Midnight Sun-23
Midnight Sun (23)
Day 6 of Jax and Brenda’s Malibu honeymoon....
Jax awoke to find Brenda gone.
"Brenda?" he called out.
There was no response. He reached for his watch on the night-stand, and it read 7:08 a.m. Brenda *never* got up this early. He began to feel a sense of apprehension.
"Bren?" he called out again as he got out of the bed, tossed on a pair of pants and an unbuttoned shirt, and began going from room to room in the beach house looking for her. When it became clear she was not inside, his panic increased. He opened the sliding glass doors that led outside to the pools and the beach. Sunshine, and the balmy morning air greeted him, and he sighed with relief as he saw Brenda on the beach. And then relief turned to wonderment as he saw that she had erected the most fabulous looking sand-castle he had ever seen. And then his wonderment turned to desire when he saw that she was dressed only in a turquoise- colored bikini with one of his shirts draped around her, her tanned skin was wet from the beach and shimmered in the sunlight of the rising sun.
She was standing by her creation looking perplexed about something, and Jax started to laugh when he realized the reason for her look. She had managed to build the castle around herself, and was now trapped in the center of it - the only way out being to knock down the stunning creation.
He went down to the beach and joined her.
She saw him coming and waved.
"Hi!" she said.
"Hi, yourself. Got yourself into a little predicament, have you?" Jax said, eyeing her sand-castle, which was even more impressive up close.
"Yes," she laughed. "I guess I got distracted. I was working on the towers, and I kept thinking about you . . .and the next thing I knew I wound up on the wrong side of my castle."
"Well, that's understandable. I *have* been known to drive many a woman to distraction," Jax confessed, reaching in for her and carefully lifting her out of the center of the sand castle and up into his arms, as if she were as light as a feather. The feel of her against him was perfection itself. "Since when do you get up this early?" Jax asked her, still holding her in his arms.
"Wait. First things first," she said, sliding her arms around hiis neck and pulling him into a lingering kiss. "Good morning." she smiled. She kissed him yet again.
"It is now," Jax agreed, still holding her in his arms, not ready to let her go just yet. "Since when do you get up this early?" he repeated.
"Your kisses are soooo addictive," she told him with the cutest smile.
"So are yours. Do you intend to ever answer my question? Why are you up so early?"
"It’s a climate thing," she revealed to him. "When I lived in Monaco I was always an early riser. It’s always such beautiful weather there. But then when I got to Alaska, it was always so cold that all I wanted to do was stay under the covers every morning. And even when I moved into the penthouse with you in New York, it was still a cold climate, because it’s the winter season. But now that I’m out here with the beach and the sun and the warmth, it feels like being back in Monaco, I guess. So I got into my old habit of getting up early again."
Jax nodded and gently set her down on her feet on the sand. "You miss it?" he asked, catching a wisp of her sun-streaked dark hair in between his fingers.
"Monaco?"
"Yes."
"Not really."
"You can tell me the truth, Brenda."
"I *always* tell you the truth. So what do you think of my sand castle?" she asked smiling eagerly.
Jax gazed at it, once again marveling at the detail. "It’s phenomenal."
"It’s . . . decent," Brenda corrected, eyeing it critically.
"I had no idea you were an artist."
Brenda laughed. "That’s because I’m *not.* But I did take some beginners' sculpting classes at the lycee in Paris when I was eight. We made these little houses out of popsicle sticks and we made tiny sand castles out of colored sand and water."
"Eight? What were you doing in Paris at eight? Were you alone?"
"No, Vivian was with me. My father sent us there for a year right after my eighth birthday. It was right after Vivian caught Giselle holding my head under the water in the pool. I suppose my father was afraid for my life so he sent me away for a while."
"You’re telling me she tried to drown you?" Jax asked quietly, his eyes full of disbelief.
Brenda nodded. "So they tell me. I barely even remember it now, though. I think they say I passed out."
"How could your father have let this happen?" Jax asked, appearing disgusted.
"Well, to be fair, I don’t think he knew the extent of her hatred for me, Jax. It wasn’t as if she knew I was her sister back then. Even *I* didn’t know back then."
