by Kate Hewitt
“You didn’t end up there,” Louise answered. “You got out.”
Jaiven sighed wearily, already seeming defeated. “Well, I stayed with the Bones for three years. Did whatever they asked me to. Stealing. Peddling drugs. Beating people up—”
Louise couldn’t quite keep herself from flinching, and Jaiven saw. “I don’t need a laundry list,” she said quietly.
“Just spelling it out.”
“What for?” she demanded with a sudden surge of anger. “To shock me? To push me away? Look, I know all about bad pasts, and I’m not talking about my marriage. I didn’t grow up entitled or rich or even middle class, remember. I’m not shocked.” Except she was lying, at least a little bit. She wasn’t shocked, but she was disconcerted. Unsettled.
“You didn’t join a gang,” Jaiven said flatly. “You were a victim, Louise. I wasn’t.”
“We coped in different ways. That’s why you joined a gang, isn’t it? To survive? To feel accepted? That’s what you told me.”
“Yes, but—”
“So we both made bad choices that we’ve regretted and recovered from.” She gave him the ghost of a smile. “Mostly.”
“Yeah, the difference is you got hurt by an asshole,” Jaiven said flatly. “I was the asshole who hurt someone.” He took a shuddering breath, his face so terribly bleak. “Who killed her.”
This time, at least, Louise didn’t flinch. “So what happened?” she asked quietly. “How did a woman die?”
He didn’t speak for a long moment, just stared into space, emotions chasing across his features. Dark emotions that made Louise want to reach out and hug him. Comfort him, and yet something about the brittleness of his body, the unsettled feeling she still had in her stomach, made her stay still.
“We were robbing a deli. She was a customer.”
Her temples throbbed and her throat dried. Her stomach roiled. “And?” she finally asked, her voice a scratchy whisper.
“And she got in the way. The man at the register had a knife. He used it, and I brought out a gun.”
“A knife,” she said slowly. “The scar on your torso.” He nodded. “And the gun?”
“The man fought with me. I fought back. The gun went off. The woman was shot right in the chest.” He paused, drew in a ragged breath. “She had a baby, Louise. It came out at the trial. A six-month-old baby.”
“Oh, Jaiven.” He’d averted his head but she still saw the tears running down his face, and her heart broke all over again. “I’m so sorry.”
“For me?” he asked in disbelief. “For me? Her child lost his mother. Her husband…” He stopped, shook his head. “And it was my fault. All my fault.” He drew a shuddering breath. “I tried to make amends. I wrote her husband. I help to rehabilitate ex-cons. But nothing, nothing will bring her back. Nothing will make it right.” He closed his eyes, bleak acceptance etched in every line of his face. “There are some things you can’t atone for. Some things you can’t forgive.”
“And you don’t think I can forgive you, Jaiven?” Louise asked softly, her throat so tight it hurt to get the words out. “I’m not even the one you hurt.”
“Didn’t I?” He opened his eyes and stared at her hard. “Didn’t I show you what I was capable of, Louise? Have you really moved on from that?”
“Yes.” She meant it with every fiber of her being. “Yes, Jaiven, but have you? Or are you going to let the past destroy any hope for a future?”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t want it to,” he said after an endless moment. “But I don’t see how it can’t.”
“Am I walking away?” Louise asked him. “Am I staring at you in condemnation or disgust?”
“Do you realize—”
“Yes, Jaiven, I do. You joined a gang. You committed crimes. You killed a woman, even if you didn’t mean to.” She drew a shaky breath. “You also paid for your crimes. Are you going to pay with the rest of your life? With your happiness? Is there any justice in that?” She went to him then, held him in her arms. Maybe she should have done it earlier, but she felt it now. Felt the love and the certainty and the strength pour through her and into her words.
“Jaiven, I love you. I love you even though you did something terrible once.”
“Not just once—”
“You’re not the lonely, screwed-up kid with the gun and the gang tattoo anymore. Even if you feel like you are. Even if you think that’s all you ever can be, all you deserve to be.”
He was silent, but she felt his body relax into hers a fraction and she tightened her hold on him. “You’re not that boy anymore, and I’m not the lost little girl stuck in a terrible marriage. Our pasts don’t define us. Our mistakes don’t, either.”
He shook his head, still refusing to believe her. “Maybe they should,” he said again, and she knew he was holding on to the guilt. The shame.
“So no one gets to move on? No one gets to pay the price and try again? You’ve paid, Jaiven. You were in prison for three years. When you were little more than a child. That must have been awful.”
“It wasn’t,” he said after a pause, “a laugh a minute.”
She almost smiled at that. “No, I bet not.”
“I got my GED. That was about the only good thing. I found out I was dyslexic, which explained a bit about school. And I was determined to turn my life around.” He glanced at her, looking so uncertain and vulnerable and yet so strong and brave and good.
Hope swelled. Love did, too. “That’s all pretty amazing. You’re amazing.”
He stared at her in disbelief, as if even now he couldn’t believe she was here. She was here and she was staying.
“I’m glad you told me,” she whispered. “I’m glad because I want us to put both our pasts behind us. I want us to forgive ourselves and each other and move on, Jaiven. Together.”
He didn’t speak, just remained in her embrace, quivering like a wild, wounded animal, his eyes closed. “I want that, too,” he finally said in a low voice. “But I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”
“I know how hard that is.”
“What do you have to forgive yourself for, Louise? Marrying an asshole?”
