“Go.” Bran waved a hand. “The baby will be here when you come back.”
“But I want to be there.” Taylor appeared as unsatisfied by this decision as her new husband. “The moment it happens.”
“Guys. Go to the Bahamas. Any excuse to delay and neither of you will ever go. You work too much.”
Jayson regarded the ground and smiled to himself. Bran was as dedicated to their family’s company as Royce and Taylor, even though he played down his commitment.
“He’s right,” Taylor told Royce. “Plus, if we stay here, your mom and dad will insist on keeping their granddaughter anyway. They’ve been looking forward to our honeymoon as much as we have.”
“Not as much,” Royce told his bride.
“We have things under control here,” Jayson assured her. He was happy for them. Not every marriage ended in catastrophe.
Though a lot of them do, murmured the cynic inside.
“Fine. I’ll go to the Bahamas,” she said with a surly huff. “Where is Gia, anyway? I wanted to say goodbye.”
This again? “I believe she went to bed.”
“Oh.” Taylor’s brow crinkled. Jayson was an inch away from encouraging her to go upstairs and interrupt whatever might be happening, but he managed to keep that request to himself.
Progress. He was growing.
Royce shook Jayson’s then Brannon’s hands. “Call us the second Addi’s in the hospital,” he instructed his brother. “Day or night.”
“Honeymoon, Royce,” Bran told him. “You have to relax.”
“I don’t relax.” Royce dipped his chin at Jayson, his tone firmer than before. “Coop. Keep an eye on our girl.”
“What was that about?” Bran asked once they’d gone.
“No idea,” Jayson lied, lifting his cigar to his lips.
Royce wasn’t referring to his daughter, but Gia.
It wasn’t so long ago that Gia’s father, Jack Knox, had given Jayson a similar command. Her family had always wanted to protect her.
It’d taken Jayson a while to learn it, but he now knew what Gia wanted more than anything. And that was to take care of herself.
Six
Last January, the ThomKnox parking garage
“Thanks for the help,” Gia said, chasing after Jayson. “Even though I told you I’d carry that.”
“Not happening, G.” Like he’d let her carry a thirty-six-inch screen from the executive floor down to the parking garage. “Why are you in the garage, anyway? You should be parked up front in the space with your name on it.”
She beeped a key fob. “My interior is black leather. It’d soak up the heat from the sun and then when I climbed in I’d suffocate and die.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” The black Mercedes Benz C-Class was a beauty. He should know. He’d picked it out. At the time he hadn’t imagined he’d be leaving it with her because they were divorcing.
Five days from now they’d finalize their split on paper. Officially.
He’d already secured an apartment. Most of what he was taking there was already in storage. He’d moved out gradually, thinking it would hurt less. Turned out there was no way for divorce to hurt less. It hurt. That’s all there was to it.
He slid the large screen, in its factory box, into the trunk and shut it. She went around to the driver’s seat and climbed inside, turning over the engine. The sound echoed in the garage. Not a soul was parked on the third level. Other than a guard and few brown-nosers, Jay guessed the first floor was just as empty.
Gia rolled down the window. “Guess I’ll see you later.”
He locked onto her brown eyes, stuck on what to say about any of it. All of the arguments he wished could have been simple misunderstandings. All of the accusations said in the heat of the moment that he should have taken back.
Too late now.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the words exiting his throat like broken glass. Not because he didn’t mean it. He was sorry, sorry that their marriage was ending in a stalemate.
“Don’t be.” Her smile was forced. “We did our best.”
“Did we?”
She watched him, chewing on her lip. He hadn’t meant to ask, but now that he had...did they do their best? Or were they giving up?
She shut off the engine and stepped out, folding her arms and leaning on the door. Eyes on his, she said, “Yes. We did.”
“I’m not a quitter. Neither are you,” he offered. “This feels like quitting.”
“We can’t change the past, Jay.” She shrugged. “And the future is unknown. Besides, we’re not quitting. We’re deciding to be apart. Our love for this company, and my family, isn’t going anywhere. The only difference in our lives will be that you no longer live in the house.”
He rested a hand on the car’s roof and hovered over her. “I’ll also no longer be in your bed.”
Heat warmed her caramel-colored eyes to deep, chocolate brown. He brushed her soft cheek with the back of his fingers.
“I’ll no longer kiss these lips good-night.” He touched her mouth with his thumb. That would be the hardest transition—for both of them, he’d bet.
“We have a few days,” she whispered, arching her back and brushing her breasts against his chest.
He didn’t need more of an invitation than that. Lowering his face, he captured her lips with his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Her entire body participated, from her fingernails scratching his scalp to her leg wrapping around his hip. Hand beneath her thigh, he hiked her leg higher and deepened their kiss. His erection raged as a contradicting voice inside yelled for him to both stop and go faster.
“Point of no return,” he breathed into her ear before nipping her earlobe. If they slept together, it’d change everything. He knew it in his bones.
He wasn’t sure if that was wise, or infinitely stupid.
