JACE (Lane Brothers Book 3) (53 page)

When Nat and Lena leave, I do what I should have done months ago and go stalker on my husband. I search everything he owns and find nothing. It’s as I’m slumped dejectedly at his desk that I realize I’m going about this the wrong way.

Of course I won’t find anything worthwhile in his things; he’s not interested in controlling himself, because it’s me he’s been after for months. What I find when I go through my drawers pisses me off as much as it warms my heart.

A quick internet search later and I am totally sure that he’s been playing me the whole time. Sure, it’s kinda sweet and romantic, if you go in for being married to a psycho.

I’m not that girl, so instead of having the warm and cuddlies I’m so furious I could spit.

I keep the rage festering all day and into the evening hours till I hear his footsteps crunching up the drive and to the door. When he walks in and sees me he smiles broadly and prowls my way, giving me his most charming heavy-lidded stare.

“Darlin’, you look good enough to eat,” he drawls, intensifying the look with a carnal onceover and a predatory smile.

It vanishes when I drop my birth control and the wedding invitation on the coffee table, his wince telling me everything I need to know.

“Han—”

“You must be the most ruthless, controlling man I have ever met,” I say between gritted teeth, daring him to explain it all.

Greg takes a step back when I rise, my fists balled at my sides.

“You are such a liar!” I yell, getting worked up the longer he takes to confess his—

I don’t even know what to call this. It takes his controlling ways to a new level of low and—

“The wedding thing… I can’t even begin to explain how weird that is, but the birth control! Jesus, Greg, do you know how wrong that is? We’re already married! You didn’t have to swap out my pills. We could have talked about it.”

“And what?” he demands, flinging his hands up. “You would have done what you always do and told me to relax. I can’t… You have to understand, once I have a plan I follow it to the letter. You make… You never do what I expect you to, and it drives me crazy!”

My eyes roll heavenward, and I flop back to the sofa with a sigh.

“So you swapped out my birth control. Why?”

He runs his hands through his hair and flings his jacket and tie to the table before pinning me with his gaze, a gaze that is as steely as it is pleading.

“You were so happy when you found out you weren’t pregnant, while I…was devastated,” he admits. “I was going to propose to you that morning after the tests came back positive…”

“But—”

“And then it was negative, and I was so angry at you for being so happy about it. I thought if you’re that thrilled about being free of me… So I called Lena and told her the wedding was a surprise, that she should play along… Hell, I guess I just wanted to hurt you for making me feel… I don’t… I wanted everything arranged so that you couldn’t back out when the time came.”

He’s so at odds with the sure and authoritative man I know that I realize exactly what his intentions were. He’d made me plan my own goddamned wedding, knowing how much it hurt me, all for a little revenge and the chance to get what he wanted without making himself vulnerable.

I should be furious. I should kick him in the balls and make him suffer for the way I’d felt. And for tricking me into getting pregnant. There are a million things I should be doing right now instead of allowing that warm, squishy feeling to invade me as I watch him flounder desperately.

“So let me get this straight. You made me plan that wedding, thinking you were marrying Lena, just to hurt me for being happy about the test results?”

He nods once, and I see color bloom on his cheeks.

“Then you forced me to marry you, again, because you wanted me to think you were getting back at me for breaking the engagement?”

“Yes.”

“And then you made sure you got me pregnant—”

“That was after I fucked up our honeymoon so badly! You were so cold, and you stopped telling me you love me. I went a little crazy—”

“Yeah,” I say with a snort. “All you had to do was say you love me, you idiot. Jesus, you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to avoid saying three little words that would have gotten you what you wanted right from the beginning.”

Is it wrong for me to enjoy his discomfort this much? Probably, but as I watch him squirm and flounder for a way out of the mess he’s made, I feel more amusement than a sane woman should.

Maybe…maybe I am just as nuts as he seems to be, because instead of being horrified by this, I’m so happy I could burst. Greg may not be good at saying the words, but boy has the man gone all out proving it.

The long and short of it is that he’s loved me from the start and done everything in his power to have me. It’s flattering and crazy and so him I can’t help giggling when he drops to his knees in front of me and bites his lip.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“Yes, you most definitely will. Now tell me you love me, you lunatic.”

He shakes his head and kisses me instead, laughing when I slap him away and glare.

“I don’t do love. I told you that,” he says solemnly. “What we have goes so beyond that…we fit.”

I kiss him this time, showing him that I understand, that I accept this one small flaw he seems unable to conquer. I’ll never have the words, something I’m not entirely happy about, to be honest, but I have the man.

And the proof.

A lot of marriages are made up of smooth-talking cheaters who can talk the talk as easily as they change their socks. What I have is a man who lets his actions speak for themselves.