“No.” She took a deep breath, her arms still around him. “I didn’t tell you everything about myself, Jaiven, just like you didn’t tell me everything. Because we were both afraid of revealing what we thought were the worst parts of ourselves.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I was growing up, my mother had all those loser boyfriends…” She closed her eyes, memory stirring up that old guilt. She’d forgiven herself, she had, but it was hard. It was always hard.
“You told me about that, Louise.”
“I didn’t tell you that some of them tried to—to interfere with Chelsea.” Her throat went tight and she forced herself to continue. “And I didn’t help her.”
Jaiven’s arms finally, thankfully closed around her. “What do you mean?” he asked quietly. She felt his hands slide up and down her back, and she was amazed that this man could think to comfort her in the midst of his own raw pain and grief.
“I saw it happening and I didn’t do anything, or at least not enough. I’d let her sleep in my bed, but as soon as they’d gone I pushed her away. I was angry at her, you see.” She shook her head. “I was actually jealous. Can you believe that? She was getting attention and I wasn’t. What kind of sister behaves like that?”
“One, I imagine, who has had a pretty raw deal in life,” Jaiven answered quietly. “How old were you?”
“How old were you?”
“You can’t compare our situations.”
“Oh, so you’re the only one who gets to wear the hair shirt? Sorry, I didn’t get the memo.”
He smiled at that, just a little. “I hope you’ve forgiven yourself for that,” he said.
“I have. But it took a while, and sometimes I still feel sad about it. Just like you’ll feel sad about what you did. What happened.”
“I
t’s not the same,” he insisted, and she felt a surge of frustration.
“Okay, so rake yourself over the coals for the rest of your life. Throw away the best relationship either of us has ever had because you’re just so damned bad that you can’t believe I’d love you. You don’t think you deserve my love. Are you really going to do that, Jaiven? Are you going to sink us before we’ve even started?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then slowly shook his head. “No, I definitely don’t want to do that.”
“Then don’t. Choose life and love and happiness. Choose forgiveness and healing and wholeness. Choose me, Jaiven, because I love you so very much, no matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been. Choose us.”
His face contorted and his mouth worked, and then finally, thankfully, he pulled her to him, resting his forehead against hers. “I want to choose that more than anything in the world.”
“Then do it,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Just do it.”
He held her for a moment, his body relaxing slowly, curving around hers. Accepting her along with himself.
Then he eased back again, his hands cradling her face. “I thought you were going to walk away from me. In complete disgust.”
“I know you did.”
“But you’re still here.”
She smiled through her tears. “Always.”
He kissed her then, softly, a kiss of healing and hope and so much love.
“Always,” he agreed, and it was a promise Louise knew they both would keep.
*
All about the author…
Kate Hewitt
KATE HEWITT discovered her first Harlequin® romance novel on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it, too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately, they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older.
She studied drama in college and shortly after graduation moved to New York City to pursue a career in theater. This was derailed by something far better—meeting the man of her dreams, who happened also to be her older brother’s childhood friend. Ten days after their wedding they moved to England, where Kate worked a variety of different jobs—drama teacher, editorial assistant, youth worker, secretary and, finally, mother.
When her oldest daughter was one year old, Kate sold her first short story to a British magazine. Since then she has sold many stories and serials, but writing romance remains her first love—of course!
Besides writing, she enjoys reading, traveling and learning to knit—it’s an ongoing process and she’s made a lot of scarves. After living in England for six years, she now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children and, possibly one day, a dog.
Kate loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com.
‘The course of true love, and taking down Jason Treffen never lies smooth...and this books shows just how hard it is for both.’
—Goodreads, Jeannie Zelos on
Expose Me
Book Three in
The Fifth Avenue Trilogy
‘Edgy emotion fills the pages of this narrative. Olivia and the sheikh are the consummate couple whose candor, humility and vulnerability shine through.’
—RT Book Reviews on
Commanded by the Sheikh
‘The genuine synergetic contact with the Bedouins inspires, and the love scenes are passionately sincere.’
—RT Book Reviews on
Captured by the Sheikh
‘Hewitt puts a modern twist on this marriage-of-convenience story set in absolute luxury.’
—RT Book Reviews on
A Queen for the Taking?
The Forbidden Series
Billionaires who can look, but shouldn’t touch!
For Logan Black, Jaiven Rodriguez and royal Zair al Ruyi, New York is spread out before them like the Garden of Eden…and no one knows the sweet taste of forbidden fruit better than America’s most ruthless billionaires!
Jaded, cynical, with a darkness that threatens to consume them whole, they think they’ve seen it all. But temptation has something new in store for each of them…
Three women united in one goal—to find their missing friend—are about to cross the paths of these ultimate bad boys. And it won’t be long before they are enslaved to an impossible desire.
You’ve discovered:
The Billionaire’s Intern
by Maisey Yates
And
The Billionaire’s Fantasy
by Kate Hewitt
Now discover the thrilling conclusion to the Forbidden Series…
The Billionaire’s Innocent
by Caitlin Crews
When Nora Grant decided she wanted to make something of her life, she didn’t realize it would lead straight to billionaire prince Zair al Ruyi. Beneath his polished royalty, Zair has warrior’s blood running through his veins, and he’s found his next conquest! No matter how innocent Nora is, she can’t resist the touch of this royal billionaire.
Full ebook available July 1, 2015
If you can’t wait that long, Part 1 of The Billionaire’s Innocent is available on June 21, 2015
All available from www.Harlequin.com
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ISBN: 9781460390054
The Billionaire’s Fantasy
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Kate Hewitt for her contribution to The Forbidden Series.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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