"But he knew she had severe emotional instability," Jax insisted. "And he knew how paranoid she was, that she suspected you were more than they told her. That she was envious of you from day one."
"Well, he may have thought those things, but he had no way of knowing if they were true. Giselle is his child, Jax. He loved her.”
“You’re his child too. You’re entitled to his love and his protection. You were eight years old for god’s sake. He knew how she felt about you. Why would he ever leave you alone with her?”
“I don’t think he would have if he’d been aware . . .I mean she’d never tried to hurt me before, Jax. This was the first time."
Jax was not impressed by Brenda’s excuses for her father. "He should have had the foresight, Brenda. The seeds for her potential to hurt you were there form the very beginning. He’s a leader ruling an entire country for god’s sake, and yet he can’t control what goes on in his own house?”
“Why is this upsetting you so much?” she asked, her hands on his shoulders.
“Because I love you. Because I find the fact that you nearly died at that woman’s hands inexcusable. Because your father’s priorities seem to be completely out of whack. But mostly, because I love you,” he repeated. “So much. And this love. . . it changes everything, Brenda.” he added softly, seeming somewhat bewildered by it all.
“I know,” she said gazing into his eyes. “It changes everything.”
“Everything that I feel for you I feel deeper than other emotions,” he revealed to her. “Maybe even irrationally so.”
“Me too,” she said softly.
They gazed at each other, the moment seemed timeless. They kissed, the kiss seemed endless. Lips as warm as the sunshine, a tender passion which would not need much to erupt into something much more wild. As the kiss deepened, they both were so acutely aware of the way they felt about each other. The love was like a bottomless ocean - too big to even grasp sometimes.
Jax held her close in his arms. “Do you think you married a maniac?”
“The maniac of my dreams.”
“I didn’t mean to go off on your dad. But I find his lack of foresight to be shocking. Foresight is armor against the unknown, Brenda. Everyone knows that," Jax insisted, playing around with her ponytail.
"Spoken like a true Jacks," Brenda said with a dimpled smile. "But my father isn’t a Jacks, and he really did the best he could. Truly, he did. Giselle never did hurt me after that. He took care of me, Jax."
Jax gazed at her and gently caressed the contours of her face. "By sending you away from home? She only needed one chance to get to you, Brenda. And he gave her one. Then instead of shipping *her* off somewhere, he sent *you* away. I don’t understand that logic. There *is* no logic to that."
Brenda shrugged. "But that was all such a long time ago. Ten years, almost eleven. And, as you can see, I’m fine."
He nodded, and he stroked her hair. "No thanks to your father though. You were just lucky.”
“You really seem to have it in for my father,” Brenda noted, quirking a curious eyebrow at him. “Why?”
“I think he’s not the wonderful man you think he is,” Jax said quietly.
“But I *know* him, Jax. You don’t.”
“Maybe *you* don’t, sweetie. You told me you barely saw him as a child. He only started paying attention to you two years ago when he decided Giselle was too far gone and so you would be more acceptable as heir to his throne. Before that you were basically just a guest in that palace. There was no sense of family. *You* told me that. He wasn’t really your father in the sense that my father is mine, Brenda. You had an image of him, that’s all. And not one based on the reality of who he is, in my opinion.”
Brenda squinted in the brightening sunlight and held onto his arm. “Speaking of opinions, you certainly are very opinionated on the topic of my father. You almost sound as if you *know* him. Do you? Have you met my father, Jax?”
Jax gazed at her, and then past her to the beach. “Yes,” he confessed. “I did have occasion to meet him. Once.”
Brenda looked at him in bewilderment. “When?”
“A while ago, Brenda.”
“Before you met me?”
“No.”
“Afterwards then? Oh, was this when you went to find out about his health?”
“Yes,” Jax said. It was entirely a lie.
“And so you actually got to see him?”
“Mmm Hmmm.”
“And you didn’t like him?”
“Not much.”
Brenda rose an eyebrow. “I see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. But I do want to tell you that I think it’s wrong to base your feelings about him on one meeting. If you would have based your feelings about me on our first meeting, we wouldn’t be married right now.”
She had a point.
