If a guy had money, some kind of status, if he had the kind of looks women liked, that was the way things went.
He—for that matter, he and his brothers—had all those things.
For starters, they’d been born to money. Their father’s, sure, but beyond that, their mother had left each of them a hefty trust fund.
Jake had let his sit in the bank. Then he’d wised up and invested it with Travis.
Even now, driving through the night in pursuit of a woman who’d probably love nothing more than to kick him where he lived, remembering how he’d done it made him smile.
He’d cornered his brother the night before he shipped out the first time and handed him a check.
Travis, who’d been just starting up his own financial firm, had looked at the sum, then at Jake. He gave a soft whistle.
“You want me to handle it all?”
“Every dollar.”
“Risk … or no risk?”
Jake’s reply had been a grin. Travis had grinned, too, and the deal was made.
Jake had pretty much forgotten about it after that. When you were busy keeping your ass from getting shot off, money wasn’t much on your mind.
He came home on leave, Travis handed him a statement. That time, Jake was the one who’d whistled.
His seven figures had tripled. God only knew what it had grown to by now, despite the tough economic times.
As for status …
He was the son of a general. That was big, but in Texas, being the son of the man who owned El Sueño was even bigger.
Still, Jake had acquired his own kind of status early on.
At sixteen, he’d been a star high school quarterback. At eighteen, half a dozen top schools had offered him scholarships. At nineteen, pro scouts were already looking at him.
And at twenty, he’d walked away from college and football to enlist in the army, where he’d flown into the heart of battle.
As for his looks …
It was that DNA thing again.
He was tall. Lean. Muscular. His nose had a bump in it, courtesy of a burly defensive lineman, but that didn’t work against him at all.
Women went for the entire package.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
He still had the money. The status. The looks …?
He didn’t much care.
He knew his wounds made people uncomfortable. Like tonight. People looked at him, they flinched, they averted their eyes, they showed pity.
Pity was the worst of all.
As for seeing his own face in the mirror every morning—it was still a shock, but not because of vanity. It was a shock because it was a constant reminder of his failure.
“You need to give that up, Captain,” one of the shrinks had told him. “Get a prosthetic eye. Let people—let yourself-—see the real you.”