Martin Jones’ words wound me. I don’t know what to say. I still want to see Jenna, but I know it’s a futile fight.
“If I were you, I’d leave town and never look back. It’s best for all of us, son. You know that I have the power to press charges.”
“Just tell Jenna that I love her and I’m sorry.”
Once I’m back in the truck, I weigh my options. Without Jenna, there is nothing left for me in Bourne. Maybe she needs time and space. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ll keep my promise. I’ll get Jenna out of our godforsaken hometown and make it all up to her somehow.
I just hope she forgives me for whatever pain I caused her and for leaving town without her. I don’t know how I’m going to do it all without her by my side.
Chapter Five
Jenna
Seven years later…
I watch out of the window as Bianca chases my son around the garden. She has become my best friend, even though she is thirty years older than me. My little boy, Cory, is my other best friend.
With his blue eyes and black curls, he is all I have left of Jax Morrison. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder about him. My father beat me so badly that the details are still fuzzy. Hell, it took me two weeks to even get out of bed.
Daddy told me he gave Jax fifty grand to leave town and never speak to me again. According to his story, Jax jumped at the offer. I didn’t want to believe that. But it wasn’t like I could get ahold of Jax to confirm the story. My phone had been taken away from me the night my father beat me. By the time I was able to get out of bed, Jax had left town. I’d tried to call him from the house phone, but his phone number was out of service.
When my father found out that I was trying to find Jax, not only was I blocked from using any type of phone, but the internet was also restricted. My every move has been watched and monitored since then.
Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder about Jax. Where is he? How is he? Did he really take Daddy’s handout? Was it really so easy to get Jax out of my life?
“I told you this would happen,” Daddy had said smugly. “He didn’t care about you. He only wanted your money. He couldn’t stand up to me. He is a loser with no backbone, one who will always back down.”
My father’s words still echo in my head. I had been ready to leave my life behind—the mansion, the money, and my parents. I had planned to escape, but finding out I was pregnant hindered my plans. I didn’t know how to support myself, let alone a baby. Daddy had tried to make me get an abortion. He’d even threatened to beat the baby out of me.
“You’re a disgrace to this family. I didn’t raise you to be a slut! If you get rid of this problem, we can salvage this.”
“I’m keeping the baby,” I sneered at him. “It is my body, my baby!”
I trembled, not knowing what I’d do if he tried to hurt me again, or my baby. Daddy looked at me with wild eyes as he raised the back of his hand to me. I blocked myself and stared him down.
“If you touch me again, I will go to the press with the photos of what you did to me,” I told him in a scathing tone.
That was when my mother had stepped in.
“Martin, calm down. This is our grandchild. Jenna will stay here and have the baby in private,” Mama said.
Her lip remained in a straight line as she spoke. I had almost mistaken her interjection as motherly protection of me. Mama had never stood up to Daddy before. She wasn’t about to start now—especially not over me. She was only concerned with how this all would make her look in the community and at church. She wouldn’t have me embarrass her by running around town with a pregnant belly out of wedlock.
I stayed in the house for ten months. I wasn’t even to be seen outside on the property during the pregnancy. A knocked-up daughter was too much embarrassment for a local politician and an old-fashioned Southern belle. I didn’t fit into their image, nor did my illegitimate son with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Every part of me still misses Jax, but I try to stay focused on Cory. Without our son, I think I would have gone off the deep end a long time ago.
“Mama! Look!”
I turn away from the lesson plan I’m working on and look at Cory. He holds a ladybug in his hands.
“Cool! Are you going to make a wish?”
Cory thinks for a moment.
“I wish we could go to the lake.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say, messing his hair up.
He smiles at me before running past Bianca on the way out.
“You know your parents won’t like you going to the lake.”
“It’s been seven years, Bianca. Cory needs to make friends. I may have signed my life away, but I did not sign Cory’s. Daddy is always going to D.C. or Nashville anyway. He hasn’t been to Bourne in weeks,” I reason.
Bianca winks. “I will talk to the staff and make arrangements.”
I finish up Cory’s lesson plans for the week and head outside to play with him. Home schooling Cory had not been my first choice. My parents had suggested boarding school. They didn’t want questions to be asked about his father and me, if Cory went to a local school. Instead, I’d decided to teach him at home. I didn’t want to ship my son off to some stuffy school. We’re all each other has, and I need to look out for him.
“It will keep you out of trouble,” Mama had said when I’d told her of my plans to teach Cory myself.
By trouble, she meant it would keep me from spreading my legs for any boy they didn’t hand select for me. I have no desire to date, though. Cory is my only concern. I want him to have a happy and normal childhood. He is happy, for the most part, but I know the older he gets, the more he realizes we’re practically prisoners of the house.
A few hours later, Bianca has made all of the arrangements for us to go to the lake. It’s not the same experience I had as a teenager. There are no hordes of kids having unsupervised fun. Jax isn’t here kissing my shoulder and sneaking gropes of my body when no one is looking. I miss the tingles he sent throughout my body. He always found a way to make me feel good, whether it was with his words or with his body.
