A knock sounded on the door and he glanced up. “Come on in!”
Jordan opened the door and stepped inside. She was wearing a pair of black leggings and a white boxy cropped top that revealed a strip of skin above the waistband, and one look made him drool. Black Chucks completed the cute, sleek outfit.
“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. Come sit.” He rose from behind the desk and walked around to join her, lowering himself on the couch.
Her floral scent surrounded him, and he wanted her in his lap now, his fingers in her hair, her lips on his. Instead he took a look at her face and knew immediately something was wrong.
“What happened? Is there a problem with my mother and Aurora?” he asked, knowing how panicked Aurora had been about meeting Melly.
Jordan shook her head. “God, no. They’re like this.” She crossed two of her fingers in the air. “But Suzanne Ashton called me.”
He stiffened in surprise. “Now? On your cell over the weekend?”
She nodded. “I know who your father’s partner is, and you’re right about Wallace helping him hide it. And apparently it’s not the only secret deal.”
Jaw clenched, Linc nodded, glad to know his instincts were right. “Wallace,” he muttered. “Okay, and the partner?”
“Beckett Daniels.”
Linc jerked in his seat, shock running through him. “Beck,” he said, a roaring sound in his ears, and he forced himself to focus.
Beck. Linc’s rival in business, but their past worried him more. Beck was clearly still harboring anger and resentment against him, and the bitch of it was, Linc didn’t blame him. But a man with an emotional grudge was an unpinned grenade waiting to explode.
Linc had never told anyone what had happened between him and Beck. His father hadn’t known, which meant to Kenneth, Beck had been a convenient person with whom to do business, but to Beck? His father and his illness had made him easy prey to get to Linc.
Nobody but family and trusted people inside the office knew about Kenneth’s dementia. Clearly Linc had made wrong choices there. But with his father’s more fragile mental state, it would have been easy for Beck to swoop in. But Wallace was supposed to protect them all. Shit. Linc scrubbed his face with his hand. What had Wallace gotten out of the deal?
Jordan’s soft hand rested on his arm. “Linc? What is it?”
He didn’t know how to tell her. She was his best friend and the person he trusted most, yet he’d kept this from her. Not even his brothers knew. He blew out a long breath, reminding himself if he could trust anyone, it was Jordan.
He just hoped she looked at him the same way after he told her his deepest secret. “It’s about Beck. We have history.”
She met his gaze. “I know. You went to college together.” Bending one leg, she rested her knee on the sofa, settling in.
He let out a groan and decided to get the truth out there and over with. “Okay, here goes. Beck and I were best friends, and late sophomore year, his room was next door to mine.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were once close.”
Linc nodded. “He was one of the first guys I met. And when you finally get away from your parents and their rules, you go a little crazy. Drinking, parties. Fun. Anyway, by sophomore year I had a girlfriend.”
“Lacey,” she said. “I remember.”
“And Beck had one, too. Her name was Jenna. The four of us hung out together when we could, but Beck was on scholarship and he had to work. A lot.”
“I know what that’s like,” she murmured.
His gut churned but he continued. “Jenna resented the time Beck spent working, but there wasn’t anything he could do.”
He hesitated and Jordan gave him an encouraging nod. “Go on.”
“One weekend, Lacey went home to see her parents. Beck had to work Saturday night and I went to a frat party. I got drunk. I mean completely shit-faced, typical college, lucky-to-remember-anything wasted. When I made it back to my bed, the room was spinning, and I really thought I was going to hurl.”
She let out a light laugh. “I can relate more to Beck’s working than your partying, but I saw it all the time around me and I understand. What happened?”
He shrugged. “To this day I’m not one-hundred-percent sure. I remember a woman crawling into my bed, telling me she was back and she’d missed me, and then she kissed me. I swear to God I thought it was Lacey and she was home early, that is, if I was thinking at all. What I didn’t know or even sense was Jenna had crawled into my bed.”
“Oh, no.” A horrified expression crossed Jordan’s face, and he wanted to die. “You have to know that, sober, I would never cheat. I grew up with my father fucking around. I wouldn’t do it. And I sure as hell wouldn’t sleep with my friend’s girl. But I was so far gone I was still half drunk the next morning. When Beck walked in and Jenna popped up in bed, crying, telling Beck she was sorry, it just happened, I could barely lift my head.”
“But he didn’t want to hear it,” Jordan guessed.
Linc shook his head. “She wanted his attention, and oh, boy, did she get it. Meanwhile, I got a punch in the jaw and would have had a black eye if one of the other guys didn’t come in and pull Beck off me. Then, I finally threw up.” Linc drew a deep breath and leaned back against the couch. “Needless to say, I lost my best friend and my girlfriend. Beck ditched both me and Jenna, who tried to play the martyr for him, and when that didn’t work, she had the gall to attempt