I kiss him and love him, knowing that I am loved and that he’ll keep showing me — wordlessly — for the rest of my life. We do fit. We belong together, and that’s all I need to know.

# End #

“You’re on shift tonight, Ash!”

Oh God, not again.

“Bill, I told you yesterday: I’m working tonight. I can only come back in after eight.”

It’s always like this. My boss, Bill Grace, starts barking nonsense at me, and I spend ten minutes yelling at him that if he didn’t pay me such a crappy salary I wouldn’t have to work another job just to keep my life semi-liveable.

Now he wants a double shift out of me, I have to get to my second job in half an hour, and I still need to get Ben home and fed before getting to work.

Dammit.

“Goddammit, Ash. We’re short staffed! Call in to your other gig and get the night off,” he yells at me through the window up front, his milky blue eyes bloodshot and fierce.

I adore Bill, really I do, but if I have to spend another minute explaining my life to this asshole, I’ll scream my damn head off!

“No. Now get your ass in here and start the next orders. I need to go get Ben before I’m late for my bus,” I mutter, untying my apron and tossing it at the hook behind me.

Bill mutters something I’m not sure is very complimentary to me, or women in general, and I duck out into the heat of the city, relieved that I still have time to hop my bus and get to Ben before his dragon of a teacher gives me another lecture.

Half an hour later I have my recalcitrant ten-year-old boy and we’re jogging home, trying to beat the downpour I can smell on the air.

“Run faster, Ash! We’re gonna get wet if you take so long, slow poke!” he yells, dragging at my hand.

Of course, he’s ten and hasn’t been working since five in the morning, has boundless energy, and isn’t bogged down by two bags and groceries, so he wouldn’t understand that I’m dead on my feet and a blink away from collapse.

Thankfully we make it into the house just as the first drop falls, and I rush around, getting dinner ready—a microwave meal, don’t judge—and checking his homework as I wait for Miranda, his baby sitter, to arrive.

“Hey, Ash!”

“In here, Randy!” I yell, giving Ben’s hair a rub as the exuberant young college girl bounces in with a smile that never fails to make me happy. “I’ve got him fed, and his homework’s done. Make sure he bathes—”

“Aaaw! I bathed last night,” he grumbles petulantly, reminding me of the huge attitude problem he’s got lately.

This is why Randy can’t get him from school anymore and why I’m being torn apart working two jobs and keeping his teachers happy. The little brat has become just that, a brat, and a damned bully to boot, forcing me to run myself ragged to personally get him from school and get him home before he can hurt another kid.

“Human beings bathe every day, whether they like it or not! Now get your ass upstairs and clean before I kick it, little boy!” I yell, losing my temper, something I swore to the school shrink I wouldn’t do.

Ben’s…reacting to our mother’s death three years ago, and our father’s subsequent abandonment of everything that even resembled her. In short, he took off the minute her casket hit the grave, and we haven’t heard from him since.

I’d dropped out of college just to keep my little brother out of foster care and to keep the little house Mom had left us from foreclosure. Most days we scrape even, if we’re lucky, and I have about as much chance of finishing off my college degree as winning the lottery.

Now I also have to deal with Ben acting out.

“He still giving the kids at school knuckle sandwiches?” Randy asks, clearing Ben’s plate and turning to me with a sympathetic grimace.

“Not since he’s been forced into homework detention. At least his grades are better,” I mutter, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. “I left your money in the middle drawer, and I bought you those pencils you need for that art class. Bye, Rand!”

I make it to the bus with not a second to spare, my clothes so wet I leave a puddle trailing behind me as I take a seat and clench my teeth against the shivers wracking me.

By the time I make it to the Jasper building, I look like a drowned rat and I’m sneezing so much I know I’m going to get a cold. Shit, just what I need right now, getting sick on top of my work schedule and trying to keep Ben from Juvie.

I make it to the locker room—a small closet with two lockers for our stuff—and change quickly, pulling my hair back into a severe, drenched bun before rushing out with my cart to get started.

Two hours later I am sniffling and miserable, but blessedly done for now. I’ve never felt this shitty, and one look in the tiny mirror hanging from my locker tells me I look as bad as I feel.

My long, light brown hair is frizzing around my head, thanks to the fever sweats I’ve had for the last hour, and my nose is red as a tomato. My light gray eyes, though, are what tell the true story. They’re glassy and drooping with fatigue.

And I still have to go back to the diner.

“I want that fucking information tonight, or you can pack your shit and get the fuck out of my company.”

I hear the growling voice through the door I’m passing on my way to the elevator and pause. The clipped tone of that voice…not to mention that highbrow English accent…where have I heard that before?