Now, the lake is quiet. It’s the middle of the day on a Friday. I watch Cory playing in the water. We have a giant pool, but Cory loves being outside with nature. He’s especially fond of frogs and airplanes, and he is always on the lookout for both.
I watch Cory having fun, and I wish things could have been different for us. When I had agreed to stay unseen during my pregnancy, I hadn’t realized my father didn’t want me, or my son, seen at all.
Ever since I told him I would go to the press and tell them what he’d done to me, he sees me as a threat. He keeps me in the house, hidden to the outside world.
I’ve tried several times to get my mother to realize how insane it all is since my father won’t even talk to me. He barely looks at me these days, and that’s when he’s in town and not on his campaign tour, trying to become governor. God, I hope he loses. He shouldn’t be in any position of power.
Cory and I are stuck. The fear of what will happen if we try to leave grows each day. How can we escape? What happens if Daddy sends someone after us? How much worse will he make my life?
Even now, on an innocent drive to the lake, there are three security guards surrounding us. Cory is surprisingly well-adjusted for a kid in his situation, but that’s only because I do my best to look happy around him.
Most nights, I lie awake, thinking of Jax. I imagine what would have happened if I’d just run away with him that night instead of going home. That should have been our plan. Neither of us could have known that would be the last time we saw each other, though.
Sometimes I get angry at Jax—the version of him my father described seven years ago. The one who took the money and agreed to leave town. Then I remember that I don’t trust my father or a word he says.
As much anger and pain I have for Jax, I still have more love and worry about him. I hope he’s happy, wherever he is and whomeve
r he is with. The thought of him being with someone else is too much to bear.
I can’t imagine ever loving anyone but Jax.
Chapter Six
Jax
Staring out of my office window, I can see the tourists taking photos in Battery Park. I love the excitement that constantly fills New York City. It’s the city that made me who I am today.
The plan was always to leave Bourne—to go where, I had no idea. There was only one thing I loved about that old Southern town where I grew up, and it still tears me up inside knowing that she isn’t by my side.
Jenna was the most crucial part of my plan, but it all fell apart so quickly. Maybe I was too naïve to think that high school sweethearts could last.
It’s been seven long years since I’ve seen or heard from Jenna. To this day, I still don’t know what really happened. We were young, and her parents desperately wanted her away from me.
I wonder who Jenna is today. Does she still live with her parents? Did they change her into what they always wanted her to be? A proper Southern belle with a waif-like figure. God, I hope not.
I wonder if she moved on from me to some rich guy. That thought makes my skin crawl. I can’t bear the thought of someone else’s hands on her.
I’m curious to know if she has found out who I’ve become. In three short years, I climbed my way up the corporate ladder. I lived modestly for a while as I made some wise investments that brought in enough profit to start my own hedge fund. It quickly became the most successful company in the Northern hemisphere.
I worked extremely hard—not having much of a life outside of work. I had always been good with numbers and money, and it all paid off. Big time. In fact, Forbes just named me one of the wealthiest people under thirty in their latest issue.
I have surpassed my goals for myself, and I can have anything I want. Penthouses, cars, women—I take advantage of it all, but nothing ever fills the void. The women are all the same—skinny, blonde, and wanting me to marry them. Most of these girls can’t handle me in bed. Between my size and how rough I like it, I wind up having to tone down my desires a lot.
In bed, I crave more than what these girls give me. I want fleshy hips to grab onto and tits to bounce. I miss Jenna’s gorgeous face and the freckles across her nose. She never covered her beauty up with caked on make-up like most of these girls do. I yearn for Jenna’s soft curves and her eyes looking at me with pure love. Jenna made me hard with just a bat of her eyes.
All of the girls I meet are looking for a sugar daddy and think the key to my heart, or wallet, is being a bitch to everyone around them. To me, they’re overly sweet, and I can see through their act. They’re as false as their eyelashes.
The compassion Jenna had for others, no matter what class or race they came from, seems to be a quality rare in others. We were just kids when we dated, and we only shared one night together, but what we had was special. Every moment with her is ingrained into my brain. She gave my life meaning.
The truth is, as much as I miss her, I am disappointed in her. She finally listened to her father about me. She chose him over me. Who knows what he said to her, though. As the seven-year anniversary of that night approaches, I need closure, once and for all.
Fuck closure. I need Jenna. I won’t leave Tennessee without her by my side.
“Mr. Morrison, the car is downstairs.”
I turn around and smile at my assistant. She is an older woman and one of the few I trust to the fullest. She makes sure I eat when I work late and listens to me when I’m stressed.
“Thanks, Joan.”
I grab my luggage and walk to the elevator. The black sedan sits outside of my office building, waiting to take me to LaGuardia Airport. The drive to the airport is a blur as my mind fills with Jenna.
Will I look different to Jenna? Or will she look different to me? I check social media regularly, hoping that one day, my Jenna will show up on there. There are plenty of Jenna Joneses out there, but none of them are my Jenna.
