One Day His (The Someday Series Book 2) (14 page)

My heart pounded loudly in my chest and my hands were actually shaking with suppressed fury. Not from fear—I wanted one of them to say something,
anything
, to give me a reason to knock Jerry’s fucking teeth out. I wouldn’t hit a woman, but I would beat the shit out of any man who stood up for a woman I did want to hit. I was primed for a fight; I wanted one. Every day that we stayed here, I felt the darkness in me growing stronger and stronger. My jaw ticked as my stare shot between Jerry and Angelica, who each appeared equal parts shocked and scared.

I purposely didn’t look over at Cat. She’d been trying to smooth things over and keep me from getting into a full-blown confrontation since we’d gotten here. I knew that this wasn’t what she’d wanted to happen. But right now, I didn’t care. All I cared about was making sure that these two pieces of shit knew how serious I was. It wasn’t like I’d given in to the anger and the rage the way I’d wanted to. I hadn’t let myself cross that line, but I kept feeling myself getting closer and closer to it. I couldn’t let that happen. Not again.

Just thinking about it made me feel hollow inside. Empty. I knew that I needed to tell Cat about my past. I’d skimmed the surface, but there were major details I’d left out, and she deserved to know. It just seemed like shit kept getting piled on top of us that we had to shovel our way out of, and the few times that things had been smooth sailing, I selfishly hadn’t wanted to rock the boat. I would ask—beg, even—for Cat to forgive me later, make her understand that I hadn’t had a choice.

Then something happened that told me that I might not have to grovel after all. I felt Cat’s thin arms snake around my waist, holding on tight, and her head snuggle into the crook of my neck. I slipped my arms around her as well and kissed the top of her head but kept my eyes trained on Angelica and Jerry.

We rode that way, the four of us, in tense silence the whole forty-five minutes back to Malibu.

Cat

Trust only

Me

Trusting only

Self

Trusting nobody

All of those mean pretty much the same

Push/shove

When those come together

There is only one

Only me

That I can count on

One person who will protect me

Whom I can depend on without fail

Where the rubber meets the road

When the stakes are at their highest point

It’s just me

Only me

And that’s fine

Not really, but I make it be

No other choice

Cat Nichols, Age 14

T
he moment the
front door opened, my mother and Jerry immediately moved into the office. Probably working on damage control or a press release for the show that would be airing anytime now. Or trying to figure out a way to destroy Jace after what he’d just done in the limousine.

I walked up the stairs barely even feeling my legs beneath me. Jace followed behind me. I could still feel the rage radiating off his body.

So many feelings that I had no idea how to process were battling for my full attention. Embarrassment. Fear. Love. Fear. Rejection. Fear. Anger. Fear. Gratitude. Fear.

Okay, so fear was definitely winning in the war on most pressing emotion.

I wasn’t scared for myself. I was scared,
petrified,
for Jace. My mother had no qualms about destroying someone’s life when she considered them an enemy. And she had friends in powerful places. With the snap of her fingers, people’s lives crumbled.

I’d seen it happen before—several times. Whether it was an ingénue she felt was getting too much attention, a fellow actress who’d gotten a role she wanted, a man who she felt had done her wrong. She’d systematically ruined person after person. She had no morals. No remorse. No soul.

Now that Jace had stood up to her—for
me
—I knew that he’d just landed himself on the top of her shit list.

We stepped inside my bedroom and Jace shut the door with a tad more effort than it had needed. The walls in my room shook from the force of the slam. I turned around and saw him scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Cat, darling, could you please close your door more quietly? Jerry and I are discussing something important down here.” My mother’s voice, as saccharine-sweet as overripe fruit, drifted into my room through the intercom. A cold chill ran down my spine.

Oh God. That voice was only used when she was at her deadliest. I was in a state I could not remember ever having been in before—complete, unadulterated fear. I trembled with it. It made my knees weak. I thought it might knock me down altogether.

