Cross My Heart Page 22

My best friend, Victoria, just married a guy who had gone to Laramie Academy. I jumped over to social media.

  I hadn’t considered that we’d have a connection, but we did. Several. James, Victoria’s husband, and a couple of guys from college who also grew up in South Dallas.

  Carter Cross barely posted on social media. The last post was a Christmas party where he was tagged by Jasmine Cross.

  A tingle of disappointment flickered through me. Staring at the handsome photos and diving into story after story about how much he loved his family were getting to me.

  I tapped back to a tab with one of the lengthier profiles done in a national sports magazine during March Madness his freshman year. It had a family photo with the caption listing grandmother Etta, mother Angela, sister Jasmine, and brother Nathan.

  So Jasmine wasn’t a wife.

  Of course, he wasn’t married. The North Carolina society articles would have mentioned a wife. All they talked about was his close mentorship with Gregory Kelso, the billionaire CEO and owner of the company where he was an executive.

  Going through social media again, I saw Carter had congratulated James and Victoria on the wedding in a post from their honeymoon. James replied he was sorry Carter didn’t get a chance to be best man.

  So they were close.

  I fell back against my pillows and swirled a finger over the computer trackpad.

  I didn’t know James that well. Victoria met him, fell totally in love, and within a few months, they were engaged. Her family and friends figured we’d have time to get to know him while they planned their wedding, but they up and eloped. I thought Vic’s mom would have a stroke.

  “Everyone’s going to think you’re pregnant!” Mrs. Dixon exclaimed on repeat. But no, they were just head over heels in love.

  Now I regretted the missed wedding more than ever. I was in line to be Victoria’s maid of honor. Carter would have been the best man, and the sexy basketball god and I could have rubbed shoulders, elbows, etc. etc. already. My pulse picked up. Maybe Maya was right. I needed a boyfriend.

  Could I ask James about him? No, that would be weird. And wrong.

  Victoria and everyone else I knew thought I was a freelance writer, and I couldn’t pump them for dirt on a man who, by all accounts, was a good guy. Heroic even. Charity work. Building homes for underprivileged families. Volunteering as a Big Brother.

  I returned to a college photo of Carter grinning and holding up a trophy next to a highlighted quotation of his in the article.

  “Every time I play, I think about making my dad proud.”

  Carter Cross Sr. died when his namesake was little, leaving two kids and a pregnant wife. His mother, Etta, moved in with her daughter-in-law to help, and Carter Jr. and his siblings were raised by both women.

  “Losing a son was hard on Grandma Etta. She talked about him all the time and said she never wanted me to forget the people who mattered in bringing me into this world,” the article quoted.

  Further down the page, a smartly dressed, woolen-haired woman stood in front of Carter in a photo, straightening a bright, embellished pocket square sticking out of his suit jacket. The caption read, “Etta Cross prepares grandson, Carter, for his high school graduation.”

  The sweetness of the image squeezed my chest, and I tamped down emotion. I knew from reading another article that his grandmother died before his junior year at Duke. Flipping back to read more, one line grabbed me.

  “Moving up from working as a domestic in the oil fields of West Texas to owning her own home goods and design business in Dallas, Etta Cross embodied the perseverance and determination you see in Carter’s game.”

  She used to live in oil country? Could it have been in the same dusty towns where J.P. Star got his start?

  It could be a coincidence. There was no reason to assume they knew each other—except that Carter was at the office to meet with the estate lawyers and the rest of the Star family. Etta and J.P. could be the connection.

  I spent an hour digging to find more information on Carter Cross Sr. and turned up little else. Carter talked about missing his father and how he taught him to be strong and to mind his mother. That’s it.

  Carter Sr. had graduated from Texas Southern University and met his wife, Angela, there. They moved back to Dallas for his run-of-the-mill office job. Everything of note related to Carter Jr. and his basketball career—even the more recent articles about the younger man’s business life.