What always baffles me about Jenna is that there are no records on her at all. The only thing Joan ever found on Jenna specifically, and not her father, was an online degree in home schooling from four years ago.
I imagine Jenna being the perfect teacher since she was always patient and kind. The image of her with her hair up, glasses on, and biting down on a pencil comes to mind. And just like when I was eighteen, my dick responds to the mere thought of Jenna Jones. Thoughts of our time together seven years ago keep my mind occupied on the short flight to my hometown.
After touching down at BNA Airport, I pick up a rental car. The Mercedes SUV drives out of Nashville and toward Bourne smoothly. I practically speed down the highway. Living in the city, I don’t get to drive much, and I miss it. Sometimes I even miss my old pickup truck.
I slow down as I turn onto the dirt roads of Bourne. A flood of memories, good and bad, rush back to me. I pass my old high school and smile. The school doesn’t make me nostalgic for football games and the cheerleaders who wanted to date me—the bad boy of the school. It all makes me nostalgic for Jenna. Our relationship began and ended at that school.
Jenna and I had shared our first kiss under the bleachers. We had made love in the football field parking lot. Thanks to that school and its lack of security, we’d had a place to fool around without the peering eyes of Jenna’s parents or nosey townies.
I drive a couple of miles down the road, and the Jones’ estate comes into view. The huge, old plantation house is the landmark of Bourne. It is surrounded by lush gardens and landscaping that Irene, Jenna’s mother, was always most proud of. She often appears in Southern Living Magazine to discuss the designs and to throw in that her husband is running for governor.
Anger fills me as I get closer to the house. I want to show Jenna’s parents what I’ve made of myself—if they don’t already know. Martin Jones hates me for who my family is, for not having money. I wasn’t good enough for Jenna in his eyes. He must have convinced her that I was trash—that I couldn’t provide for her. Maybe he’d told her that I would end up a drunk like my father, or that I had used her to get to their money.
I’ll show him that I did as I’d always promised. I had gotten out of this small town and had made something of myself. I even have more money than Martin Jones does now. While he’s king of a rinky-dink town, I’m a respected businessman in one of the largest cities in the world. I’m a man now, not a boy. Martin has no control over me—or Jenna—anymore. I can take care of her.
The car approaches the gate that wasn’t there seven years ago. Thankfully, it’s open. I pull into the familiar circular driveway and turn off the car. I walk up to the door and knock. No one answers. I ring the doorbell and knock harder. All of my hatred for Martin Jones boils up at that moment, and I start pounding my fist against the door.
Finally, a butler answers the door. Behind him, the house is dark and eerily quiet. It’s extremely odd that not a single light is on.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here for Jenna Jones.”
“There isn’t anyone who lives here by that name.”
The butler gives me a cold glare before he tries to close the door in my face.
“Can I speak to Mr. Jones?” I ask. “We have some business to discuss.”
“The Joneses are out of town,” he replies blandly. “Please remove yourself from the property.”
He closes the door in my face, and I step back from the house. Something is off. I get back in the Mercedes and start the car, somewhat dumbfounded. It is a relief that Jenna has moved out of her parents’ house, but it has me wondering if she got married or is with someone. My chest tightens as it always does when I think about Jenna being with someone else.
Driving down the road, I pull off onto a grassy patch on the side of the road. I leave the rental car behind and head back to the estate. I wish I had worn something less conspicuous than the three-piece suit I had put on for work this morning.
Whet
her the Joneses are really home or not, something isn’t right about the house. If the staff is there, then why are all the lights off? Why did the butler act as if he’s never heard of Jenna Jones before? It feels like she didn’t exist anymore. Either that, or someone is trying hard to make it appear as if she doesn’t exist.
I creep around the perimeter of the property, trying to peek through the gate. I hear laughter coming from the far side of the house as I get closer. It sounds like it’s coming from a child.
A little boy comes into view. He’s right outside the gate, picking the wildflowers that grow there. They aren’t the perfectly-spaced and strategically coordinated plants Irene Jones prides herself on in her garden.
These flowers are all different lengths and colors. Some of them are dandelions and other weeds, but the little boy picks them anyway and puts them into a picnic basket. His curly, dark hair looks damp as the sun shines through it. A towel is draped over his shoulder. He had probably just been swimming at the lake.
He reminds me of myself as a boy. I practically lived at the lake, trying to catch frogs to bring home. I’d always had a need to nurture something—probably because I hadn’t gotten a lot of nurturing at home myself.
The boy holds a flower out to someone who is standing inside the gate.
“For me?”
A soft voice replies to the boy. I know that voice. Jenna! She steps out of the protective barrier of the gate and into the sunlight. She looks like an angel standing there. The sun brings out a reddish tint to her wild brown curls. Her smile is huge as she looks at the boy.
She’s dressed simply—cut-off jean shorts and a white t-shirt. I can see the tie to a bathing suit sticking out of her shirt. The shorts hug her big ass deliciously. She hasn’t changed a bit, and that makes me want to pull her into my arms all the more. I step closer, and a stick breaks under my weight, causing Jenna and the boy to snap their heads toward me.
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