Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

Considering Jameson was the only one with a brain and any grit (outside Patricia), he essentially told them all to go fuck themselves, moved to New York upon graduating from UT at twenty, became a stockbroker and eventually made enough money he could buy and sell his father and all his family’s vast holdings ten times over.

In that mix, there were various wastrel grandchildren of AJ’s who he publicly despised and had no problem sharing that with anyone who asked.

And there were a number who did.

Including the copious reporters who dogged his every step because he was so good for a quote that would rile up feminists and/or the liberal left, or, frankly, anyone with any amount of civility or modicum of good breeding. His shenanigans didn’t only drive clickbait to articles, retweets of AJs exploits were off the hook.

He was so famous for all of this, I was surprised I’d never heard of him.

Then again, I viewed Twitter only for videos of pandas and baby huskies running through huge piles of snow (and the like).

Indeed, AJ despised all his offspring, except Jameson, who had nothing to do with him, Patricia, who also had nothing to do with him, and the “chip off the old block,” his beloved grandson.

Judge.

If he thought Judge was a chip off the old block, he’d either not been around him in a while or dementia was setting in.

And as he was an octogenarian on the wrong side of that mark, I wasn’t being cruel in noting that last possibility.

Judge somehow (magic?) had escaped all of this (at least in the press), even though his name was noted frequently (he was now AJ’s vehemently touted heir).

If he was mentioned otherwise, it was as Jameson’s “estranged son.” And on a variety of Google searches, I’d noted there were far more pictures of Judge with Duncan than there were of Judge with his father or grandfather (even though there were some…with both).

Jameson and Belinda’s divorce was, as Dad mentioned, picked apart with utter glee, as the press liked to do with beautiful, rich people who had fallen into heartbreaking times (Jameson, predictably, was also immensely attractive—more rough-hewn and wolfish than his son, but nevertheless exceptionally handsome).

In what was available to read online from back in the day, or what was resurrected due to the public’s captivation by the mighty or beautiful who fall (in other words, people were still writing about it, and I did not have the time to watch them, but in my research I discovered there was both a short hour and a half documentary and a newsmagazine show about it), I learned it was no secret that Belinda had a drinking problem. Further, it was wildly speculated she did vast amounts of cocaine and popped any pill going.

As to why, outside having an addictive personality (and/or a cheating husband), no one knew, because either Jameson’s people had a chokehold on the spin, or what came across was actually true. That being it was widely reported, even if it was he who cheated on her, that he was the wronged man. The somber husband who had been “besotted” with his wife and “forced” to look elsewhere when she did not accept his many pleas to get help.

Yes, but of course this flew two and a half decades ago.

And apparently, it still did now.

This was, I would admit, helped along by the fact that Jameson clearly adored his second wife, Rosalind (I hadn’t had time to fully fall down that rabbit hole, but this was so clear, the little time I had for it made it so—indeed, there wasn’t a single picture of them where they didn’t seem to be ridiculously into each other, and these pictures spanned decades).

Judge’s parents had separated when he was five, and he’d grown up “the poor tyke, not really knowing his daddy, and forced to live with that bitter husk of a woman who is his mother,” an alleged direct quote by AJ.

To put a fine point on it, Judge’s upbringing had been a shitshow, with a mom who was apparently a junkie, a dad who had slightly less money than God (and that god was my Uncle Corey) who “fought for him,” but still somehow never managed to win, and a grandfather who might just be Satan incarnate, who butted his nose in whenever it suited him.

Obviously, I failed spectacularly in keeping all of this off my mind as I strolled down Judge’s path.

Equally obviously, his big windows had many views.

Including to my arrival.

And therefore, the door opened when I was three feet from it.

My heart stuttering, I looked up, but my gaze snagged on a massive chest that was not Judge’s.

Up further I went and saw his best friend, Rix standing there.

Well…

Fabulous.

“Hello,” I greeted.

“Hey,” he grunted, looking me top to toe, his sensuous lips (something I could note now, being up close to him) becoming an irate line. He twisted at the waist and shouted. “Yo, man, she’s here!”