  And as much as the college articles loved talking about Etta Cross, she refused to be interviewed and was only quoted once. “I don’t know why you’d want to talk to me. Unless needlepoint is a sport, he’s the star,” she told the reporter.

  Proud, smart, and humble with a dry sense of humor. I double-clicked the high school graduation photo to get a better look at Carter’s grandmother.

  Even though the image was in profile, I could see the pride etched into the arch of her smile as she made sure he looked his best. A few other pictures also showed the sparkle in her ginger brown eyes. In her older age, she was still an eye-catching beauty. In her youth, she would have been a stunner.

  Maybe she caught a young and fiery oil wildcatter’s eye? It would have been an unlikely pairing, fraught with problematic dynamics. Him, a brash, white upstart known for taking risks and getting into scraps. Her, a young, black domestic worker trying to elevate her life in segregated Texas.

  A sick feeling settled over me looking at the photo. This woman’s life—and Carter’s—being gossip didn’t have the same sense of fun as digging up dirt on J.P., but I couldn’t afford to think that way.

  The truth was the truth. I didn’t create the stories. I just told them.

  Etta didn’t have to be the star of the tale, but she could be the key.

  33

  Carter

  “I have a dilemma.”

  I swept a hand across the stubble peppering my chin. I needed a shave. And a bourbon. I glanced from the desk in front of me to the tray of liquor my mother kept on the office credenza in her Kessler Park home. I decided to stay for a week and work remotely while I sorted out the newly discovered family drama.

  Mom was traveling with her church group and wouldn’t be back for a few more days. I hadn’t said anything to her over the phone, and I also hadn’t said anything to Jazz or Nate yet.

  My sister would probably put a hex on me the minute she found out I didn’t tell her right away. I might have called her, but every time the thought surfaced, I stopped. I needed more time to process before letting her or Nate enter the fray.

  Before I told them about our not-so-dearly departed new grandpa, I wanted to know what Mom knew. And I needed to figure out what I was going to do about my job and my life—neither of which were here in Dallas with a pack of angry aunts and cousins. After all, if I didn’t want to uproot everything I’d worked for, there was no inheritance to discuss.

  Ringing up my boss to ask him if I should quit my job probably wasn’t the most strategic maneuver. But Gregory Kelso was more than a boss. He’d been my mentor. He trusted me to guide his company as he eased into retirement. He’d trusted me more than his own flesh and blood at one point.

  For years, he’d championed me even when board members at Kelso Engineering balked at the arrogant, black kid—not that I was young enough to claim that anymore—who’d finished his MBA at Duke and been ready to tackle business world. As strange as it was to some, Gregory and I were kindred spirits.

  Now, I was supposed to drop him like trash and go chasing oil money because some old cheat with a questionable relationship to my grandmother insisted his life was my “legacy.”

  “Trouble at home?” Gregory asked.

  “No…not home…well, here in Dallas,” I fumbled, then took a deep breath to pull it together. I couldn’t very well get Gregory’s sage advice if I couldn’t explain the situation without stumbling like a fool.

  “Say it straight. Trust me. If I’ve learned anything in the past year, it’s
that saying your peace straight out can avoid a mountain of complications,” he replied in a tone so dry it parched the phone line.

  Gregory was in the middle of a nasty divorce from a woman he never should have married. A woman he never would have married had she not lied to him about the paternity of her unborn child. What’s worse than that is the biological father was his own son. Griffin Kelso hadn’t known his ex-girlfriend was sleeping with him and his father. And Gregory hadn’t known Marisa was still sleeping with his son.

  But he had known Marisa was his son’s ex. Getting mixed up with her at all was a mistake, and he was paying for it now. Who knew what excising Marisa Kelso from his life would cost Gregory? The man was a billionaire, and with that much money on the table, even a prenup wouldn’t be enough to dissuade a golddigger like Marisa from trying to take a chunk out of his hide on her way out the door. She even tried to drag me into her mess.

