by Amelie Bloom
At twelve, I tried the tuba in the middle school band, and although being able to blast out the eardrums of everyone within earshot was enormously appealing, that’s about all I could do.
I got fired from the band.
“You don’t have to do this, really,” I told Jax. “I’m so musically challenged that I got kicked out of middle school band.”
“So, did I. What did you do?”
“I got kicked out because the director said he wanted to be able to hear something other than the tuba.”
“That’s funny.” Jax was laughing now. “I got kicked out for the same reason.”
“You played tuba, too?”
“Drums. Mr. Hall didn’t appreciate my improvisations on the drum set.”
“Oh?”
“I’d get so bored in between where I was supposed to play that I’d make something up to fill in the blanks in the music score.“
“So, Mr. Hall didn’t adequately appreciate your budding musical genius?”
“Something like that.”
Jax had taken his battered guitar out of its case and started to tune it.
I stood off in one corner and watched his face until he caught me staring and then looked hastily away.
“Come here. I’ll show you how to hold it.”
I’d thought self-defense was excruciatingly physical, but this was somehow worse.
While executing self-defense moves, you can imagine your worst enemy’s face attached to the body of your practice partner, at least until you are suddenly consumed with lust and decide to bite said practice partner on the neck.
It’s hard to work an enemy combatant anywhere into the scenario during a guitar lesson.
Between trying to remember where I was supposed to put my fingers and the surprisingly painful process of coaxing some rather revolting sounds out of the strings of Jax’s guitar, I had no extra bandwidth to deal with the fact that he was sitting so close to me that I could feel his breath on my cheek and the warmth radiating off of his body.
“I’m never going to get this,” I protested. “You might as well give up.”
“Never. You didn’t give up on me when I couldn’t get out of your chokehold.”
I soldiered through after that and mastered the C cord—well, not mastered maybe, but the pikas, which had probably all dove for cover all over the mountainside, likely felt safe enough to poke their little heads out again.
“That’s enough for today,” Jax finally said. “Your fingers will be sore tomorrow.”
They were sore already, but I didn’t like to sound like a wimp, so I suggested we go out for a jog before lunch.
Even though Jax has longer legs than I do, I can outpace him every time, although that may be more a function of determination rather than superior lung capacity.
After we’d run for a mile or so up the rocky dirt road that wound uphill past Uncle Rodney’s cabin, we came to a cut in the trees where there was a spectacular view of the sparkling lake below.
We sat down on a rock and chugged down most of our water. I was prepared to sit quietly, enjoying the view and the companionable silence, but Jax doesn’t really do silence, companionable or otherwise.
“Still not ready to talk about your breakup with Hugo?” Jax said.
Was I? I wasn’t eager to talk about it, but I had a feeling that Jax wasn’t going to let matters rest until I’d aired my feelings on the subject.
Part of me didn’t want to humor his invasive curiosity about my relationship with Hugo and how it had ended, but another part of me recognized that Jax was one of those chattering chipmunks who found it hard to process anything within the recesses of his own mind and had to talk out loud about whatever was troubling him.
Maybe, his apparent need to talk about my breakup was less about him being nosey and more about his belief that I needed to talk about it.
“What do you want to know?” I asked Jax.
“Whatever you want to tell me.”
I, unlike Jax, despise open-ended questions. I prefer concrete, specific queries.
“I don’t want to talk about it, particularly,” I said.
“Oh.” Jax looked a little hurt.
Chapter Sixteen
“I don’t really need to talk about things,” I told Jax.
That wasn’t true. I’d needed to talk to my sister, Bianca, and my Grandmother had had precious little trouble pulling the truth out of me.
Maybe, it was just that I had no experience having deep, vulnerable conversations with a man. The only men in my life had been my father—who didn’t do deep and vulnerable—and Hugo, who didn’t either.
That, I realized, was a problem. I’d very nearly signed on the dotted line to spend the rest of my life with a man who wouldn’t be my first call when things go south.
A strong bond with Bianca was a wonderful thing, but the fact that she was a far superior source of emotional support than Hugo should have been a major red flag.
“Are you sure you really want to hear about this?” I asked Jax. “Tears might become involved.”
Hugo had immediately withdrawn the few times I’d cried in front of him. I don’t cry often, and I’d quickly learned that crying in front of Hugo was a no go.
I’d once pressed him on his behavior, and he’d admitted to a belief that my tears were an attempt to manipulate him.
“I’m all about tears,” said Jax, then started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about Miss Stabby.”
“What about her?”
“I bet she’s a big fan of crying.”