“I’m just not very impressed with your father,” Jax told her. “And perhaps that’s a result of the way I do things, the way I envision a leader should conduct himself and protect those in his care. I told you that his lack of foresight was shocking, but in actuality it’s appalling, Brenda. I’m sorry, but it is. My father always told me and Jerry that foresight should be like one’s shadow; always there even when your enemies can’t see it. I believe in that. It has served me well. And I would *never* let anyone have such easy access to hurt you."
She smiled at him. "I adore you, do you know that?”
“I know that,” he said, smiling at her as their foreheads touched.
“But I still think you’re being a little too hard on my father. What did you say to him when you met him? Did you actually get to go *into* the palace? That’s so unusual that you were granted an audience with him. And why is it that you never told me about any of this?"
"Can we change the subject for a moment?” Jax requested. “I have a favor to ask of you."
“Anything,” she said, brushing her fingers against the side of his face.
"Okay, well let me preface this by saying that I don’t mean to be suffocating or anything, but when I woke up this morning and you weren’t there, I thought. . ." he paused. " What I mean is it might have been helpful if you’d have left a note or something."
Brenda smiled a little and hugged him. She could really, *really* get used to this vulnerable side of him where she was concerned.
"I’m sorry," she said, kissing him by the base of his throat. "I promise, you’ll always know where I am."
"Thanks,” he kissed her. “I do happen to know where you’re going to be in a couple of hours if you’re interested," he mentioned.
"Where?” she asked, playing along.
"On Rodeo Drive running up my credit cards to ungodly amounts."
Brenda let out a whoop of delight and threw herself into his arms. "Yessss! *Finally!* Shopping!!" she said excitedly. "My favorite exercise."
"Yes, I know," he confessed, kissing the top of her hair. “I did promise you we’d do the Rodeo Drive experience before we left, and since we’re leaving tomorrow . . .”
“I don’t want to leave,” she said running her hands down the front of his open shirt. “I honestly don’t know how you ever tear yourself away from this beach house, Jax. It’s like a heavenly retreat.”
“I’ve got retreats far more heavenly than this one,” he told her.
She glanced up at him and laughed. “I’ll bet. Jerry told me you own an exotic island in the Adriatic.”
“I actually won that island. And if it’s heaven you’re looking for, that is definitely the place to seek it out.”
"Well personally, my heaven is right here, in your arms. But I *am* going to miss this beach house. We need to come back here more often.”
“Like how often?”
“Like, how about every day?” she laughed. “Can we live here, Jax?”
“Here?”
“Yes! Think about it, Jax. The sand, the sun, the beach - we both love the beach so much. And of course the *shopping*!”
“The earthquakes.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
“Well, I could *definitely* do without those,” she said remembering the tremors they had experienced two night ago and how freaked out she had gotten, much to Jax’s amusement.
“I would do anything for you, Brenda. But living here isn't really feasable for me. We can come back here as often as you’d like,” Jax promised, “but I need to be based in New York or Alaska -- somehwere where the business is headquartered. I have a feeling you would prefer, New York, no?”
“Yes,” she said laughing. “But couldn't you just move the headquarters to wherever you choose?"
"It's not quite as simple as that. But it could be done," he admitted. "Do you want to live here that badly?"
Brenda was still laughing and he could drown in that beautiful sound. "No, I was just teasing you. You know that I love New York. And more than anything, I love you. I would live anywhere on this earth as long as you were with me. Have I told you, by the way, that this has been the *best* honeymoon of my entire life?"
"That statement would be more effective if this hadn't been the *only* honeymoon of your entire life."
"Semantics, semantics, Jax. It’s still been the best," she contended. And then she gave him a series of soft, teasing kisses and a long embrace. "All right, I have to go change!" she raced back into the beach house with Jax gazing after her. He began to follow her, and then stopped to admire her sand castle again. It was extraordinary, and yet she had acted as if it were nothing. She probably had no idea how talented she was. It was the same way she acted about her extraordinary looks. She had no idea just how exquisitely beautiful she was. The only thing she did seem to be very much aware of and willing to brag about was how smart and cultured she was. He smiled thinking about that, and then he felt a sadness overtake him as all at once the image of a helpless, eight-year-old Brenda being cruelly held under the water by a psychotic fourteen-year-old with aspirations of the crown seeped into his head.
