Broken

by Melody Anne

  She just didn’t know anything anymore, and she might never have the answers because the only person she wanted to talk to right now was no longer on this earth. Pain radiated through her entire body.

  With Blake being Justin’s father, he was the one with all the rights. She had none. Even though he was her brother, even though she loved him more than any other person on this earth, she had no rights to him.

  But Blake wasn’t a stupid man. He knew the bond Jewell had with Justin. He knew that Justin wouldn’t just want to throw her away. So he’d done the one thing that would ensure he earned Justin’s love — he’d married Justin’s sister. And he’d slowly built a relationship with the boy. It was more than clear to Jewell that her brother loved Blake.

  When all was said and done, she would be the one who was disposable. Had Blake told her any truths at all? Right now, it didn’t appear to be the case. She just didn’t know anything anymore, except that she was lost, and she felt more alone than she’d ever felt before.

  Jewell knew they had an amazing sex life, but that wasn’t enough. He would eventually grow tired of her, and then she would be the one shoved out into the cold. She would lose the man she loved with all her heart, and she would lose her little brother, the only family she had left.

  Despair flowed through her, and as she made her way back to the home she now shared with Blake and Justin, she had no idea what she was going to do. She had nothing.

  When she’d said this to McKenzie, her only friend in this world had given her the key to her Jewell’s old apartment, which Blake had allowed McKenzie to use when her house was being remodeled. She and Blake had gone into business together, and she tried telling Jewell to talk to him, that she was sure he had an explanation.

  Jewell knew Blake, though, knew him well enough to know that he might be a great business partner, but he wasn’t a great husband, at least for her. Maybe to someone else he would be, but he never could be all that Jewell wanted, because what she wanted was his love.

  And Blake didn’t love her.

  When she got back to Blake’s house — she no longer felt it was hers — she opened the door and looked inside. None of this was hers. She hadn’t picked the home, hadn’t bought the furniture, hadn’t made it a home. No, she was nothing more than a guest here.

  When Blake came around the corner, he had a smile on his face, but it quickly vanished when he saw her expression. Jewell decided to push back her sadness and face him. There really was no point in dragging this out, in prolonging her agony. Neither one of them needed an emotional meltdown.

  “I was worried when I came home and you weren’t here,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and leaned down to kiss her lips.

  When she didn’t respond, he drew back, worry etched on his brow. He was a fantastic actor, she thought.

  She hadn’t rehearsed what she was going to say, so when the words came out, she was as surprised as he was. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice was flat, distant, but she watched his eyes.

  And in that moment, she knew their marriage was over. He knew immediately what she was talking about. The pain rushing through her was trying to escape, but she suppressed it. There was no reason to make a scene. There was no reason for them to even talk about this.

  It was over.

  Her brother belonged with him — legally. Though she knew that no one would love Justin more than she could, that didn’t matter. She’d fought and fought the courts. They didn’t care. Blake was the boy’s biological father, and he could provide a better life for Justin than she could. It was very black and white, wasn’t it?

  She needed to escape before she fell apart.

  “Jewell, we need to talk. Let’s go in the living room and I’ll explain,” Blake said, reaching for her. But he could see that she couldn’t tolerate his touch right now. At least he was giving her enough respect to allow her to back away without chasing her.

  “There’s nothing to say, Blake. You found out that Justin was yours — more yours than mine — and you did what anyone would do, whatever it took to have him. And you can give him so much more than I can.” She almost choked on those last words, and she had to stop.

  “That’s not true, Jewell. Justin loves you so much. You are his world, his everything. He needs you…” He stopped when she held up her hand.

  She couldn’t hear this, couldn’t take his lies.

  If he really felt this way, he never would have kept this from her, never would have deceived her like this, never would have gone behind her back and stolen her brother from her.

  “It’s over, Blake. You don’t need to pretend anymore.”

  Jewell turned and walked back out of the house. Nothing in it was hers — nothing. She didn’t know what she was going to tell Justin, didn’t know how to explain any of this to him, but right now she wasn’t in any way capable of telling him anything without falling apart.

  Her world had once again flipped upside down.

  Chapter Thirty

  Damn!” Tyler said, sitting back with a stunned look on his face. “How in the hell did you keep this from us?”

  “I don’t want to be the one to say I told you so, but…” Byron left the sentence hanging.

  “I didn’t tell you because…hell, I don’t know why,” Blake said.

  He’d never sat down with his brothers before and poured out his heart. It just wasn’t something they did together, but Jewell had been gone for three days, and she refused to talk to him. She’d called the house and had spoken to Justin, and her brother — his son — was none the wiser to what was going on.

  Blake didn’t know how to tell Justin, and he didn’t know what to think of what Jewell had done. “Maybe she’s relieved,” he told his brothers. “She’s felt so much pressure to take care of her brother, and maybe now that she knows he’ll be taken care of and loved, she is throwing up her hands and she wants to be free.” He’d just admitted his biggest fear.

