“I should probably be heading back soon,” she says, watching my reaction over the rim of her glass.
“I understand. It was nice of you to visit,” I lie. Again, preservation.
“Of course.” She sighs and lowers her drink. “Sienna, I really do want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
I force a smile through my doubt. “Thanks.”
“Jace seems like a very nice young man. I hope you know it’s not that I don’t like him.”
“I know.”
“I just…” She picks at the lettuce on her plate before looking up. “Your father left me for a younger woman, so I know.” Her faces pinches with rare emotion. “Men get bored. They’re selfish and move on when you’re no longer what they want.”
Anger mixes with sadness for my mother. Sympathy? I can’t remember a time when she shared her pain before. I wonder what our relationship would’ve been if she’d let go. “I know he hurt you, Mom, but he was one man. Dad got bored. Dad was selfish and moved on when you weren’t what he wanted. That doesn’t mean every man is like that.”
Her perfectly coifed hair doesn’t even move when she shakes her head. “I don’t want you to get hurt. You already lost Joe. I don’t see any way for things to work with your new guy.”
“I didn’t lose Joe. I’m glad he’s gone. If anything, he’s ‘Dad’ in this scenario. Jace is different. He’s fearless, knows what he wants, and doesn’t live in a world of regrets. He’s not with me because it makes sense, but because he wants to be. Give him time, you’ll see.”
Her lips press closed. Does she know she’s only exacerbating the wrinkles around them? “I hope you’re right, sweetheart. I used to believe in your father too.”
My lunch with Mom haunts me that afternoon. She was human for a brief moment, vulnerable, and I caught a glimpse of a relationship we could have had if we’d stopped performing for each other. Can you reverse a lifetime pattern? I don’t know, but for the first time in my adult life, I want to try.
Mom borrowed my car and left for an “excursion,” so when my boyfriend shows up around seven, I’m free to give him a proper girlfriend greeting. His smile is patented Jace Beckett, but the rest? I forget all about my own drama.
“You okay?” I ask, pulling back and searching tired aqua eyes.
“Fine, yeah.” Another quick smile and he’s heading to the stairs. “Mind if I take a quick shower? I came right from work.”
“Of course.”
I follow his exhausted climb to my suite and watch as he fishes through a bag he brought. A bag? Who takes a suitcase to work?
“You sure everything’s okay?” I ask.
“Absolutely. I’ll just be a minute.”
There’s nothing sexy about watching the man you care about lie to you. This time when he strips and cleans up there are no games, no flirting glances from either of us. He’s focused, shoulders sagged, and I’m hurting for him. I only wait for a few minutes before I decide to distract myself by preparing food. I leave him to finish up and head down to the kitchen.
I’m chopping lettuce, veggies, and grilled chicken for a garden salad when he joins me, looking much more like the sexy, confident man I know.
“Looks great,” he says, moving behind me and slipping his arms around my waist. My body instinctively relaxes into his, my knife stalling on the cutting board. We’re so beautifully connected right now, so why is he lying to me?
I let go of the knife and turn so we’re facing each other, but his lips erase any chance of a confrontation. I weave my fingers through his damp hair to take in more. He hardens against me, and my hips respond with an agonizing jerk. His reaction intensifies, and soon we forget all about food and lies. We are hands and mouths and need, undulating in unison against the counter. I moan at the effect of his mouth on my neck, his hands running over my curves, god, my need to feel every line of his body. I push my hands over his ass, forcing our hips into perfect alignment.
“Dessert first?” he breathes against my ear.
“Yes, please.”
I pull off his shirt, suffering—savoring—the streams of tiny explosions firing through my body as I enjoy my favorite picture: Jace Beckett, bare, hungry, messy hair falling in his beautiful eyes, that guitar pick chain slightly askew against his tanned, hard chest. I could stare all day and never get enough. I reach for him with trembling fingers. If I touch him will he be real? But the heat radiating through my fingers is from skin not stone. His eyes close as he draws in a long breath.
“What’s really going on?” I whisper, tracing the stubble along his jaw.
I almost shudder when his eyes return to mine. “I’m scared, Sienna.”
Oh god. The glisten in his eyes is so painful. Something I never thought I’d see, never wanted to see. I’m filled with a sudden intense hatred for everything in this world that would hurt him.
“Please tell me.” I center his face with my palms, brushing lightly with my thumbs.
It’s right there. Whatever it is, is about to shatter my world too when—
“Oh my!”
Jace’s gaze locks on her first, and I twist my head back. Crap! As if I needed more reasons to resent my mother.
“We’re having a private conversation, Mom. Can you give us a second?”
Her brows lift, lips forming into a thin line. “I can see that. I’ll be in my room.”
Mortified, I’m almost afraid to face Jace again, but his face has come alive with humor when I finally turn back.
“Who would’ve thought it’d be your mom getting in our way?”
“I need her to go back to Florida,” I whisper because I’m still ten years old when she’s in the house.
His laugh, usually so soothing, shoots a wave of disappointment through me, regret for the moment we lost. It’s not the sex I miss, but the intimacy of the secret he’d been about to share. The opportunity is obviously gone when he backs away and pulls on his shirt. I study him for another second as he starts gathering utensils for dinner.