  I shook the memory out of my head. Marisa wasn’t my problem.

  “This is highly confidential. I promised I wouldn’t say anything yet. If the media—”

  “You know me, Carter. I won’t say a thing,” he promised.

  “I have a job offer.” Why I started there, I didn’t know.

  “Oh.” Surprise laced Gregory’s exclamation.

  “It’s complicated.” I sighed. “Remember how I told you that my father never knew his father? My grandmother moved to Dallas when he was about three. She told everyone she was a widow. We all suspected that wasn’t true, but there seemed no point in digging where she obviously wanted to leave things alone. Now, we know for sure.”

  “People weren’t kind to unmarried mothers then,” he said.

  Nor did women have much recourse if a man forced himself on her. Especially a woman like my grandmother dealing with a well-respected, increasingly wealthy oil man in the late 1950s. I didn’t know if that’s what happened, and I might never know. But I had a hard time picturing the circumspect woman who lectured me about keeping my basketball shorts up involving herself with a notorious wild man like J.P. Star.

  Whispers and stories of the man running the town with women a third his age circulated even before his wife’s death several years ago. Despite his advancing age, he liked women and booze, and he used his buckets of money to chase good times with both for decades.

  All that, and he still had the nerve to be irritated about his grandsons, Anthony and Jude, following suit.

  “As it happens…” I released another sigh and rolled the phone over in my hand, pressing the earbud deeper into my ear. “There was more to her move to Dallas than we knew. My father’s father lives here. Lived here. He just died.”

  “Did you meet him?” Gregory asked.

  “No.”

  A hollow sadness carved its way into my chest, and I thought about that intimidating stare of his glowering from every picture and painting in the company offices. Cold blue eyes following every employee on the executive floor. His family didn’t appear to miss him, so how could I?

  Of course, I was his family. The strangeness of that kept hitting me.

  “His lawyer notified me of the connection after his death at Christmas. I’m in the man’s will and so are my brother and sister.” I snorted softly. “That was news to his family.”

  Gregory huffed a laugh. “Are you inheriting the family business?”

  “In a sense.”

  “What did the man do?”

  “Produce a million plus barrels of oil per day, give or take,” I quipped. “And refine it. And turn it into plastic and assorted materials clogging landfills.”

  Okay, maybe that was unfair.

  “Wait? He died on Christmas? Your grandfather wasn’t…” Gregory gasped. “Holy shit.”

  “Language, Gregory,” I laughed, repeating what I’d heard him say a thousand times to interns and execs alike.

  “J.P. Star?”

  His gruff voice twisted up to a shocked register, and I dug the heel of my hand into my eye socket.

  “You’re J.P. Star’s grandson? And here I was thinking a takeover of Kelso Engineering would be the height of accomplishment.” Gregory had never expressed any level of envy before, certainly not in business. “What job?”

  “This is where it gets tricky. It’s a privately held company.”

  “One of the largest in the world.”

  “Totally family run.”

  “I’ve met Theresa and Ken Hunter,” Gregory began in a tone laced with warning. “Of course, Ken retired a few years ago. Theresa… She wouldn’t be happy about your working in the file room if it meant displacing one of her kids. I’m guessing J.P.’s vision was bigger than that.”

  “He wants—wanted—to groom me to be CEO.” Saying the fact out loud didn’t make it any less surreal to me. “I’m happy where I am. I don’t want to run an oil company. I don’t know anything about running an oil company.”

  “You’d learn.”

  I knew construction and real estate. I knew financing. I knew negotiation and organizational management. Learning an industry took hard work, and there was no shortcut to experience. But I’d done it once, and if I wanted to—and could finagle the support of other leaders—I could do it again.

  Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “That was the old man’s idea, but he created a massive wrinkle. Everyone’s inheritance—not just mine, Jasmine’s, and Nate’s, but the rest of the family too—hinges on my spending three years learning the operations and then another three as CEO,” I explained.

