by Lisa Cardiff
Jax banged on the door, hoping and praying that his parents were home.
James Carmichael opened the door. “So I guess you’ve reconsidered marrying Katie?”
“No. Is Mom home?”
James’ mouth tightened. “She’s in the library, reading.”
“Good. We can all talk there so I only have to say this once.”
His dad nodded. “Good enough.”
Jax followed him from the marbled foyer down the hallway that led to his mother’s library. He only had fifteen minutes to say what needed to be said so he could intercept Bre and Cam before they left the restaurant. In retrospect, he should have visited when he had more time, but he couldn’t allow his dad to interfere with his life any longer.
His dad knocked on the slightly ajar door to the library and then entered. “Katrina,” he said. “Jax is here.”
“Jax, what are you doing here?” She unfolded her legs from underneath her body and stood up.
Jax stared pointedly at his mom’s now bare ring finger. “I came here to tell both of you to stop interfering in my life. You can give Katie a ring and tell her I’ll marry her, but it’s not going to happen. I won’t marry her. I won’t work for Dad’s company. This is my life, not yours. Let me live it.”
“Jax, as parents, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes those decisions are good and sometimes they aren’t so good, but I’ve always had your best interests at heart.” James walked behind the large wooden desk in the far corner of the room and sat down. “I thought you loved Katie,” he said, softly shaking his head.
“No, I don’t, not even close. I don’t care what you can do for my band. I don’t care what you threaten to do or refuse to do. It’s not worth it, so I would suggest you get Mom’s ring back from Katie unless you two have finally decided to end your miserable marriage, in which case, I don’t give a shit what you do with the ring.” Jax turned to leave.
“Jax,” Katrina said, her voice low and urgent. “Don’t be mad. We only pushed this because we thought you wanted to be with her, but you felt like you couldn’t because it would mean you’d caved to your dad’s ultimatum. As much as we adore Katie, we want you to be happy, and if Katie isn’t the one that can do that, we’re okay with that,” she said.
“What? I don’t understand,” Jax said, spinning around.
Katrina walked behind the desk and put her hands on his dad’s shoulders. “Tell him, James.”
“Can you sit?” his dad said, gesturing toward the chair across from him.
“No. I prefer to stand.” Jax shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Fine.” James exhaled loudly. “I want to apologize for not giving you or your mom the time you deserved over the past ten years or so. I should have been a better parent and a better husband.”
Jax’s eyes flicked between his mother and father and his mother’s supportive position behind his dad. “I guess you two have worked things out. I’m glad—”
James held up his hand. “I’m sure you don’t know this, but over the past year, your mom and I have been seeing a marriage therapist, and your mom has agreed to give me another chance.” James looked up at his wife and smiled. “I’d like you to give me another chance, too.”
“By interfering in my life and trying to control me? No thanks.”
James cringed. “Katie told us the two of you were in love, and that you’d talked about getting married, but she said lately you’ve been pushing her away. We—no, I—thought you were pushing her away to make a point to me, or maybe because of me and your mother’s track record—hell, I don’t know. I thought by giving you my blessing with the band and nudging you to marry Katie, I was helping you get the two things you wanted most. I thought…maybe…you would forgive me.” James twirled his pen between his fingers, watching Jax’s face. “You know, the moment I gave her that ring, I regretted it. I knew I shouldn’t have interfered with your life, but I was desperate for us to be a family again. I’m sorry. I made a dumb decision.”
Jax was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. He had come to his childhood home prepared for a fight, but instead, he encountered a father he didn’t know. “Katie was a mistake. I’ve told her repeatedly our relationship was over. I never loved her! She’s been nothing but a liar and now she’s screwed up my life.”
James raked his hands through his hair. “I’ve had this picture in my mind for so long of a perfect life for you. You would come to work with me, marry Katie, and unite our two families, but I never stopped to consider what you wanted. I guess I’m still making mistakes. I’ll take care of Katie and fix this.”
“You can’t fix this! Katie told the woman that I do love that we’re engaged, and she showed her that damn ring with K&J Forever on it.”
“Oh, honey,” Katrina said. “I’m sorry. Your dad and I can talk to her, tell her what happened.”
“No. I think I’m on my own here.”
Katrina nodded and kissed him on the cheek.
“Speaking of which, I need to go find her and talk to her before it’s too late.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Bre pushed her sushi to the side with her chopsticks. Eating sushi wasn’t the best idea when her stomach was still unsettled. She couldn’t get Katie’s ring out of her mind. Asking Jax would be the most logical course of action before she wrote him out of her life, but part of her wanted to walk away before she gave Jax the ability to crush her completely.
She considered what Jax said about fighting for her and not letting her go, but she didn’t even know what that meant anymore. What did he think? She’d stay with him while he married Katie? Bre shivered in disgust. Even now, she had difficulty digesting Katie’s story. Would Jax have agreed to marry Katie to get his band signed when he claimed to love her? Her heart didn’t want to believe it, but her mind didn’t know what to believe. She sensed from the first moment she laid eyes on Katie that she would do anything to keep Jax, but fabricating an engagement seemed above and beyond the capabilities of any woman, infatuated or not. It would be too easy to confirm or disprove, but what did she know? She’d watched her mom play games with people’s heads her entire life, and it still shocked her that those people were utterly blind to her mom’s games. They only saw what they wanted to see. She hoped she hadn’t done that with Jax.
