?

Well, could you refresh my memory? I find it difficult to believe that I’d forget someone as pretty as you. The sentence came out awkward and odd, like a garbled version of the charming man I used to be. I used to be able to turn it on like a faucet, but now, when I reached for it, it wasn’t there.

Her eyebrows shot up. I’m not going to fall for your act, so drop it, okay?

My act? Who was she? Why was she saying these things? I cringed. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense. I… I hung my head, trying to get myself back together. She had thoroughly thrown me. I looked back up at her. Perhaps you just point me to the secretary, then.

She folded her arms over her chest. Why should I help you at all? What do you want with my stepfather?

Her stepfather? Mr. Baines is your stepfather?

Yes, she said. I’m his head of public relations. And I don’t see how it would help his image to meet with you. Why would you want to see my stepfather, anyway? I had heard that you and your mother had hired someone to run your father’s companies and oversee his money.

That’s, um, true, I said. This is a personal matter.

You don’t have any personal matters with my stepfather.

How do you know that? I eyed her. You seem to know a lot about me.

Sure, she said. I do. I was at Jennifer Adams’s party at Ridley University. My junior year of college. You were a… I don’t know, did you go to class often enough to move past being a freshman?

I just gazed at her blankly. I don’t remember anyone named Jennifer Adams.

Of course you don’t, she said. What about someone named Candy Michaelson? You remember her?

I scratched my jaw. Uh… that does sound vaguely familiar.

She was your girlfriend back then.

Right, I said. Candy. So, that’s how you know me. I cleared my throat. You know, that period of time of my life is a bit of a blur.

She smiled that frosty smile again. Really.

If I met you back then, and I don’t remember you now, you shouldn’t read too much into that. I don’t remember much of anything from back then.

Right, you wouldn’t want to, she said. Do you remember how things ended between you and Candy?

I… At first I was going to say that I didn’t, because that period of time of my life really was a blur. I was lost back then, partying all the time, spending my father’s money, doing fuckall with myself. I was empty, and I had no purpose.

And then I’d come across Ripper and I’d become a paid contract killer. Not because I needed the money, but because I needed something to do with myself, and Ripper’s mantra of only killing bad guys who deserved it, it made me feel like I had some direction in life, that I was making the world a little better. It’s funny that I thought that killing people was a way to make things better, but I didn’t really have much of a moral compass back then. Still don’t, as a matter of fact.

Of course, after I started working for Ripper, I still kept partying. I just did it less, since I didn’t want it to interfere with my work. So, a lot of my social life during that period was a blur too.

Hell, I might have already been working for Ripper when I dated Candy. If so, she was one of the last girlfriends I had. I figured out, after a while, that monogamy just wasn’t for me.

You do remember, she said.

I shifted on my feet, feeling uncomfortable. You and Candy are friends, I guess?

Oh, yeah, she said. Back then, we were besties. We’ve grown apart a little, since she got married and had her twins, but I still care about her a lot. She never really got over that.

I didn’t mean for her to walk in—

You sent her a text telling her to come up, she said. When she got there, you were getting head from another girl, and you didn’t even stop while you told Candy you thought it was better if you saw other people.

I cleared my throat again. Look, that was a long time ago, and I’m not the young guy I was then.

You’re blaming youth? she said. Everyone’s young, Beck. But everyone doesn’t do that sort of thing. Candy said that earlier that week, you’d told her you loved her.

Okay, I said, and now I was starting to get pissed off. Even if I did say that, which honestly doesn’t sound like me, I don’t see how rehashing embarrassing bits of my past is really getting us anywhere.

She laughed again, that same soft, ironic laugh.

I mean, I’m sorry, obviously, I said. I apologize, and I’m embarrassed—

You? Embarrassed? And then she really did laugh, throwing back her head and letting go as though I had really amused her.

And, to my horror, I actually felt my face heating up, because what? Was she laughing at me?

She stopped laughing and settled her gaze on mine, and maybe she noticed that I was blushing, and maybe she took pity on me, I don’t know. But she stretched out her hand and pointed. My father’s administrative assistant is Mr. Dignam over there.

I followed her gaze to see a younger guy in a brown suit with a maroon tie. He was on the phone, cradling it between his face and his shoulder as he typed on his keyboard and gazed at his computer screen. Thanks, I said quietly.

Sure, she said. I don’t know why I’m talking to you, anyway. And I don’t know why you think you can waltz in here and get an appointment. I know that he’s scheduled out for months. She smoothed her hand down the front of her jacket. Anyway, have a nice life, Beck Lockwood. She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and stalked off, leaving me behind.