  That wasn’t entirely true. J.P. let Quinn off the hook. Get the fuck out. That’s was her advice.

  But I couldn’t turn my back on the possibilities, could I? This could mean financial security for my family for generations on a grander scale than I could imagine.

  “So it’s you or nothing.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, he certainly knew his family. That’s about the only way his daughters would let that happen,” Gregory said.

  “I didn’t get the sense Marie had much say.”

  “Maybe not. Theresa is the real power center. Marie and her husband—I can’t even remember his first name.”

  “Robert. He’s semi-retired, invests in things, works on boards. She’s involved in charities and runs the Star Foundation.”

  “She’s a mellower, more congenial sort,” he said. “They take the money, but the Gales never exert much influence in the business. It’s Theresa, Ken, and their oldest—what’s her name?”

  “Reese.”

  “Yes. Reese. Cut from the same cloth as her mother.”

  “Really? I got the sense they don’t get along. In fact, Theresa doesn’t seem to engender much love and support—even in her own family,” I replied.

  “It’s tough being the one wield the family’s influence and hold things together. I don’t know that she’s a terrible person, she’s just— Listen, I’m sure many people think I’m a jerk,” Gregory mused with a laugh. “Though I try to be fair.”

  I sighed. “I know you do. That’s what makes this difficult. I’m happy where I am.”

  “You were happy where you were. With a bigger win hovering out there for the taking, you wouldn’t stay happy.”

  He was right. The thought of the challenge and the incredible reward on the other side made the opportunity nearly irresistible—even though I knew the Stars would try to drag me to hell and back to get me out as soon as possible.

  I sat back in my chair as a new certainty took hold. “You were just about to retire. We fought to position everything so I could take over. Your son has moved on. And I—”

  He broke in with a dispassionate objection. “That isn’t your problem.”

  I dropped my fist to the table. “It is my problem. I’ve worked for there for nearly fifteen years. I made a commitment to you—to myself. The company has meant as much to me as it has to you.”

  “And now it won’t,” he snapped with gentle paternalism. “This is bigger th
an your personal ambitions, and I can tell by the sound of your voice, you’re just trying to figure out a way to tell me you’re leaving despite every best intention you’ve ever had. I appreciate that, but it’s unnecessary.”

  It was. I was abandoning the man who’d been a father figure to me since I met him at a Duke booster club event two decades ago. I was turning my back on him to chase something I didn’t even want. Not really.

  And why? Because of some miscellaneous connections that only existed under a microscope. I knew practically nothing about these people, and what I knew, I didn’t like.

  “You’re an important person to me,” I said.

  “And you’re important to me. Moving on doesn’t change that. I’ll always be here to remind you about your language and to help you navigate the shark-infested waters of business or life or whatever you need. Always,” he promised.

  “Who’s going to run the company?”

  “I will. I’m in better health than ever. Getting divorced has given me a second wind. I have a 125-pound boulder off my neck.” He laughed. “We’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll need to start at J.P. Star Energy ASAP.”

  “Don’t worry. That’s why we have succession plans. We’ll transition in a few weeks.”

  “I’m in the middle of—” I stopped. My to-do list always ran into the thousands. Trying to find a stopping point on every project would take months, if not years. Executives changed jobs all the time.

  I don’t know what bothered me more, leaving or realizing this job that consumed every waking moment of my life could be dropped so quickly.

  What was I doing with my life?

  But the existential crisis would have to wait. What I was doing was taking care of myself and my family. It’s what I’d always done. Gregory understood that.

  Air seeped out of my chest, and I forced myself to relax. Getting wound up didn’t solve problems.

  “I’ll be back next week. We can settle everything. And I’ll let you know if and when we’re lifting our veil of secrecy.” I chuckled.

  “Of course. Not a problem. I won’t say a word to anyone and start handling things on my end.”