Jace’s expression was tortured as his eyes bored into mine. All of the anger and frustration that had just been etched in his face melted into concern and sadness. And in that moment, the impossible happened—I fell in love with him even more. Seeing his gaze transform from rage-filled anger to caring about me, filled me with so much love that I felt like I could burst with it. I had never before in my life been under the influence of such rampaging, strong, and competing emotions crashing over me like waves. So I reacted the way I usually reacted to strong emotions—I burst into tears.

Immediately, I felt myself wrapped up in Jace’s strong arms. I melted against him, and he held me as the tears poured out of my eyes. He whispered words of love and encouragement, and after several moments, he picked me up and sat down on my bed with me tucked on his lap.

“I’m sorry.” I sniffed against his neck, my head resting on his shoulder as tears continued falling down my cheek. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t stop crying.”

“I think that was a long time coming,” he said seriously as he ran fingers through my hair.

After the waterworks stopped I knew that I needed to tell him, warn him, about what my mother was capable of. Lifting my head, I stared up at him, and even though I knew what I had to say, I was at a loss for words. His bright-blue eyes were striking on their own, but add to that the thick, inky lashes that framed them and it was almost too much. His olive skin, strong jaw, full lips, and jet-black hair reminded me of how I always pictured Elvis looking in person. Jace definitely had that James Dean, Elvis, old-soul, bad-boy thing going on, and he was just so unbelievably sexy that, sometimes, just looking at him made me speechless.

“Cat?” His questioning tone snapped me out of my momentary Jace-lust fog.

Shaking my head, I took a steadying breath before launching into a speech I wasn’t even sure how to start. “I’m not upset because of the things my mom said in the car or even over the fact that I made an idiot of myself on national television. I mean, I am upset about those things, but that’s not why I cried. I cried because I’m scared.”

Jace’s fingers tightened around my waist and I felt his biceps bulge against my back. He pulled me even closer to him, his face just a sliver away as he said with conviction, “No one is going to hurt you. I promise.”

Tears began building once again at his words. He was just so…
protective
. I’d never had anyone take care of me like that. Definitely not by standing up to my mother. Which was exactly why I was scared.

I placed my hand on his cheek and he leaned into my touch as he closed his eyes his face relaxed as he did. I loved seeing how I affected him. I loved knowing that I brought him peace, and it tore me up inside to think about anyone hurting him, which was why I needed to open my mouth and speak.

“I’m not scared for
me
. I’m scared for
you
. I love and appreciate what you did in the car, but I don’t think you have a clue what my mother is capable of. At her whim, she has an army of people that will work around the clock to destroy your life.”

Jace seemed completely unconvinced. Or unimpressed—I wasn’t sure which. Either way, I didn’t really think that he understood the full scope of what I was trying to tell him.

So I tried a different tactic. “Think about how she treats
me
and I’m her
daughter
. And even though she puts on a good show, I know that, deep down, she knows I’ve never done anything to her. But what you did, in her world? You just declared war. You standing up for me doesn’t mean anything to her. She hates me.”

“I don’t think she hates you,” Jace said comfortingly.

I let out a forced breath. “She certainly doesn’t love me.”

“No, you’re absolutely right about that. I don’t think she loves you,” Jace agreed readily.

I felt myself smile. How Jace could make me smile at a time like this was beyond me, but he did. “You didn’t have to agree
quite
so quickly?” I joked.

Jace grinned, and it felt like a little bit of the weight I was carrying around eased.

He shook his head. “Sorry. That came out kind of shitty. I didn’t mean that she doesn’t love you because it has anything to do with you. I don’t think she has the ability to love. Not anyone. I don’t think she has, like, the mental capacity. Or…emotional…or however it works. But I don’t think it’s because she hates you. I think her brain’s just fucked up.”