I felt as if I’d just been run over by a cement mixer.

I looked at Mr. Dignam. I looked at the door.

And I scurried the hell out of there. This wasn’t even going to work. If people recognized me, it was going to go badly.

I didn’t even know why I’d come here without a plan. It was only that I couldn’t stop thinking about William Baines, and I felt like there wasn’t room in my brain to exist if I didn’t get him out of there.

William Baines had to die.

But this wasn’t the way.

CHAPTER TWO

Isabella

I was more shaken by the sight of Beck Lockwood than I thought I would be. There he was, in a suit and a tie. I hadn’t seen him in years. He had aged well. Back when he was in college, he was some stupid rich kid, and he always looked a little too polished to be real, like how there’s always that tell-tale gloss to CGI that gives it away on a movie. Beck was always too glossy, and I never thought he looked attractive. I thought he looked plastic. Like a Ken doll.

But now, years later, he had acquired something. Grit? A few lines around his eyes? The five o’clock shadow on his chin? I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Maybe it was his eyes.

When he grabbed me by the arm and turned me around, his face came up out of the shadows and his eyes were the first thing I saw. Haunted eyes. Eyes that had seen heartache and pain and loss. Something had happened to him.

Well, yes, of course something had happened.

I knew this. I had followed the story when it broke. How they found him out in the wilderness of South America, how he’d been through some kind of harrowing ordeal that was so bad he wouldn’t even talk about it.

The heir to the Lockwood fortune had come home, and it was a minor news story. People had sat up and taken notice for a half a minute. Most of them had felt sorry for him, but I hadn’t. I’d felt as though he had finally gotten what he deserved.

I reached my office and shut myself inside.

I peered around the room. It was a nice office. Bigger than a lot of other offices in the building. I had a razor-thin computer monitor and a sleek ergonomic mouse and a top-of-the line desk. There were two potted plants in the corner, growing lopsidedly toward the light. I couldn’t really complain about the office.

What the hell was I doing here, though?

I had left my office to go and see my stepfather, William. But then I’d run into Beck Lockwood, and I’d gotten flustered—

No, he hadn’t flustered me. He couldn’t have flustered me.

It was only that he was so much more attractive than he used to be.

Well, hell, maybe I was lying to myself. Maybe he had always been attractive. I tried to think back to whenever Candy had first started dating him and when he’d picked her up outside the dining hall on campus. He’d been driving a convertible with the top down and he’d grinned her—white teeth and his careless good looks—and, yeah, okay, I’d thought he was attractive then. But that was really as close as I’d ever gotten to him.

I hadn’t seen the infamous blow job scene, but Candy had detailed it to me in minutia.

He wanted me to see it, she said, her eyes bloodshot and her nose red. He had his fist in Mischa’s hair and he was guiding her up and down on his dick, but he wasn’t even looking at her, he was looking at me. He was staring at me, and he was enjoying what it was doing to me.

Because, right, there had been that other wrinkle to it all. That it was Mischa Scanter, who had stolen Candy’s high school boyfriend Tom back when we were all sixteen and who Candy mercilessly compared herself to. Beck had known that. He had done what he did to maximize the way he destroyed my friend.

And why?

What kind of guy does shit like that?

My phone rang.

I picked it up. Baines Limited, this is Isabella Tucker.

Isabella, where the fuck are you? came the gruff voice of my stepfather. I told you to be down here ten minutes ago.

I… I got sidetracked.

How do you get sidetracked in ten minutes? You’re a flighty bimbo, I swear it. You want to keep this job?

I swallowed. He was always calling me names. He called my mom names too. Truthfully, I really hated my stepfather. Of course, William, I’ll be there right away.

Hurry it the hell up, he said. I’m not getting any younger.

I’m so sorry, I said.

Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it. He slammed down the phone.

* * *

I never wanted to work in public relations. I got a degree in journalism and starting working for the local paper right out of college. It paid peanuts, and there was no real hope of moving up in the world much, and everyone at the paper was worried because the newspaper business was dying and everyone knew it.

No one wanted to pay for news. They could get everything online, so they weren’t going to subscribe to a paper. And no one wanted to advertise in a newspaper either. Who looks at newspapers?

Basically, the paper was dying, and I’d just signed on to a sinking ship.

They laid me off after a year, even though they loved my work. But they couldn’t afford me, and they had to keep the reporters with seniority.

I got another job, but it was going to require an expensive move across the country, and my mother somehow talked my stepfather into giving me this job instead. They both figured PR was just the same as being a reporter.