“Are you going to eat anything or are you going to push it around on your plate for another twenty minutes?” Cam asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Bre muttered.
“This place is good, but nothing beats the place on Main Street in Aspen,” Cam said, and then he stuffed another piece of sushi in his mouth.
“I know, but it’s a small fortune every time I go.”
“What about some dessert? You always have room for that.”
“I don’t know.” Bre leaned back against the booth. Dessert was tempting, but she still had to figure out how to get her clothes from Jax’s place. She should go there, get her stuff, and demand an explanation, but she didn’t know if she could handle the answer if he admitted he and Katie were engaged.
“Come on. I really want the green tea ice cream. I’ll order one for both of us.” Cam flagged the waitress to the table.
“You hate ice cream, and you hate green tea,” Bre said, shaking her head.
“Maybe I’ll like them combined.” Cam looked up at the waitress. “Two green tea ice creams, please.”
“Okay, whatever you think.” She had the distinct impression Cam didn’t want to go home. “But let’s hurry up and eat it. I really want to leave. Maybe you can drop by Jax’s place and get my things…” Bre’s voice trailed off when she saw Cam cringe. “Never mind. I’m sure this is awkward. I can’t believe you’re being nice to me.”
Distracted, Cam looked over her head. “Bre, we both made mistakes. Let’s not talk about it anymore tonight.” Cam tapped his spoon on his plate a few times, and then pushed the plate away from him.
Bre ate a bite of her ice cream. She hated that she
’d hurt Cam. He cheated on her, but she wasn’t innocent. She held on to him long after she should have let go, and she was with Jax, one his best friends. Admittedly, that wasn’t one of the most thoughtful decisions of her life, but from the moment she’d met him, he sucked her into his life, and she couldn’t resist him.
“Bre,” Jax’s low voice interrupted her thoughts. Bre jerked her gaze away from Cam’s untouched ice cream to find Jax standing at the edge of their table. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair looked like he’d ran his hands through it hundreds of times in the last hour, but he still looked absolutely perfect to her.
“Jax,” Bre whispered, at a loss for words. Seeing him made her insides hurt with anger and longing. She hated the contradiction of emotions flying through her body. She wished she could be firm, but she could feel the edges of her anger melting under his hypnotic stare.
Cam leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Bre grabbed his hand, her heart racing at the thought of being left alone with Jax. “No. Don’t leave. You don’t have to go.”
“Yes. I do. You can do this. Give him the chance to explain. He loves you.” Cam winked, then peeled her fingers away from his hand. When he stood up, he slapped his hand on Jax’s shoulder. “Take care of her.”
Jax nodded. “Thanks. I will. I owe you.”
Bre looked between the two of them, blinking as if she didn’t understand what had just happened. Cam looked at her for a moment and the tenderness in his expression was almost like a caress. She’d known him for so long that she instinctively understood that look was goodbye. Then he turned around and walked out the door of the restaurant without looking back.
Jax sat down next to her, pressing the side of his leg into hers. As much as she wanted to wrap her arms around him, and beg him to tell her he wasn’t engaged to Katie, she refused to be weak. Bre threw her napkin onto the table and started to slide out of the booth. If she hurried, she could still catch Cam.
Jax wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her back toward him. “Bre, please give me a few minutes to explain, and if you still want to leave when I’m done, I’ll drive you back to Cam’s,” Jax pleaded.
“Cam told you where to find me?” Bre asked, confused.
“Yes,” he answered without further explanation.
“Why would he do that?”
Jax pushed her hair behind her ear. “He thought we should talk. I owe you that.”
Bre shivered, hating the implication of his words. Was this the part where he confirmed his engagement and tore out her heart and handed it back to her, broken and bleeding? If so, she didn’t want a lengthy explanation, she wanted facts. “Fine, but first tell me if you’re engaged to Katie.”
“I’m sorry…” he started, and she gasped, scrambling out of her seat. Oh my god, it was true! She didn’t need to hear anything else.
“I don’t need to hear the details, your confirmation was sufficient.”
“Wait,” he said, grabbing her elbow. “We. Are. Not. Engaged.” His voice was firm as he enunciated every word.
She rubbed her eyes. “Anymore? Or not ever?”
“Not ever.”
“But the ring?” Bre questioned, her gut twisted at the thought of the words etched into the band of the ring.
“It’s my mom’s.” Seeing Bre’s puzzled look, he added, “My mom’s name is Katrina and my dad’s name is James. That’s the J and K.”
“But why does she have the ring?”
Jax looked at the ceiling and shook his head. “It’s a long explanation, but basically my parents got the idea that I wouldn’t commit to a relationship with Katie because of my dad’s ultimatum, or their mess of a marriage, or whatever…it doesn’t really matter.”