Emerald-blue eyes turned a shade of sapphire ice. That woman would never hurt Brenda again. Jax would have to be dead for that to happen. She wouldn’t so much as *breathe* on Brenda if he could help it.
+ + +
Marco DiArci was dressed to kill when he entered Giselle Grimaldi’s bed chamber. She gazed at him, and her dark brown eyes were ravenous. He looked stunning in black. All black. Such a fine figure of a man. She was almost gleeful that Brenda had never done anything more than kiss this man, whereas Giselle had done everything in the realm of intimacy with him. And now she had even managed to turn him against the little brunette angel he had always longed for. Marco loved *her* now. He had told her so, and this entire week they had been nearly inseparable as they plotted Brenda’s demise. Marco was her puppet now. She pulled the strings and he obeyed like the most attractive young puppy with eyes of heather gray. Life was good.
"You’re late, " Giselle said to him, hungry for his passion. "I’ve been wanting you most desperately. Don’t keep me waiting in the future, Marco. I despise it." She immediately began to unbutton his black shirt.
His hands covered hers to stop her. "I cannot do this any more," he told her.
His words shocked her. Her eyes narrowed. "Do *what?*" she demanded.
"This plan of yours. Harming Brenda," he said. "I won’t hurt her."
"Oh, for pity’s sake, Marco, be a man! Are you getting *scared*? God, you really are just a boy, aren’t you! You are pathetic!"
"What is pathetic," he said, without batting an eyelash as he deliberately positioned himself near to the door, "is this charade I have going with you. What is pathetic is thinking I could ever stand living with you, even for the money and the power. And what is truly pathetic is *you* ever thinking I could like you, let alone love you. I find you detestable most days," he said casually, while her eyes pulsated with a violent white-hot fury. "On a good day I find you merely repulsive."
Her scream of rage made his blood run cold, but he did not move.
"You pathetic, worthless liar!" she shrieked at him. "You find me *repulsive* do you? Is that why you make love to me as if you would die if you didn’t? You can never get enough of me!"
"I can never wait until it’s over," he corrected her.
Giselle laughed disbelieving him. "You make love to me like a starving man, having his first feast, and you expect me to believe you’re eager to leave my bed each night?"
"Do not delude yourself any longer, Giselle. The only reason I make love to you that way, the only reason I make love to you at *all*, is because I imagine that you are your sister," he said.
And that was all it took for her fury to cross over to her realm of fever pitch madness. She lunged for the gleaming gold box cutter she kept by her bed, her lips twisted into a menacing snarl of hatred.
"You are doing to die tonight," she foretold, in a chillingly calm tone. "It will be painful, and it will take a long time, and it will be extremely bloody, and I will enjoy every solitary minute of it. And I’ll tell you what, dearest Marco, if you are so in love with my *sister*" she said spitting out the word, "I’ll take pity on you and make sure to throw your two worthless carcasses next to each other when I feed your organs to the dogs!"
Marco made a motion to open the door.
"Go right ahead," Giselle laughed hysterically. "Run! Flee, you pathetic, quivering coward! I will be upon you before you hit the hallway."
Marco stood there, hand on the door.
"I’ll bet you’re wetting your pants right now, aren’t you?" Giselle said as she slid the razor sharp edge of the box cutter out of it’s protective gold casing.
"You can’t do anything to me, Giselle. People know I came to see you. They’ll figure out what you have done."
"Yes, seeing the hallway littered with your body parts might give them a clue," she agreed, stroking the blade and slowly approaching him, her eyes dead and emotionless.
"They’ll all know how crazy you are and you’ll get put away -- just like your mother. Don’t you know that?"
Her hysterical laughter grew. "You’re more stupid that I thought! Don’t you know that I can fool everyone? The doctors, the lawyers, any stupid judge who would ever try to commit me? Certainly my idiot father. I can fool ANYONE! I’ve been doing it for years. But you’re far too stupid to know how brilliant I am, aren’t you? Come to think of it, you were only good for one thing," she said derisively. "Perhaps that is where I should start my butchery?"
