Page 106 of Devil's Kiss

“Okay, when this is all worked out again, remind me to invite you the hell over. Brantley can come too, if he promises not to be a dick.”

He heard Finn relay his message, and Derek grinned at his response, “He said if Jordan’s wine fridge is full count him in. As long as you promise not to be a dick too.”

“Deal,” Derek answered. Then he said his goodbyes and hung up, feeling that half of the weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Now he just needed to talk to Jordan, but he wanted to do that in person.

After getting to his feet, he headed toward the table where he’d dropped his keys, and as he walked to the door, his phone started to ring. He flipped it over in his hand, hoping it was Jordan, but instead he saw a number that made his stomach turn.

Fucking Alan.

He pulled the front door shut behind him and then swiped the screen as he headed toward the stairs. He was determined to go to Jordan’s place no matter what his brother wanted.

“What?” he said, and was shocked when Alan didn’t immediately answer. Instead, Derek heard someone asking, “Where do you want us to take him to?”

Derek heard Alan give them the name of their local hospital, and then he came back over the phone. “You there?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Alan.”

“Dad was collapsed on the floor when I got home tonight. Unresponsive?—”

“But not dead?” Derek asked, feeling a sense of detachment he hadn’t expected.

“No, he’s not dead. At least not yet.”

Derek shut his eyes and wondered if he should be worried he felt nothing in that moment but inconvenienced for being interrupted from going to Jordan’s, but then his brother said something that caught his attention.

“When he came to, before they put him in the ambulance, he asked for you.”

“Why? What does he want?”

“I don’t know. But he asked for you. You know where we’re going if you want to be there. If you don’t…whatever. No skin off my back.”

As Alan hung up the phone, Derek stared at his for a moment and then thought, fuck it. He threw the phone on the passenger seat of his car and climbed in. Then he started the engine and headed in the one direction that was imprinted on his brain.

Jordan’s penthouse.

Chapter 30

JORDAN SAT IN the dark in his living room staring at the blank television screen that hung on the wall. It’d been over two hours since he’d left Brantley’s, and he wondered just how long he’d be able to sit there without food, water, or the need to physically get up. As it was, curling up into a ball and never leaving that spot again seemed like a really great idea.

When he’d arrived home, he’d immediately sent off an email to the project manager of thePearson Projectand told her to put on hold all future planned meetings, website implementation, and, well, anything at all, really, and he would get back to her sometime…this year, maybe?Jordan thought as he shut his eyes and fell to his side on the couch.

How could he have been so thoughtless? So careless in his single-minded focus that he hadn’t thought about the way Derek’s name on the marquee might upset him. He’d stupidly thought of it as a way to celebrate him, and all that he’d overcome. He’d never imagined this reaction?—

The familiar sound of his phone ringing from the coffee table had him sitting up and grabbing for the device that was vibrating around the glass top. As soon as he sawHe-Manon the display, he was swiping his finger across the screen to answer it. “Derek?”

“Can you come downstairs?”

Jordan shot to his feet and looked toward the elevator. “You’re here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, and you don’t want to come up?”

“No. I need you to come down.”

Derek sounded odd. He didn’t sound angry, but more…distant. Jordan picked up his wallet and keys and slipped into his loafers, all the while holding the phone to his ear. “Are you okay?”

“No.”