  “Probably,” Byron grumbled, but even he didn’t look convinced.

  “I don’t think so,” Tyler said. “She loves you, Blake, and she loves Justin. There’s no way she would walk away unless she thought she had to.”

  “I don’t know what else to think,” Blake said with a heavy sigh.

  “Think deeper. What exactly did she say? How did she act? What have you done lately?” Tyler fired off those question.

  “What do you want me to say?” Blake thundered. “This isn’t helping me.”

  “There has to be more to this than finding out you’re Justin’s father, though that is a big deal. But I’ve seen the way Jewell looks at you, and looks at her brother. She loves you both immeasurably. For her to walk away, there has to be something else going on,” Tyler said as if he were speaking to a child.

  “Maybe you broke her,” Byron said with a sneer.

  Blake stopped as he stared at his brother. “What?”

  “Oh, hell, Blake, don’t get all melodramatic on me. I was just kidding,” Byron said, and he tried to look like he didn’t care.

  But Blake knew his brother cared. That thought somehow made him stop again. He thought back to the last few months, thought of all his times with Jewell, of the good and the bad, of the laughter and tears, the desperation and the peace.

  “She does know that you love her, right?” Tyler asked.

  “Of course she does,” Blake said, but then he stopped again.

  Tyler pushed. “Because you’ve told her.”

  “Not with words,” Blake replied.

  “You guys are being ridiculous!” Byron thundered. “Are you listening to what you are saying? Do you want to be just like our father?”

  Byron stood up, his chair flying behind him, and both Blake and Tyler watched as he stormed from the room. They sat there a few more moments in stunned silence before Tyler spoke again.

  “Don’t let this woman get away from you, Blake, or you’ll go back to feeling and acting like that,” he said as he looked toward the do
or.

  “Byron is fine,” Blake insisted. But it was true. He had been just like his brother, and not too long ago — not trusting anyone, lying as easily as he spoke the truth, and treating women as nothing more than play toys whose only purpose was to please him.

  He didn’t want to be that man anymore. He wanted to be the man in love with Jewell. He was the man in love with Jewell. “I haven’t said the words, Tyler, but she has to know how much I love her,” Blake finally said.

  “How can she know if you haven’t told her?” Tyler asked.

  “Because I show her every single day. We make love and it’s burning in my eyes. We snuggle on the couch and I have to touch her. With everything I do, every hour of every single day, I have her in mind. She’s my world, her and Justin, and I can’t even imagine living without them now,” he said.

  “Why are you telling me this, and not her?” Tyler asked.

  “I…I don’t know,” Blake said. Was he the biggest of fools? It felt like it.

  “Look, she’s had a rough year, Blake, and even though you were an ass, she still managed to fall in love with you. So you get this great woman, and you find out you have a son, and you get him too, and then you don’t tell her he’s your son, and you don’t tell her how much you love her. What do you think she’s thinking right now?”

  “I don’t know!” Blake said, frustrated beyond all reason.

  “She’s thinking that she’s disposable,” Tyler told him.

  “How could she possibly think that?”

  “If you ever figure out how a woman’s mind works, then please enlighten us all,” Tyler said, attempting a joke. Blake wasn’t in the mood.

  “I won’t lose her, Tyler. I can’t!”

  “Then go and fight for her,” Tyler told him.

  “She refuses to speak to me. How can I fight for her if she won’t even talk to me?” he asked, furious that he sounded so weak right now.

  “You have to prove to her that you love her,” he said, and Blake thought he could do that. “And Blake, it won’t be easy, because now she has walls in place. So you’d better have one hell of a plan before you storm the fortress.”

  When Blake left the office building, he had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew for sure that no matter what it took, he would win her back.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Breathe.”

  Blake stood outside Jewell’s door and wondered how long he’d have to wait. He’d knocked, he wouldn’t use the key that was burning a hole in his pocket. That wasn’t a way to show her he respected her, loved her.

  No, he would wait for her to open the door to him. Since she had a peephole, he thought the wait could be a very long time. So he was shocked when he didn’t have to wait long at all.

  The door opened, and there she was standing before him. He inhaled deeply when he saw the way she looked, and guilt consumed him because he knew that he was the one to blame for those circles beneath her puffy eyes, and the ashen cheeks.

  And yet even though she looked as if she’d lost her world, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. And it was because he had no doubt that she loved him, that she would be his forever, because he wouldn’t leave until she knew that he loved her too.

  “You think I married you so I could gain Justin’s trust?” he said, deciding it was best to get straight to the point. He didn’t think either of them could handle dancing around the subject right now. It was just too painful.

  “Yes, Blake, and I don’t blame you for it. I don’t know what I would have done in your situation had I found out I had a child I knew I could get my hands on,” she told him. Her voice so flat, so sad, ripped him to his very soul.

  “And you think that I simply used you to get to him?”

  She paused before she looked him in the eyes. “Do you really need to hear this, Blake? Do we really need to discuss this? It’s done.”

  “Do you think I love him?”

