The Has-Been and the Hot Mess - Isabel Jordan Page 0,46

Kendall is the…” Most amazing? Sexiest? Future Mrs. Jackson Hale? “…strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

Her eyes narrowed on him in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable. If eye contact could be sharp enough to cut through a body, Lilian had pretty much just peeled back his skin and skull and taken a good long look at his brain. It was fucking unnerving.

Eventually she said, “You really do care about her, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do.” Zero hesitation.

She kept studying him with that scalpel-edged gaze of hers before finally settling back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest, and smiling at him. “Good. Kendall is special. Always has been. But her taste in men? Absolute crap. Frankly, when I met you, I was concerned you might be a complete douchebag for no other reason than Kendall seems so enamored with you. That seems to be her type. But I thought, oh well, at least this one is relatively decent looking, seems to have his finances in order, and isn’t her boss.”

Well, that was a lot to unpack, wasn’t it? “Um…thanks?”

She waved him off. “Don’t get me wrong. You seem nice enough. But then again, they all do when they meet me. Company manners, I call it. They put on their company manners and try to pretend they aren’t shitbags, you know?”

He nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure he had any earthly clue what she was talking about.

“But you,” she went on, shaking her head, “you fly her out here to help take care of her family when there isn’t much of anything in it for you.”

Jackson frowned. “It wasn’t about me. But I’m here for her. So, really, I can’t claim that there isn’t something in it for me.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “You put Kendall’s needs ahead of your own and don’t expect anything from her in return. And you look at her the exact same way she looks at you. That’s what I’ve been dying to see in any of the long string of losers my Kendall has brought home.”

Now that was truly interesting. He leaned forward. “And how exactly do I look at her?”

Her smile reminded him so much of Kendall that his heart stuttered for a moment. “Like you’ve been blind for a hundred years, living in the dark, and now you can finally see the sun.”

Just the thought of Kendall looking at him like that made him happier than he probably had any right to be. “Thank you,” he said, well and truly humbled.

She grabbed his hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “Thank you. You see Kendall for the amazing, wonderful, complete disaster that she is, and you wouldn’t change a thing. You’re exactly who she needs.”

Frank harrumphed into his beer. “He’ll fuck it up. That’s what musicians do.” Then he let out a belch—without covering his mouth, of course—loud enough to draw the attention of every restaurant patron within a ten-table radius.

Lovely. So much for his sweet bonding moment with the woman who may (with any luck) be his future mother-in-law.

“Excuse me. You’re Jackson Hale, aren’t you?”

Jackson glanced up at the man who’d just approached their table. “Guilty as charged,” he replied, putting on his best you’re-interrupting-my-dinner-but-I’ll-try-not-to-be-a-jerk-to-you smile.

“I’m a big fan,” the guy said with a smarmy smile. But something about his tone was off. He didn’t sound like a fan at all.

Lilian looked up and practically hissed at the guy. “What the hell are you doing here?”

So Lilian knew the guy. And it was the first time in Jackson’s acquaintance with her that she visibly looked ready to throw down with someone.

The guy gave her an oily, fake-as-melted-plastic smile that showed off a mouthful of shiny white caps. “Lilian,” he practically cooed. “So lovely to see you again.”

Jackson didn’t know who this turd was, and he didn’t necessarily care. The fake smile, the overly styled hair, the pretentiously overpriced, fussy suit, the obvious spray tan…this man was a douchebag. And if Lilian didn’t like him, neither did Jackson.

So Jackson stood up. A perverse part of him was pleased when the guy took a hearty step back. Jackson also realized he was at least four inches taller than this guy, and outweighed him by at least twenty pounds of lean muscle. A totally immature thing to realize? Sure it was. But that didn’t stop Jackson from reveling in it. Just a little, anyway.

He stuck his hand out to the guy. “Jackson Hale. And you are?”

The fussy guy took his