“Do you not like your job, Isaac?” I hear, wrenching back when I realize I’ve stopped and have my ear pressed firmly to the dark wood panel by the door.

I can’t hear the answer, so I assume whoever this man is so harshly lambasting is either too cowed to speak up or is on the other side of a phone line.

Whatever, I’m just glad I’m not the one on the receiving end of that icy snarl. I’m about to turn away and head for the elevator, not wanting to be later for work than I already am thanks to the slowness my cold has brought on, when I feel a wave of dizziness overcome me.

The assault has dark spots blinking before my eyes, and I feel my legs weaken precariously and wobble before I can blink the spell away. The vertigo, along with the sudden nausea, dumps me flat on my ass before I can catch myself, and I end up on the floor, facedown with my ass sticking high in the air, swallowing through the bile lining my throat.

My descent must have made some sort of noise because when I blink my eyes again, regaining some of my senses, I’m cradled against the heat of a strong, muscled chest.

“Jesus, you’re burning up.”

That voice does something weird to my insides, and I shiver, pushing closer to his heat, needing to get as close as humanly possible for some inexplicable reason.

I can’t smell him, thanks to my stuffy nose, so I do the next best thing and shove my leaky nose into the smooth skin at his neck. The feeling I get from that small connection leaves me reeling as he easily carries me into his office—I’m short but in no way lacking in some weight—and lays me down on the sofa.

He straightens, pulling his heat and strength away, and I mewl, wanting to follow but so tired suddenly I can’t lift so much as a finger. When he’s upright and towering over me I get a good look at my rescuer and gasp, frozen to the spot by his hard beauty.

His hair is the color of burnt caramel, long enough to reach his collar but short enough that it lacks that bad boy look most men go for these days. Not that he needs anything as dumb as hair to give him that aura, I think dazedly. He’s already got that shit down in spades.

His eyes, though, those penetrating aqua eyes, are what get me.

“Oh my God. An angel.” I blame my overheated, mushy brain for that idiocy.

A round of deep masculine chuckles echo around my fever-soaked brain, and I flinch, becoming very aware that there are four other men in the office, all staring down at me with deeply amused gazes. And that I’ve said that aloud.

Embarrassment.

“She must be really feverish if she’s thinking you’re that good, Luc.”

I turn my head—well, it bobbles in the direction of that deeply amused voice—to see a blonde Adonis staring down at me with a look of mirth lining his face.

“Get out.”

“Luc, the poor girl’s obviously sick and in need of medical attention. Let me—”

“Get out.”

Two words, barked so savagely I feel my jellified muscles tense, ready to take my sick ass running through the door—but no, he must have said it to the others because we’re left alone in the space of mere seconds, the door slamming shut amidst grumbles and what sounds like regret.

For some reason, something I can’t explain, I feel myself bolt up off the sofa, my body all of a sudden wanting flight as those cold, hard eyes stay focused on me, doing strange things to my insides.

“Uh, thanks…um, for helping me? I need to get going,” I breathe, keeping my eyes fixed on his coiled body as I inch my way toward the door.

For whatever reason, embarrassment notwithstanding, because yeah, I’m still vain enough to know that while this man, this…perfect specimen looks like a walking GQ ad, I look like absolute crap—I feel the stirrings of fear and the need to run and keep running till I’m completely clear of him.

I can’t say why, not really, but as I scuttle covertly toward the exit I know, deep down, where my feminine instincts reside, that if I don’t get the hell out of here soon, I’m going to be in way over my head with this guy.

“Stop.”

That one word freezes the blood in my veins, but I fight through the feeling and my continuing dizziness in an effort to get out of here before I do something stupid like tell him how startlingly attractive he is.

That would be…terrible, because, while I’m not a dog, I am definitely just a plain Jane type of woman and so not even close to his league.

“Um, I need to go,” I breathe, feeling my adrenaline spike when my hand closes over the door handle and pushes down. “I have to get to back to work.”

I want to say I manage to turn the handle gracefully and make an elegant escape. Nope. What happens is, I fumble with the handle under my sweaty pam and all but fall out of that office, stumbling to the empty elevator on liquefied legs.

It’s only as I ride the car down, slowing my breaths enough to ease the pounding in my aching skull, that I know why I’ve run so fast. I recognize those startling, penetrating eyes.

They belong to an event in my past that almost destroyed my young heart, an event that set me on the path to self-preservation and the need to keep myself separate from anyone or anything that can hurt me.

Those eyes belong to Lucian Jasper, the love of my girlhood and the same boy—man, who’d broken my heart so callously I still feel the sting of tears when I think of it.