I nodded and tightened my arms around him, soaking in his solid strength. “Yeah, I guess thinking of it that way is better than the alternative. But the point I’m trying to make is that she is ruthless, and now that you’ve gotten on her radar in a bad way, she will retaliate.” I swallowed hard over the knot that had formed in my throat. I couldn’t believe that these words were about to come out of my mouth, but I knew I had to say them, “I think you should probably go…back to Arcata. You know—out of sight, out of mind. If you leave, then hopefully she’ll just move on and focus her attention elsewhere.”

Jace’s eyes grew hard. “Elsewhere, meaning focus on you.”

I shrugged and forced myself to smile. “Eh, I can take it. One tends to develop quite a thick skin growing up with Angelica James as their mother.”

Jace was quiet, so I took a page out of his book and searched his eyes, trying to see what he might be thinking. He was angry, obviously, but he also looked very sad. He kissed my forehead and held me tighter.

“Damn, Cat. I get it now. It all makes sense. Our intense connection. Why we both felt like we fit together like puzzle pieces immediately. Why I felt so drawn to you. Why I felt like you saw me, like your soul knew mine. Our childhoods, from the outside, they couldn’t look more different. But once you get past the surface, it’s freaky to see how similar they actually were.”

A new swell of love grew in me at Jace’s words. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but now that Jace had pointed it out, it made me feel even closer to him. Like he was the one person in the world who really got me, and I was the one person in the world who really got him. My fingers played with the soft hair at the base of his neck as I leaned even closer to him, resting my forehead against his, inhaling the musky, masculine scent as I said in a whisper, “I know. I think so, too. I never really believed in soul mates, but I think that you really are mine.”

Jace inhaled sharply and drew back, staring fervently into my eyes. “There is no way that I am going to leave you. I don’t care what your mother does. How she tries to ruin my life. I don’t have anything except you. You are my life. The only way she could hurt me is by hurting you, which is exactly what would happen if I left.”

I saw fierce determination shining in his clear-blue eyes. I knew that there was no chance I could change his mind. Part of me was still scared, but I had to admit that another part of me, the purely selfish part, was relieved that Jace wasn’t leaving.

Jace continued. “Babe, why don’t
we
just leave? Right now. Let’s put our stuff in our bags, say goodbye to Don and Rachel, get in the car and go home. Let’s get out of here and not look back.”

I closed my eyes and pictured how wonderful that would be. I let the feeling wash over me for a moment and enjoyed reveling in it until I allowed reality to sink in and take hold again. Then I shook my head.

“We can’t. After the show, Jerry was nice enough to let me know that if I decided to ‘run away with my tail between my legs,’ then he and Angelica would just have to come to Arcata to make sure that I was
okay
.” I sighed, thinking about the sinister tone he’d taken on to deliver the message. “It wasn’t even that veiled of a threat. He ended it by informing me that if I didn’t stay here and clean up the shitstorm I’d created, then they would bring the shitstorm to me.”

Jace stayed quiet for a minute. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but I hoped that, now that he’d had a small taste of how crazy the cameras, the reporters, the fans here could be, he understood why there was no way I wanted to bring that back home.

When he took a deep breath, I felt his strong chest push against me as air filled his lungs. “I hate to be the one to bring this up, but Byron’s show is pretty popular and I already got a message from Elijah that the clip is up on YouTube. The ‘shitstorm’ may already be brewing up there.”

I bit the inside of my lip as I felt myself nod. I had figured that my anonymity might have been compromised now, so it wasn’t a complete shock, but it was still disappointing. “I know. But reporters, or paparazzi are one thing. If my mother and her entourage go up there, it just takes it to a whole new level.”

“Makes sense. I get where you’re coming from. And obviously it’s up to you. But, babe, please just promise me that you’re not just gonna stubbornly say, ‘Oh, we’re staying a few more days no matter what.’ If it gets too bad, too hard on you…just please promise that you’re gonna be thinking about at what point it really becomes not worth it anymore.”

I let out a forced laugh. “Oh, believe me. That’s a calculation I’m making on a minute-by-minute basis.”

Jace smiled. “Good. But just because we have to be down here doesn’t mean we have to stay in this house. Right?”