She was upon him in an instant, and managed to slash his arm. But at the same time, several people came racing into her bed chamber taking her by surprise. She recognized Dr. Allerby - her mother’s doctor - right away, and saw huge, burly men in white coats, other men in police uniforms. And her father. He was there. Good god, she had let them trap her. She was in such shock over her carelessness in allowing her great sex with Marco to turn into actual trust of the man, that she did not even put up a fight when the orderlies grabbed the box cutter from her and laid their hands on her to restrain her. When they went to put actual restraints on her, however, she became a screaming beast , terrifying the men who were trying to immobilize her.
She watched as Marco’s shirt was opened and they attended to his cut arm. But it wasn’t his spilling blood that caught her attention, but rather the horrifying sight of the body wire he was wearing. So they had heard it all. Everything she had said and threatened. How she could fool the doctors and the judges. How she had a plan to murder her sister. She was sunk. Her eyes blazed with hatred over Marco. She was sunk because of *him.*
"You will pay for this!" she said spitting in his face as she was taken away, screaming and fighting and spitting the whole way to the waiting caged ambulance. "You all will pay for this! You think you can protect Brenda? Wrong! You think locking me up makes her safe? Dream on!" Giselle began to laugh to the point where she sounded like a hyena. The laughter was incessant and chilling in its tone and its endlessness. The warped laughter was the last thing anyone in the palace heard as she was driven off to the sanitarium.
Prince Armand smiled at Marco. "Well done, my boy. That was close," he said indicating the box cutter which the police slid into an evidence bag.
But Marco was not in the mood for small talk or congratulations on getting the lunatic Giselle locked up. He only wanted one thing.
"Where is Brenda?" he said, his sultry gray eyes, serious. "I believe, according to our deal, that she now belongs to me. So I would like to go and get her *now*. Where is she?"
+ + +
Jax sat in his limousine with the door open, speaking on his car phone, as he watched Brenda who was inside of the Gucci boutique at the counter paying for a pile of outfits she had bought.
"He’s called every day?" Jax was asking Addy.
"Yes, Mr. Jacks. Several times a day. And he never leaves a name. But he has a heavy European accent and no patience whatsoever. He wants to know where you are. He demands it."
"I’ll take care of it," Jax assured her. "You may ignore his calls from now on. Is anything else happening I need to be made aware of?"
"Miss Delgado left several messages for you. She says you’ve got to get started on the ELQ matter the moment you get back, and that your first stop when you get off the plane tomorrow should be her office."
"All right. Anything else?"
"Everything else can wait sir."
"Good. Addy, I’m going to need some help with setting everything up for what I plan for ELQ. Are you up for a few late nights this week with Téa and myself?"
"I’m afraid my husband is down with an awful flu and I really can’t handle a lot of overtime right now, Mr. Jacks."
"All right. Well, then let Lois know I’ll be needing her then," Jax said, referring to Addy’s assistant, Lois Cerullo. "You take off as much time as you need."
"Thank you, Mr. Jacks."
Jax hung up the phone and gazed at his wedding ring thoughtfully. So Brenda’s father was desperately trying to reach him? What about, he wondered. Was Giselle on her way to the states?
Mulder had told him to sever all contact with the palace. But Jax thought this should be an exception. He dialed the palace, but as he was doing so his cellular phone rang. Jax hung up the car phone and answered his cell phone.
"This is Jax."
"Bon matin, Monsieur Jacks, this is Inspector Depardeau. I have some very interesting news that I think you should be made aware of."
"Tell me," Jax said, keeping an eye on his wife.
"My sources tell me that an ambulance left the royal palace half an hour ago."
"An ambulance? Did Brenda’s father have a relapse?"
"No, no, no. The prince is fine. The ambulance was for Giselle. She has been committed," Depardeu announced.
Jax was silent for a moment. "Are you positive? I need you to be positive."
"It is almost definite."
"I can’t accept ‘almost definite’ when Brenda’s safety is in question. When you get concrete confirmation that Giselle Grimaldi is under padded lock and key and labeled criminally insane by the Monaco courts, you tell me. Until then, I’m going to act as if nothing has changed."