Which, of course, it wasn’t. I think that I should have stuck to my guns and gone across the country, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to leave my mother alone with my stepdad. I honestly didn’t know why he gave me the job, anyway. He’d never been one to do favors for me or for my mom. He was an asshole to my mom, really. He kept her around because she looked good on his arm and because he wanted to appear to be a family man. It was a good cover for his various illegal ventures, which was how he made the bulk of his money. My mother stuck around because she was willing to sacrifice anything for money. She grew up poor and she was terrified of going back to that. So, now matter how badly he treated her, she stayed.

But my stepdad gave me the job. Maybe because then he could control me, and he seemed to like to control people. Anyone he could, really. He did it just for his own amusement.

I regretted taking it, but I felt as though I couldn’t leave, not now that so much time had passed. And I did worry about my mother. I’ve never seen him do anything to physically hurt her, but I wouldn’t put it past him to get drunk and throw a punch. I checked in with Mom regularly, just to make sure she was okay.

And, of course, I couldn’t call the police or anything. For one thing, he practically owned the police with the amount of cops he had convinced to look the other way for bribes. And for another, he had too much money to ever really be punished. It’s not as though he’d go to jail or anything. He’d use his pricey lawyers to get out of it.

When I got to his office, he gave me a tongue lashing that went on for five straight minutes. He used the word fuck every fourth word. He called me a stupid slut and an idiotic blonde and he asked me why it was that I always wore pants suits instead of skirts. He said it made me look unfeminine.

I stood still while he said it, forcing myself not to react.

When he was finished, he got around to telling me what he wanted. He wanted me to see if I could find a good spin to put on the takeover of another company that he was commencing next month. It had already been trashed in the press. William wanted me to make it look as though we were doing the company a favor.

I promised him I’d figure it out, and I probably would.

I was actually pretty good at my job. It made me feel ill sometimes, because my job was covering up the truth or stretching it just far enough that it was almost a lie. Still, somehow, I managed to pull it off.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office, outlining a plan of how we’d paint the other company in a bad light and show how they’d been under poor management. We’d say that we were sailing in to the rescue and make everyone thing we were the heroes of the situation.

By the time I was done with writing a few preliminary press releases, the day was over, and I headed home to my too-big apartment in the city.

Back when I was a reporter, I lived in a shitty studio where the hot water would routinely go out. It was an uncomfortable place to live, and I wanted to trade up. I planned to rent something myself. However, my stepfather bought me this three-bedroom, three-bathroom as a birthday present.

Again, I should have refused.

But I didn’t.

The place was really far too big for me. There was an amazing kitchen with marble countertops and stainless steel appliances, and I never cooked in it. There were long glass walls in the bedroom so that I could stand and look out at the sun rising over the city in the mornings, and I tended to fall asleep in the living room watching TV with a throw blanket wrapped around me.

I didn’t even know what to do with this luxury. And I was sure I didn’t deserve it.

With a sigh, I tugged off my suit and shrugged into a t-shirt and sweats. Then I threw myself down on the couch and closed my eyes.

I hated my life.

CHAPTER THREE

Beck

Um, sir, what are you doing? said a woman in a gray uniform.

Just looking for some scarlet begonias, I said, giving her a wink. I was in the back of the store, standing in front of a door marked Employees Only.

She gazed at me blankly. Like, um, The Grateful Dead song? I don’t know if we have anything like that, but there’s definitely nothing back there. That part of the store is off limits to customers.

Scarlet begonias, I said again, slower. Or, hell, I guess they must have changed the password. But you work in this flower shop, you know it’s not really a flower shop.

Um, what is it then? She was wary now. She thought I was crazy, and she was humoring me.

I pushed open the door.

Sir, you can’t go back there! The girl sounded panicked.

Whoa. This wasn’t right. This was supposed to open up on a room with a floor-to-ceiling mirror equipped with a hidden keypad, on which I would key in the password and get down into headquarters.

Except there was no mirror. Instead, there was a wall with shelves all over it, and the shelves were jammed with boxes.

Sir, I’m really going to have to call the police.

Well, hell. Ripper had moved headquarters while I was gone. Or maybe Ripper had gone to jail, and there was no more headquarters. Actually, last I’d checked, Ripper had been playing house with some girl he knocked up, and he’d retired for all intents and purposes. So, maybe the whole operation was belly up.

Sorry, I told the shop girl. Guess I got the wrong address.

I got back in my car and drove around until I remembered that I knew where Danger lived. Or where he used to live, anyway. I hadn’t seen him since we did that job on the Russian guy. That was the last time we’d worked together. I wondered if he’d moved on.

But when I knocked on his door, Kiera answered.

Kiera! I said, stunned. Because she was pregnant. Her hair was pulled