I thought it was a bit cavalier of Jax to be so dismissive of Miss Stabby’s sinister intent, but now was not the time to give him a greater insight into the disturbed mind of his obsessive fan. Miss Stabby’s letters contained word pictures I wished I could unsee. I hoped Jax would never get a full view of her perverse desires.
After reading her letters, Jax probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at night without having nightmares. I, myself, had had more than one bad dream featuring Miss Stabby.
“I think I already told you that Hugo and I started dating in high school.”
“You did tell me that.”
“Well, he’s been my only real relationship.”
“I guess that proves you don’t have commitment issues.”
Did it?
“We’ve broken up and gotten back together eight times.”
“Perhaps, I spoke too soon. Why did you break up so many times?”
“I always felt something was missing, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Looking back on it, it seems like we always got back together because it was the easiest thing to do. Neither of us knew anything else.”
“Do you think you’ll get back together this time?”
“No!” I said, and I meant it.
This time was different. Even if all my suspicions about Hugo being the father of Bettina’s baby turned out to be nothing more than an absurd misunderstanding, I still wasn’t getting back together with Hugo.
Our relationship was fundamentally flawed and probably had been from the start. One thing was for certain, I was, under no circumstances, Bettina and baby or no Bettina and baby, going to go through with becoming Mrs. Hugo Ebbers.
“That’s a relief,” said Jax.
I didn’t want to read too much into that statement. I decided to turn the tables. If I was going to spill my guts, then he’d better reciprocate.
“What about you?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“What was your last serious relationship like?”
“That would be Sandra Sanchez.”
“Sandra Sanchez must have been before my time,” I said.
As far as I knew, which I very likely would, Jax had not been in a serious relationship for as long as I had known him.
“She was before your time,” said Jax. “I married her when I was twenty.”
“I had no idea,” I said. “Is it safe to assume you’re no longer married to her?”
“It was annulled,” said Jax. “Sandra and I were married for only nine days.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“Where is Sandra now?”
“Don’t know.”
“Are you telling me that you haven’t had a serious, committed relationship since you got unmarried to Sandra Sanchez.”
“I am saying that.”
I wasn’t sure where to go from there.
“How come I’ve never read anything about this on the internet?” I asked.
“You stalked me on the internet?” Jax grinned at me.
“I didn’t stalk you,” I huffed. “It was research. I don’t do it anymore. That was back when I first started working for you.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you read,” said Jax. “According to certain ‘sources,’ I’m part of a global conspiracy to enslave and debase young minds, grooming them for the day when unseen sinister forces decide to launch an all-out assault on decency and freedom.”
“I must have missed that particular post,” I said. “But don’t worry, I don’t believe everything I read or see.”
“Such as?”
“I didn’t have anything in particular in mind,” I said.
I did, in fact, have something particular in mind.
There was a certain paparazzi photo of a wet, shirtless, absurdly pale Jax on a sailboat—taken with a very high-quality telephoto lens—which may or may not have been living on my hard drive for the past three years. I’m not proud of that.
The article accompanying that photo had strongly implied that the daughter of the owner of the boat—an obscenely wealthy Portuguese shipping magnate—was Jax’s paramour.
If there had been any truth to the story, the woman in question and Jax had not been as serious as I had assumed.
“How come you’ve never gotten serious with anyone ever since Sandra?” I asked, turning to Jax.
He wasn’t listening to me, and when I followed his gaze, I saw what had him so distracted.
Chapter Seventeen
About ten feet away, under the shelter of a bush, crouched a young cougar. When I say it was a young cougar, that should not be confused with it being a small cougar.
My first thought was that the sole reason for my presence was to keep Jax safe and that I should have been the one to notice the animal first.
“Don’t move,” I said.
“I wasn’t planning on moving,” Jax insisted.
“He seems to be fixated on our feet.”
The young cougar was crouched down, and now he crept forward toward us. After creeping a few feet, the cougar stopped and started wiggling his hindquarters like a house cat does right before he’s about to pounce on a mouse.
“Run!” I said to Jax and sprang to my feet, a rock clutched in my fist, ready to engage in claw-to-hand combat with the cougar.
“I thought you told me to stay still.”
“Change of plans.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jax said.
“It’s my job to keep you alive and laceration-free,” I said. “Get out of here!”
The cougar was still fixated on the spot a few feet below where Jax’s feet dangled in the air against the boulder. The animal didn’t seem concerned with our presence at all, which freaked me out more than if he’d been looking right at us.
“I don’t care what you say,” said Jax. “I’m not going to leave you.”
“You are!”
“I’m not.”
“In that case, can you reach back behind you and get the can of pepper spray out of my pack.”
By the time Jax had gotten the canister of bear spray out of my pack, the cougar had already pounced.