"I understand, Mr. Jacks. You will be hearing from me."
Jax ended the call and saw Brenda coming outside, loaded down with her purchases. He stepped out of the car, took the items from her, and loaded them into the trunk.
"Okay, Brenda. You have hit every shop on the Drive," Jax pointed out to her, "so you can’t possibly need anything else."
"I can’t believe that I’ve never been here before!" Brenda said, grabbing hold of his hands. "These boutiques have my name written all over them! Oh, Jax, just *wait* until you see the stuff I got! And *check* out these sunglasses!” she said reaching into one of the bag’s and pulling out a pair of very cool, sexy cat-woman style sunglasses and placing them on. “Aren’t they great?! Here, I got these for you. This is definitely the cool corporate raider look," she said handing him a pair of sunglasses that were definitely something he would have picked out himself. She really had him down to a science he thought with a trace of a smile. “Do you want me to tell you what else I got?” she asked excitedly.
He smiled at her. "I just want you to tell me that you’re done."
"I’m done," she said, kissing him and laughing. "Hey, do you know who I saw in there?"
"Elvis."
She laughed and hit his shoulder. "No, *Leeza!* You know, Leeza Gibbons?"
"Really? That’s nice," Jax said ushering her into the limousine rather quickly, just as Leeza came out of the boutique.
Jax slid into the car and shut the door, but too late; Leeza had already seen him and called out his name loudly, raced over toe the limo and then boldly opened the back door he had just shut.
"Jax! Hi! I’m so glad I ran into you like this. I didn’t know you were in town!”
Ran into him? Ran him down, was more like it.
“Listen, don’t you dare think I’ve forgotten about trying to book you on my show for the world’s most sought after bachelors,” she said, whipping out a pen and pad. “So when would be good for you?”
“Leeza, I already said no the last eight times you asked me.”
“I know, but I’m giving you every opportunity to reconsider. Let’s face it, out of all the corporate raiders of the world, *you* are the one my audience will want to see the most. You really should do it, you know, Jax. You *and* your brother. Ned Ashton and some cousins of his have agreed to do it. And hey, Donald Trump said he was in. Now, you don’t want to be shown up by these big gun competitors of yours, do you?"
Brenda could barely keep still as she waved at Leeza.
Jax wanted to do only one thing. Leave.
"Look, I’m flattered that you *keep* asking me," he said to the talk show hostess, "but I suggest that you stop because I’m just not really interested in . ."
He heard Leeza gasp and realized that she had caught sight of his ring. Her eyes then shot to Brenda and then back to Jax’s hand again.
"Oh my God, you’re . . .you're . . ."
"Late. Bye," Jax said, waving at her and shutting the door, instructing the driver to leave.
"Jax, you know Leeza! Why didn’t you tell me?!" Brenda asked excitedly.
"Who cares about me knowing her or not? Bren, don’t you realize that now the whole world is going to know that I married you a week ago?”
“But her shows are taped in advance. She won’t be able to get it on the air for at least a week, right?”
“She won’t save it for her show. She’s got all these friends connected to Entertainment Tonight - it’s going to be all over the place by tomorrow. Not that I mind letting the world know that you’re mine - I rather like that aspect of it - but I do have a problem with clueing in your demented sister as to your whereabouts."
Jax’s phone rang, and he snatched it up. "What?"
"Monsieur Jacks, this is Depardeu once more. I can positively confirm to you that Princess Giselle has been committed, and is, as you said, under padded lock and key at this very moment."
The timing of Depardeaus’s information could not have been more perfect.
Brenda was not listening to Jax’s phone call, but was instead trying to think of reasons they could give to counter Leeza’s claims that they were married. "We could tell her it was a practical joke we were playing on Jerry," Brenda offered.
Jax hung up the phone and looked at her blankly. "What?"
"Leeza, Jax. I think we can tell her that we’re not really married. We’ll say it was just a joke you were playing on your brother."