  She paused again and he could see she was thinking over the past couple of months and thinking about them all being together. Yes, he’d bonded with Justin, more than he’d thought possible, and yes, he loved him, heart and soul.

  “Yes, I know you do, Blake. I know you’ll take care of him.” This time, her voice choked up a little bit. It pained him to not grab her, to not comfort her.

  “Then you know I won’t lose him, right?” he said and this time her eyes filled with tears, and they slowly dripped down her cheeks.

  “Why are you doing this to me? I left,” she sobbed.

  Before he could change his mind, before he grabbed her and lost all focus of what he was doing, he pulled out a document from his attorney. She didn’t take it from him; she just looked at him with a trembling lip and glassy eyes.

  “I am handing over to you all my legal rights to Justin, such as they are,” he told her, holding the file in front of her.

  She looked confused as she looked from the document to him and then back at the document. In her confusion, the tears stopped, thankfully, but the deep sadness on her face didn’t in any way disappear.

  “I…I don’t understand,” she finally whispered.

  “I love Justin. In the short time I have gotten to know him, I have fallen in love with him,” he said, and she gave him a little smile. That’s how much she loved her brother — enough that just knowing someone loved him was enough to ward off some of the pain she was going through.

  “And to lose him now that I’ve found him would destroy me, but, Jewell, what I thought I’ve been telling you for so long is that I love you too. I was telling you by showing you instead of using the words, and I guess that was my downfall. But I was mesmerized by you from the first moment our eyes met, and then something changed within me, something happened I never thought possible. The walls I’d built up around my heart when I was a child suddenly began to crack, and one day I realized they were no longer there. You are the reason I wake up in the morning, the reason I can’t wait to come home each evening. You’re my reason for being happy. I love you, Jewell. I love you so much that I can’t imagine living one more moment without you.” Blake wanted desperately to take her in his arms, but he knew he needed to wait.

  “But…but our marriage wasn’t real. It was for the business deal, and for Justin,” she said, looking more and more confused.

  “The business deal wasn’t real, Jewell. I never had a deal where I had to be married. I just…I’m not good at expressing my feelings. And I wanted to marry you. At first it was because I wanted you to be mine, because I couldn’t let you get away, but finally I realized it wasn’t about possession; it was because my heart belongs to you. You are my everything. You’ve made me a better man, and I need you to continue to have faith in me so that we can be a family — you, me and Justin. You know, I’ll even beg if you want me to.”

  When she paused for another long moment, Blake felt doubts begin to creep in. What if she had just had too much? What if it his confession was too little too late? He could lose both her and Justin, and he couldn’t even imagine how he would manage to survive that.

  But if she needed him to walk away, then for her, he would.

  Then her lips turned up just a little, and he saw hope return to her eyes. And she took one tentative step toward him, and then another, and then she was wrapping her arms around him.

  And Blake knew that they would be okay. He hadn’t the foggiest idea how long the two of them stood there with their arms wrapped around each other — what did it matter, after all? — but when she finally pulled back, the love shining from her sparkling eyes was unmistakable.

  “I love you so much,” she said, “that I have spent the last few days here wondering how I was going to survive losing you. I told myself that my feelings weren’t real, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. I knew that to live without you would be to leave a piece of my soul behind. I love you, Blake Knight. You have rescued me from a life of unhappiness, and I only hope I will have the chance t
o show you each and every day how much you mean to me.” Jewell pressed her lips to his and sighed in ecstasy.

  Blake was lost in her arms for several moments before he drew back again and looked at her. “I can’t believe what a fool I’ve been, Jewell. Thank you for saving me, for saving us. I know that for the rest of our lives we’re going to make the world jealous, because our love will be so blinding,” he told her.

  “We’ve both been foolish, Blake, but it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters from this point forward is that we always be honest, and that we continue to love each other through the good and the bad,” she said, and she kissed his jaw over and over again.

  “I promise you, Jewell, that I’ll do my damnedest from here on out to make you know you are loved, worshipped, and appreciated. I want to make you the happiest woman alive.”

  “Oh, Blake, you already have.”

  “Let’s go home,” he said to his wife.

  And that’s just what they did.

  Epilogue

  McKenzie flipped off her blankets with an angry shove, thrust her feet into her slippers, and blindly reached for her robe. Then she stomped through her house until she reached the front door. The loud pounding continued unabated. It was what had woken her up and put her in such a terrible mood.

  “Go away!” she shouted through the door. She didn’t give a damn who was knocking. It was two in the morning, and she was not about to invite the ill-mannered person in.

  “I’m not leaving until we talk!” a man shouted right back at her.

  She froze, suddenly almost overcome by fear. But no. She was McKenzie Beaumont, dammit, and she didn’t frighten easily.

  “I’m calling the police,” she growled.

  “Fine with me. The chief is a personal friend,” he said with just enough arrogance that he might be telling the truth.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice much less angry. Despite her bravado, the fear had returned in spades, and a shiver ran down her spine.