There was a blur of tawny fur, a stifled squeak, and the young mountain lion stalked off down the hill with his trophy clutched between his teeth.
“What just happened?” Jax demanded when he turned back around from getting the pepper spray.
“Rabbit.”
“What?”
“The cougar was after a rabbit.”
We watched the cougar lope down the hill, probably to retreat to a spot where he could have his lunch without an audience.
“Is that normal?” Jax asked.
“Is what normal?”
“I thought cougars were shy, secretive animals who don’t like to show themselves to humans.”
“I thought that, too.”
“Well, I guess you never can tell,” said Jax. “Sometimes, the things those shy, secretive animals do will surprise you.”
I was pretty sure it was not the cougar, but me, Jax was referring to as a “shy, secretive animal,” but I wasn’t interested in being psychoanalyzed.
I was so angry that red spots appeared in front of my eyes.
“This can’t happen again!” I said.
Now that the danger had passed, I was shaking. Half was from the shot of adrenaline I’d gotten in anticipation of engaging in a fight to the death with a wild beast. The other half of the shakes was a result of being livid with rage.
“I doubt we’re likely to run into a rabbit-hunting cougar again any time soon,” said Jax. “Are you alright, Abby?”
“No, I’m not. What you just did was unacceptable.”
“What did I just do?”
“You jeopardized your safety by not following orders.”
“Your orders? I didn’t realize I was obligated to follow anyone’s orders.”
“When it comes to your safety, you are!”
“I seem to have missed that interoffice memo.”
Jax was smiling as if this was all a joke.
“I can’t keep you safe if you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you. What makes you think I don’t trust you?”
“You didn’t let me do my job,” I said.
“If you mean I wasn’t ok with running off and climbing a tree and letting a mountain lion eat you while I watched at a safe distance, then I guess I’m guilty.”
“You’re not taking me seriously,” I said. “You know what my entire job description consists of?”
Jax wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I suppose you are going to tell me.”
“Nowhere in my job description does it say I am to provide you with band-aids or sandwiches or a listening ear.”
Jax didn’t say anything, a wise but uncharacteristic move on his part.
“The only thing I’m really expected to do is keep you from getting injured, or worse yet, killed.”
Jax still stayed silent.
“And that’s the one thing that you actively prevented me from doing.”
“Are you done?”
“No,” I said.
But then I discovered that I was done. I’m not much of a talker. I’d already used up most of my word quota for the day, and it wasn’t even noon.
“You’re fired,” said Jax, “effective immediately.”
“What?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. In the three years I’d worked for Jax Fitzroy, I could remember him firing only one person, and that person had planted hidden cameras around his house, probably hoping for salacious pictures they could sell on the dark web. Even then, I think it was Lilith who made the final call on firing the voyeuristic housekeeper.
“You’re really firing me?”
“I’m really firing you,” said Jax.
He took one step towards me and then another.
His third step brought him so close that our toes almost touched.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
My voice sounded high and breathy.
I had a pretty good idea of what he was doing. He was going to finish what I’d started when I’d pinned him to the bed during our self-defense lesson.
I could hear the sound of my own heart pounding in my ears, and I wasn’t at all sure it was ju
st the remnants of adrenaline from our encounter with the cougar.
Jax was looking at me as if I was something infinitely precious.
He reached out and brushed a stray wisp of hair off my face, then ran a single finger across my eyebrow and down my cheek.
When Jax got to my neck, I stepped back, desperate to put some space between us.
It was too much, too fast. I needed to breathe.
“I can’t do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“I can’t—”
I motioned helplessly at the space between us.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Do you not—"
I did, I really did. I wanted Jax so much it hurt, but I’d just broken up with Hugo, and getting involved with Jax was far from a simple matter of simply wanting to.
I was pretty sure that what Jax had in mind was a committed relationship. I hated to send him mixed messages. Although, I was forced to admit that the train had left the station on that one.
The last thing I wanted to do was end up hurting Jax.
I wasn’t over Hugo, and even if I hadn’t just broken up with someone, I wasn’t sure I was cut out to link my lot to a celebrity and risk having my picture splashed all over the internet every time we set foot outside the house.
As it turned out, my fears were prophetic.
“Let’s go back,” I said to Jax.
As we rounded a corner and jogged up a slight rise in the road, my phone dinged. We’d just come back into service.
I looked down. I had a text from Lilith.
Call me ASAP
Chapter Eighteen
“Did you get a text from Lilith, too?” I asked Jax.
Jax checked his phone.
“She wants me to call her.”
I dialed Lilith. She picked up on the first ring.
“I’m here with Jax,” I told her.
“Put me on speaker,” said Lilith. “You both need to hear this.”
“What’s going on?” Jax asked.