Jax smiled at her and surprised her with a provocative kiss. "Don’t worry about her. I just realized that even if she tells the E.T. producers they’re going to have to verify the marriage really took place first, and that’ll take a few days. And when they finally realize it’s the truth, they’ll go to air with it. There’s nothing I can do. But, it’ll be fine." Jax decided, sliding his fingers in between hers.
"It will? But you just said . . ."
"I know what I said, but I just got confirmation of something ," Jax told her. "Your half-sister was carted off to a sanitarium today."
Brenda’s eyes widened. "She was? So does that mean . . .we don’t have to worry about her anymore?"
"Not unless she gets out. And if she does, I’ll know about it way in advance."
Brenda smiled and threw her arms around Jax. "This is great! She was always like this black cloud hovering in the sky, and now the sky is blue!"
Jax laughed. "The sky is blue," he agreed.
"Oh, but you know, I *am* going to miss Fox and his endless conspiracy theories," Brenda confessed.
"Actually . . .no, you’re not," Jax said. "He’s kind of going to be your permanent body-guard, if you don’t object."
Brenda rose an eyebrow. "He is?"
"I think it’s a good idea. Your sister my not be an immediate threat anymore, but who’s to say she won’t become one again in the future? Or that she might not have an ally in her corner working for her from the outside? Foresight, remember? Anyway, when the news of the wedding gets out, the press is going to want to know everything about you and initially they’re going to be following you all over the place whether you like it or not until you give them the slip enough times that they give up. Mulder knows all the tricks of avoiding them. And, lest we forget, I do happen to be a billionaire which makes members of my family constant targets for kidnappings and the like. So, I hope you don’t mind. You seem to like Mulder, so I thought it would be all right. And he’ll only be with you when I’m not, and only when you’re going out somewhere. He’s really good at what he does. You know that, right? And I trust him. And you know me, Bren, I don’t trust a lot of people. But I do trust him. I trust him enough to look after you when I can’t. So . . .you’re not angry about this, are you?"
Brenda smiled reassuringly at him. "No, of course I’m not angry. It’s fine." She kissed him softly.
"Good. One more thing though," Jax said. "Now that your sister has been committed, you do realize that makes you the only person left to ascend to your father’s throne. He knows that too, Brenda. He’s going to want you back."
"I don’t want to go back."
"I know that, but he’ll try to convince you. He’ll play on his desperate need for you. The fact that you are the last in the line . . ."
"But I’m not," she said simply.
Jax narrowed his eyes with interest. "You’re not what?"
"The last Grimaldi."
"You’re not?"
"No, my father had a younger brother, Montague. Now, he died a year ago, but he has a son, Eliot, two years younger than Giselle. My father never got along with Montague so he exiled him a long time ago. They were bitter enemies even though they were brothers. They never saw eye to eye on anything at all. And as prince, my father always swore that no child of Montague’s would ever sit on the throne. But, Eliot does exist, and he’s a Grimaldi. He could definitely inherit the throne if my father had a change of heart."
"Is that likely?"
"Well . . . not really. My father hates Eliot. With a passion. Actually, he probably loathes him. He gets red in the face just talking about him. But you never know . . ." Brenda said optimistically.
"Your father’s personal feelings aside, would your cousin Eliot make a good leader do you think?"
Brenda looked thoughtful. "The last time I ever saw him he was sixteen and I was only eleven. But from what I recall of him, he wasn’t the very responsible sort. He liked cars and girls and money, and too much champagne. He was a lot like his father, which only made my father hate him all the more."
"So you *don’t* think he would make a good leader?"
"Well, I’d have to say no. Unless, maybe, if someone could whip him into shape or. . ."
"Where does he live," Jax interrupted her, getting that corporate raider look of plotting in his beautiful eyes.
"The last I heard he was living with his mother’s relatives here in the states. I don’t know where though. As I said, my father never kept in touch with them. He *did* kick them out of the country, after all. It’s not like he cared what happened to them, as awful as that sounds."
"Who was Eliot’s mother?"
"A despicable, money-hungry, American leech, according to my father."
Jax grinned. "I meant a name."
Brenda tried to recall the name of Eliot’s mother. "Oh it was Tracy," she said. "Tracy Quartermaine."