She pulled away, her tongue swiping her bottom lip. When her teeth came down to capture it, he knew her answer.
“One more time,” she answered.
He didn’t think, he only acted.
* * *
Cigar enjoyed, time killed, Jayson trudged upstairs to his date.
He’d waited until the band packed up, sitting up and talking to Bran and a few of his friends to further stall the inevitable. He knew Gia was upstairs with Denver. Neither of them had reappeared. Jayson hadn’t been in a big hurry to run upstairs and corroborate that suspicion.
He turned down the hallway to walk to his room when Denver clomped up the stairs behind him, a glass of brown liquid in hand. “One for the road, bro,” he said, his speech wobbly.
Jayson welded his jaw together as Denver disappeared into Gia’s room. Fists balled, he considered his options. Bust into the room and demand his ex-wife stay away from that harebrained, brick-headed dolt, or stand idly by.
There would be consequences if he banged on that door and checked up on her. She didn’t like him undermining her. That was the word she’d often used. Undermining. As if protecting someone he loved was an insult.
Then again, making sure she was safe was worth any consequence, big or small. He’d started toward the bedroom door when her laugh floated out from under it.
He froze in place, at once disgusted and resigned. She sounded fine. Happy, even.
That sucked.
On heavy legs he turned back toward his own room and walked in. Natasha was waiting for him.
“Fix it.” She pointed at the dresser, where one drawer was opened at a weird slant. “I can’t live like this.”
“Can’t have you roughing it,” he said, sarcasm thick, as he fixed the drawer with a quick wiggle. Forget that she was in a Knox mansion overlooking a vineyard, majestic mountains as a backdrop.
All he wanted to do was close his eyes and wake up in the
morning.
“You are not nice,” she said. Arguably she was right. He hadn’t been very nice. “I am showering. Don’t join me.” She closed herself into the bathroom. And locked the door.
“No problem, lady.” He sat on the edge of the bed and scrubbed his face with both hands.
He was beat, but he couldn’t sleep knowing what was going on at the end of the hallway. He decided to head downstairs. The bar was closed, but he knew where Jack kept the good scotch. Jayson needed a nip after the day he’d had. Hell, he needed a bottle.
When he exited his room, Gia was tiptoeing out of hers. They shut the doors to their rooms simultaneously. He smiled and she smiled back at him, each amused by the unintentional choreography.
She’d changed from her bridesmaid’s dress into a short pair of cutoff shorts and an oversize pink T-shirt. She looked cute. Relaxed. Warm and sleepy.
The thought of Denver touching her made Jayson want to howl.
She shoved her hands into her back pockets. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Still in his trousers and white shirt from the wedding, he was overdressed for this chance meeting. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah. My roommate is, ah, he finally fell asleep.”
After what?
He didn’t dare ask.
“Is the party winding down?” She folded her arms over her stomach and shifted on her feet. Fidgeting, the way she did when she was nervous.
“Royce and Taylor took off for the honeymoon. Addi and Bran are in their room. Your mom and dad left a little while ago with the baby. Just catering staff and house staff tidying up downstairs.”
She nodded, glancing away before looking back at him. “I was going to grab a snack. Want to join me?”
“I was heading for the bar, but I never turn down a meal.”
She joined him at the top of the stairs and they walked down side by side. “I didn’t mean to take you from your date.”
If it wasn’t for the way she pronounced that hard T, he wouldn’t have had any idea his ex-wife was jealous. He wasn’t proud of it, but he liked knowing he wasn’t the only one entertaining the green-eyed monster tonight.
Downstairs in the kitchen, she weaved between the house staff, greeting them by name while pulling out containers of leftovers from the fridge.
She handed him a large plate and filled it with a variety of salads and pasta, meats and cheeses, and on another plate served up a large slice of cake. When she started to put the containers back into the fridge, one of the house staff shooed her away.
She walked outside and on the way Jayson grabbed a pair of sparkling-water bottles. They stopped at a picnic table beneath a broad tree overlooking the vineyards. The house glowed warmly in the background, looking as homey as a thirty-something-room mansion could.
They dug into their shared snack in silence.
“Mmm. God. This is better than...” She trailed off before rephrasing her statement. “This is better than it was the first time.”
“Did you do something to work up an appetite?” He narrowed his eyes.
She popped a square of cheese into her mouth and raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”
He reached for his water bottle and unscrewed the cap before taking a long guzzle. Not as good as scotch, but it would do. Patience shot, he said what was on his mind. “What the hell are you doing with that clown?”
“Excuse me?”
“Denver Pippen. That’s who you’re choosing to be seen with?”
“How is that any of your business?” She let out an incredulous laugh.
“I refuse to stand by while you waste your time with an idiot like Denver Pippen.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk! You brought a runway model to my brother’s wedding.”
“She’s a swimsuit model.”
Even in the dim light he could make out the redness of his ex-wife’s cheeks. “You’re a hypocrite. You’re allowed to sleep with whoever you want, but I can’t? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I didn’t sleep with Natasha,” he blurted out before he thought better of it.