“The one that required you to work for him and marry Katie?”
“Yes. Only the other night, he stopped by with Katie, saying he would ensure the band was signed if I married Katie. I refused.”
“You did?” Bre asked with a ghost of a smile.
“Of course I did. Even though you wouldn’t give me reason to hope we could be together, I couldn’t marry Katie knowing the way I feel about you, and even if you didn’t exist, I wouldn’t marry her.”
Bre bit her lower lip and then looked away. “You wouldn’t?”
“Never. I want to be with you—only you. I love you.” His thumb caressed her cheek.
Bre’s eyes flew to his, and her uncertain expression cleared. A small sob escaped her lips. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I was too scared to ask you to tell me the truth.”
Jax pulled her into a tight embrace and wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t be afraid to ask me anything. Ever.”
“I love you,” she murmured into his chest, breathing in his clean, spicy scent.
Jax tipped her face up to his and kissed her, more tenderly than ever before, more enduring, more loving, because for the first time since they met, they had absolutely nothing hanging over their heads. No Cam, no Katie, nothing.
“Good, because I only want to love you. Today. Tomorrow, and every day after that,” Jax whispered, and she shivered, because that’s exactly what she wanted.
Epilogue
One year later…
Jax watched Bre as she walked into the their room backstage. She wore dark skinny jeans with heels and a black boucle jacket over a vintage t-shirt. Damn, he liked the way her long legs looked in those jeans.
When she spotted him, a bright smile spread across her face. “There you are,” she said, walking toward him. “The show was great.”
“You made it back in time to see it?” he asked. She had a big art exhibition for her paintings at the gallery in Aspen, and as much as he hated her to miss any performance, he loved that she had embraced her talent and become a full-time artist. Six months ago, she sold her share of the gallery to Michael while maintaining ownership of the building she’d inherited from her grandmother. With the rent from the gallery, she had the means to move to LA and move in with him, and he couldn’t have been happier.
“I wouldn’t have missed it. I have to stake my claim so those lust-crazed women don’t get any ideas.” She laughed and nodded her head in the direction of the rest of the band.
Jax chuckled. “No, all those women are here for the guys,” he said, pointing at Cam, Marc, and Alec, who were laughing good naturedly at the women trying to get them to autograph their bodies. “I think I’ve made it clear to anyone that will listen that I’m taken.”
Cam looked up and waved. Bre waved back with a huge smile on her face. Jax still hated the closeness of their relationship, but he knew they were more like family than anything else, and Bre needed a family because her mom would never be that for her. He only hoped that eventually she would come to think of him as family. The longer he knew Bre, the more amazed he was by what a wonderful, caring person she turned out to be with a narcissist for a mother. Luckily, they hadn’t heard from her in months.
Bre tipped up his blue LA Dodgers cap. Standing on her toes, she wrapped her arms around him, tangling her hands in the back of his hair, and bit his lower lip. Tilting her head back, she smiled and then brushed a kiss across his lips.
“Bre,” he murmured. “It’s been seven days since I’ve seen you. Don’t tease me. All I could think about on that stage was that you would be home tonight and in our bed. Promise you’ll never leave me for that long again.”
“What about when you go on tour?” she whispered into his ear, pushing one of her hands under the hem of his shirt and sliding it up to his chest.
“Fuck the tour,” he said, clutching her tight and hoisting her off the ground. “I’m not leaving you for that long.”
“Who said you had to?” Bre murmured into his ear, making him shudder.
“What do you mean?” he questioned, pulling her closer to his body.
“I talked to your agent. I asked him to give us our own bus so I can go with you. I don’t want to miss your first tour
now that Chasing Ruin hit it big.”
“No. You can’t put your career on hold to follow me around the country,” he said tenderly.
“I don’t intend to. With our own bus, I’ll have a place to paint so I don’t get behind, but you have to promise not to get sick of me and throw me out.”
“Never,” he said, kissing her hard on the lips. “You’re a genius,” he murmured against her lips as he carried her toward an empty room.
She started to squirm. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere private, so I can show you exactly how much I missed you.”
When she opened her mouth to respond, he took advantage and kissed her the way he had been dreaming about since she left.
After they reached the room, he slammed the door and put her down on her feet, still holding her tight.
“Hey, it’s dark in here. What are you doing?” she said, trying to feign anger, but he could feel the curve of her smile against his cheek.
He turned on the lights and then his hand settled on the back of her neck, tipping her head to rest against his. “Bre, I’ve been planning this over and over in my head for months, and I don’t think I can wait any longer. I wanted to write a song or have the band sing to you, but being away from you for the past week, I realized I don’t want to waste another moment. We’ve wasted too many.”
Bre froze. “What?” she whispered.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. Shocked, Bre’s eyes widened.
“Aubrey Keaton, will you do me the honor of marrying me and being my family?”
“Yes! Yes!” Tears streamed down her face.
Jax pushed the ring onto her hand and flung the door open. “You guys can come in now. She said yes.”