He’s scared. I believed it fully in that moment. Now? He hides in plain sight like no one I’ve ever known. Another pang shoots through me.
“Jace… What you were saying before—”
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Want me to start the carrots?” When his back turns, I know he’s gone. I’ve lost, stuck once again with the version of Jace Beckett everyone gets. It’s not fair because he’s the only one who sees me. I try to muster anger at the injustice but he’s impossible to resent. I just end up smiling at the way he attacks the carrots and cucumbers.
“Those peelers are meant to glide over vegetables, not hack them to death.”
“What’s with this thing anyway? Don’t you have a normal peeler?”
“What’s a normal peeler?” I ask.
“I don’t know. The ones with the”—he waves his hands in an unhelpful demonstration—“the thing with the thing.”
“Ooh, right. The thing.”
He snorts and bumps my shoulder with his. “Sorry if I’m not a gourmet chef.”
“No one’s perfect.”
He hands me the shredded carrots to chop. “You pretty much are.”
“Me?” I choke out.
Zero: the number of times I ever thought that.
Zero: the number of times others have.
“Why are you so shocked by that?”
“Because! I…” …what? Just because.
That cucumber looks dangerous in his hand. Then again, I bet he knows how to kill someone with it.
“Do we need to have this discussion again?” he asks, jabbing it toward me.
“What discussion?”
He lowers the vegetable to a safer angle. “Sienna, you’re amazing. You are instinctively compassionate. It’s incredible the way you want to jump in and save everyone.”
“You’re one to talk,” I mutter.
He smiles. “And you’re so smart. You picked up the guitar, the karate stanc
es, everything, so quickly. And your career? I couldn’t begin to figure out all those numbers and spreadsheets.” He shakes his head. “I have no idea what you see in me.”
I stare over at him in disbelief. “You’re joking, right?”
He shrinks a bit, smile growing at my animation.
“Unbelievable,” I say. “What I see in you? Do you honestly not understand what I see in you?”
I drop my knife and force him to face me again. “You...” My voice gets lost in his gaze. “You’re everything,” I whisper, pulling him in for a long kiss. He deepens it, and I know, I know, Jace Beckett will be the love of my life. No doubt, no turning back, and no choice left except to absorb the abject terror of that reality.
Jace leaves before he can fall asleep again that night. Returns the next day around dinner. Showers. Leaves. Returns. Showers, leaves, returns. We get into the rhythm of a regular couple, except for his refusal to spend the night. Four days later he even offers to drive my mother to the airport when she finally decides she’s spent enough time on erratic bonding. I let him so they have time to figure out their roles in this game.
“Your mom is something else,” he says when he returns after dropping her off on Saturday. I shove a bowl of pasta at him as he lowers to a counter stool.
“Wine? Beer? Iced tea?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and I get him a glass of water instead.
“So she dazzled you with her impressive passive-aggression?” I say, joining him at the island on the adjacent stool.
He smirks and shovels a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “She’s an artist.”
“I’m pretty sure she teaches a course on it at her retirement community.”
He tilts his head in amusement. “As we were pulling onto the highway she goes, ‘So things are serious with my daughter?’ When I said yes, she said, ‘I see. Well, I suppose this is the only way I’ll get a grandson.’”
I have to cough a noodle out of my throat. “What? She said that?”
He laughs and nods. “Yeah. A piece of work that one.”
I roll my eyes. “Geez, I’m so sorry. What did you say?”
A glint moves into his eyes. “I said, ‘Really? You don’t seem like a chocolate-chip-cookie-baking-grandma type of woman.’”
I snort a laugh through my water. “I’m sure she loved that. Wish I could’ve seen it.”
“At least she was quiet the rest of the way.” He turns serious. “You have to stand up to her, Sienna. You can’t let her treat you like that.”
“You mean like how Louis treats you?” It slips out before I can stop it, and his expression darkens.
“That’s completely different.”
“Why?”
“Because in that battle, he holds all the cards. Your mother has no power over you except what you give her.”
I stifle my retort at the deeper pain in his eyes. “What’s really going on, Jace?”
He slides off the stool and walks his bowl to the sink.
“Come on. How is this relationship going to work if you can’t trust me?” Yes, maybe the hurt of his rejection crept into my voice, but there it is. Honesty. Vulnerability. The same things I want from him.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he says. “Of course, I trust you.” He turns and meets my gaze across the counter. Quiet, he searches my face, reveals some of the struggle raging behind those mesmerizing eyes. “You’re too good, Sienna,” he says finally.
He sighs at my confusion and leans his elbows on the granite, head hanging low. Finally, he looks up. “Remember what I was telling you about that instinctive compassion you have? I love that about you, but I also have a responsibility to protect you. If I tell you what’s going on, you’ll take on my problems as yours and let it eat you up. There’s nothing you can do to help me so I don’t want you haunted by things you can’t control.”
A brave, strong, hypocrite he is. Compassion sweeps through me, yes, but also anger. He likes confidence, right? “Bullshit.”
