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He sets down the last pint we’re sampling and pulls me under his arm. I rotate and curl into his side while he shifts to look down at me. It’s intimate and cozy, the fire warming us where the ice cream has chilled our bodies. “I’m thirty-four,” he says.“And why am I single? Because love and money don’t mix. A lesson my mother taught me at a young age. She didn’t love my father. She loved his money, not him, but he pretended otherwise. He loved her so much, and to his own demise at times.”
It feels like he’s speaking to me, speaking of his anger at me earlier tonight. “I’m not here for your castle or your money and name, Jax. I just—you—me—you get what I’m going through, and—”
“I don’t want your future inheritance or your name, Emma. I’m not York. I have money. I have a name. What I want is you.”
It’s somehow everything I both want to hear and everything I fear at once. I can’t get involved with a man who hates my family, not after everything I just discovered about my father. I can feel my walls erect and I try to pull away. He holds me, catches my leg. “Running?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m just going to be honest, Jax, because that’s really what I need in my life right now. Honesty. You get me in a way that scares me. You could hurt me.. I’m not equipped to deal with that right now. We’re both a mess. I mean, we’ve been together thirty seconds, and you’ve already accused me of fucking you for the castle.”
“I told you. The castle hit a nerve.”
“Because you hate my father.”
“Emma—”
“That journal,” I say before I can stop myself. Damn it, I said it. It’s out and I ride the emotional wave pushing me forward. “That was my father’s and the words inside pretty much declare every moment I spent trying to please him was a waste of my life. I get it. He wasn’t a good person, but I’m not him and I don’t want the castle.”
“I know that now, but if you want me, don’t shut me out over a bumpy beginning. And to be clear, I damn sure want you.”
“We’re both a mess, Jax,” I repeat again, “bleeding from open wounds. How does that work?”
“Maybe that’s the reason we work because as you said, I understand you and you understand me. Do you want to know me, Emma? Do you want to see what this is between us?”
My fingers curl on his jaw. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I’m not York. I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t hurt you. I need you to believe that. I need you to remember that.”
This response wouldn’t seem off, if not for the “I need you to remember that” add on. It’s another one of those statements from Jax that feels as if it has a double meaning, but he’s just told me about his mother. I decide he’s living in a brutal past, as I have been for the last month, at least.
Because the past is a part of us and we’re a part of it. And no new beginning comes without a warning. “Emma,” he prods softly.
“I know you’re not him.” I don’t give him more. I can’t. Not now and yet, I don’t want him to leave which is why I add, “I promise you, I know.”
He studies me a moment and when I think he’ll push me, the way York would push me, he doesn’t. Slowly, he eases us both down on the lounge chair, pulling me to his chest. My hand settles on top of him, the steady thrum of his heart beneath my palm, the sound paired with his strong body holding mine, a drug that soothes the edge of weeks of pain. I need Jax. Maybe it’s just a now kind of thing, but I don’t fight it. My body softens into his harder one, and my lashes lower, and for the moment, on some level, I must trust him because I seem to dose off, the room fading in and out
In some dark place in my mind, I think I hear Jax whisper, “There is so much you don’t know, Emma, but you will.” Or maybe I didn’t. I succumb to sleep.
Chapter seventeen
Emma
Iwake to the doorbell and jerk to a sitting position, sunlight beaming through the windows of my bedroom, and Jax’s hard body beneath me. I don’t even remember falling asleep, though clearly I did so on top of him and we slept the night on the lounge chair. “Easy, sweetheart,” he says, his blue eyes alight with concern, his strong arm wrapping around me. “Nightmare?”
I frown.Wasit a nightmare? “No,” I say. “The doorbell rang. Or I think it did.” It rings again. “Yes. It did. There it goes again. And no one can get up here without clearance. It has to be my brother.” My voice lifts. “Jax, my brother.”
“And that’s bad, why? You’re afraid to get him excited? You think he’ll think I’m now selling you the castle?”
I give him a little punch. “That’s not funny. I wouldn’t sleep with you to get the castle.”
“Good to hear,” he says, laughing. “I’d dress to greet him, but half my clothes are downstairs.”
I tug away from him and stand up, eyeing the area round my feet. “Oh God, there’s melted ice cream on the floor.”
“We’ll clean it up,” Jax says, pushing to his feet, half naked, his ripped abs and broad chest on display, all cool and casual like my brother showing up is nothing. Damn Chance for his timing, because this man is better in daylight than he was last night. And I never even inspected that tattoo on his forearm. “Is that a compass on your arm?”
He holds out his arm. “A compass and my name.”
“North.” I laugh. “I love it.”