“Not yet,” Gia said, but her voice was small. She hadn’t expected him to say that.
“Not ever,” he answered with finality.
Seven
Jayson took a bite of the cake and licked his fork. Gia crossed her legs beneath the table, memories of his mouth—and how good he was with it—assaulting her.
So he hadn’t slept with Natasha? Gia had to chew on that for a while. She did so with a slice of brie.
He scooped up another large bite of leftover wedding cake. “Is it about sex? Is that the appeal?”
Unwilling to confess anything, she claimed her own fork and ate a bite of cake. She was still sort of in shock that Jayson hadn’t slept with the beautiful woman he’d brought to the wedding.
“If it’s about sex, you can do better,” he pressed.
She met his eyes and in their blue depths recalled the way he used to look at her. Heated. Down to her very soul. Sex with Jayson had been exquisite. Unparalleled.
Too long ago.
“Who am I supposed to sleep with? You?” Her heart thundered while she held her breath. Waiting. Daring him to answer. He didn’t disappoint.
“Yes. If what you’re after is a physical release, I’m a sure thing. But not with some random guy who isn’t worthy of you.” The words were gravel dragged over concrete. Jayson was pissed. Which also made him hot.
If temptation was a grain of sand, she’d be standing on an island. He could deliver on a physical release—tenfold. And if any proof was needed, she had it. Her body had come alive the second he’d said the word yes.
But they’d learned that lesson, hadn’t they?
“We tried that already,” she said. “We’re good in bed but not outside of it. Look at us now. We should be in our separate rooms and yet...”
“And yet.” He let the words hang.
She had a heart to protect. Unraveling her marriage had been the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. Away from him she’d finally felt like an adult who was in charge of her own life. She loved her family, but they had a way of coddling her that she didn’t appreciate. She understood that she was the youngest, but her reaching the pinnacle of adulthood should have quelled everyone’s urge to protect her.
The freedom of being married was eye-opening...until she’d realized Jayson trying to take care of her much like her father and brothers.
There was a certain amount of freedom that came with being single. She could eat dinner whenever she liked without having to take a vote about whether to order out or dine in. She could stay up too late, fall asleep on the couch, enjoy the shower all to herself...
Although that part had its downsides.
Jayson had washed her back and her front when they’d lived together. In the moments she was romantic with herself, she used some of those memories as motivation.
But.
Going backward was never the best way forward. Wasn’t that what all the memes on Pinterest said?
“It’s too late.” She stood from the picnic table.
He stood and blocked her path, hulking and dark, brooding and beautiful. “Too late for what?”
She put a hand on his chest to push him away but it settled there, content to touch him even as her brain urged against it. “It’s too late to get back together.”
He leaned in, the clean scent of his aftershave mingling with the crisp air from the vineyard. Lips close to hers, but still not touching, he muttered, “Who said anything about getting back together?”
Time stopped.
The only sounds came from the catering staff packing up the truck and the rustling of the leaves overhead. Chaotic thoughts dipped and weaved inside her head while she debated the very thing she shouldn’t be debating.
&nbs
p; Was she delaying the inevitable? Or was she too tired to think clearly?
Too excited to think clearly...
“You’re right, G.” He dragged in a sigh and blew it out, his breath dusting her cheek as he moved his lips to her cheek. “It’s too late for this conversation.”
She didn’t know if he meant it was too late tonight or too late overall but either way she supposed he was right.
“Good night.”
“Good night.” She watched him go even though part of her wanted to chase after him. The stupid part of her that forgot what life was like when they’d been married.
He’d been opinionated and stubborn. He didn’t listen when she spoke. He thought he knew best. He made decisions for her instead of with her. What made her think he’d changed?
Upstairs the light in his bedroom window turned on and then off. He was in there now, with Natasha. He hadn’t slept with her. Not yet. But like with their marriage, Gia was out of time. She’d had her chance to have him for herself. And it would have been amazing.
But then what?
Inside, a staff member rushed to take the dishes from her hands. Gia headed upstairs to her date, bypassing Jayson’s bedroom door and doing her best to shut out what might or might not be happening beyond it.
Denver was sprawled out and snoring, where she’d left him. She crept through the darkness and bumped into his foot hanging off the end of the bed. Grabbing her pillow, she snagged a quilt off the footboard and went to the armchair in the corner.
Looked like she’d be sleeping here tonight while Prince Charming hogged the covers.
* * *
Natasha turned pouting into an art form.
Jayson had never seen anything like it. He’d gone back to the room last night and had tried to negotiate for one of the pillows. She’d kept all four. He could see the argument forming in midair between them, so he’d smiled and assured her he was good on the floor. Which was where he slept, his tuxedo balled up into a makeshift pillow while he slept in his shorts.
Now morning, he was feeling every inch of that hardwood floor on his aching lower back. He needed a cup of coffee more than a shark needed seawater. The outdoor patio was bustling with wedding guests who’d stayed over. They were making their way through the breakfast buffet and from the looks of it, the food supply was nearing depletion.
One Last Kiss Page 4