“Sienna…”
“What? You want to be a couple? That’s part of being in a relationship, babe. I fight your battles; you fight mine. You don’t get to be the only one with a sword.” That draws a flicker of a smile, so I level the death stroke. “Now tell me what’s going on or so help me, Jace Beckett.”
The smile lingers on his lips for another second before his features settle back into grave concentration. He draws in a deep breath and meets my gaze. “Louis kicked me out.”
My heart stops. “What? When?”
“The night we went to their place. That was part of the argument we had in the house.”
“Jace!” How can you be so heartbroken and pissed at the same time? “Where the hell have you been living?”
“In my truck.”
“What?” Nope, now I’m just pissed. “Why didn’t you tell me? You could have stayed here. Hell, I begged you to stay even before I knew that!”
“No, I don’t want to be that far from Aiden. At least if I’m parked on the street I can keep watch. I’ll be right there in case…” He looks away, clears his head. “Anyway, it’s temporary. This isn’t the first time he’s kicked me out, and it won’t be the last. Eventually, he’ll get over it, my mom will realize how much work it is taking care of a kid and beg him to let me back in. I just have to wait it out until then.”
I don’t have words. Too many emotions rip through me to form a coherent response as I process everything he’s said and every detail of the last few days. The showers. The exhaustion. The disturbing presence of the suitcase. Wait…
“What about your job?” I ask. “Did he also fire you?”
“Fire me? I wish. No, I’m still his indentured servant.”
“What?”
He shakes his head, clearly regretting that quip.
“Honesty, Jace. We just went over this.”
He releases an exasperated breath. “Okay fine. I don’t want to work for him. I never did. But as long as I’m valuable to him, he’ll keep me around, which I need. I told you before, I’m working on a plan to get custody of Aiden, but I have to do everything I can to keep Louis comfortable until then. I have no choice but to let him use me for now.”
“Use you? He pays you, right?”
“Yeah.”
I’m not convinced.
“Jace, please.”
“Just… I care about you, Sienna. I want to be with you and I know you. If I tell you everything, you’re going to get all protective and self-sacrificing and do something stupid for my own good that will piss me off and break my heart. I want to be with you. Why can’t you just let it be what it is?” He says the last sentence with so much force, my heart pounds in fear.
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not what I wanted.”
“So stop being cryptic and just tell me what the hell is going on.” I jump off the stool and set myself into an exaggerated defensive stance. Game on.
He laughs before studying my face with a sigh. “If I tell you everything about what happened that night, will you promise to respect my decisions and let it go?”
How can I? How can I promise anything that could hurt him?
“I promise.”
He comes around the side of the counter and takes the stool beside me again. “Of course Louis was furious we hooked up. To be honest, it probably had more to do with the fact that I defied his direct order not to pursue you than anything else. He hates being challenged. But I refused to back down and break things off, so he removed me from the project and said he wasn’t going to pay me for any of the time I worked on your house. Since you’re my girlfriend and all...”
“Jace—”
He holds up his hand to cut me off. “You promised, Sienna. Anyway, I told him to go fuck himself and keep the damn money. I wasn’t breaking things off with you. He said fine, then I should go pack my shit and get out of his house. I actually thought he had finally fired me too, but I got a text earl
y the next morning with the address of my next assignment, working for one of his top guys on a school.” He massages his forehead and runs a hand over his face. “So there. To answer your question, do I get paid? Yes, when it suits him. When I piss him off, then no.”
He shrugs. Totally fine, right? This is normal, right? This is life. This is what a brother has to endure to protect those in his care.
And this is why he makes my heart pound and blood boil. He’s everything. Free despite being trapped. Brave in the crosshairs of monsters. So young and so old at the same time, a role model for a thirty-eight-year-old as much as an eight-year-old. This is why I love him. Oh god, I do. So much.
I lean in, frame his face with my hands and kiss him. Tell him all of that in one simple gesture.
I love you. Everything you are. Everything you inspire me to be.
“Let me help you,” I say, pulling back. “Please.”
The pain is back, the fear. He looks young again with that uncertainty cracking the concrete sureness of his disguise.
“I would, but it’s a mountain, Sienna.” He shatters before my eyes. “I’ve used every penny I have to consult with lawyers and social workers, and it’s a mountain for me to get custody of Aiden.” He shakes his head, rare tears illuminating his irises. “I don’t know what else to do. I have to get him out of there, away from them, but I don’t have the resources to even start the fight, let alone win it. And as soon as I pull the trigger, things will get ugly so I have to win as quickly as possible. What do I do? Fight a battle I can’t win or not fight a battle and lose anyway?”
“Hey.” I grab his arms with a gentle shake. “Look at me.”
He does, those eyes tearing me apart inside. “You’re not alone in this anymore.”
He starts to shake his head, and I stop him. “No, Jace. Listen to me. We’re fighting this together. Not because I have to, but because I want to.” I take a deep breath. Why are words so insufficient? “You always tell me not to trust can’t. You make me believe in things. I don’t know the answer yet, but I know for a fact that you’re not doing this alone anymore. Aiden deserves to be loved and safe and…” The words freeze on my tongue. His gaze, still glossy from pain and tears, searches mine. “Because I love you,” I whisper.
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