Page 155 of First in Line

“And that’s one of the many, many reasons why I’m madly in love with you, Jackson Reyes.”

Just like me, he must have known for a while about my renewed feelings for him. But unlike me, he doesn’t question them. No, he wraps his muscular arms around me and tugs me in for a kiss full of love and passion.

It takes a lot of strength, but I manage to tear myself away from him. “What are we going to do?” I lament.

“Right now, I’ll work on repaying you for one of the best blowjobs of my life. But in the long run… we’ll make it work, princess. We will this time. I promise.”

I nod, trusting him. Neither of us is a wide-eyed kid anymore. We’ve dropped the rose-colored glasses that blinded us a long time ago. After so many years, we’ve become mature enough to know what we’re doing.

If he says we’ll make it work this time, then we will. We have the tools for it. And also the will.

This time, we’ll fight for each other. Not against one another.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jackson

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Evie pleads from the bedroom.

I hold back a sigh, grabbing a few shirts from the drawer.Not this again…

She’s still seated on the padded stool of her dressing table when I return to the room, her round belly stretching her sweater.

“We’ve talked about this, princess,” I remind her, arranging the T-shirts into my suitcase.

“It’s just one race.”

“It’s not just one race, Evie. It’s a behavior issue. If I miss the opening of the season without a good excuse, they won’t trust me anymore.”

“But you have a good excuse.”

“What? My wife doesn’t like it when I race?”

She squints her eyes at me from across the room. “No, your eight-month-pregnant wife gets severe anxiety when you race, and it’s not good for the baby.”

“It’ll sound the same to them,” I explain before returning to the walk-in closet to get more stuff.

Evie still isn’t over this when I come back. “I’m not asking you to stop racing altogether, Jax. Just this one. And maybe the next one. Unless she’s here early.”

This time, I can’t hold back from sighing. I throw the two sweatpants in the suitcase and walk up to her. “You’ll be alright, Evie. You’ve gotten better lately, haven’t you?”

“Because it was the off-season. But my blood pressure is up again. It’s been up for three weeks.”

“Have you talked to your therapist?”

“She says it’s probably not just me, but also the pregnancy hormones making me irrational. But I can’t help it, Jax. I can’t control the way I feel about you racing again.”

“It’s just a couple of races, Evangeline.”

“Exactly. It’s just a couple of races. You can skip them.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes as I take a breath to gather myself. When I open them again, I’m focused. “We’ve been working on this for almost seven years, Evie. I’m nearly there. Next season, I’ll be in Formula One. The team principal confirmed it. I’ll be their rookie. Then, we’ll move to Italy with our baby girl, and everything will be alright. But I need to go to Sakhir. I need to do this race.”

Tears make her eyes shine, but they don’t roll down, gathering on the water lines. “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t abandon me like this. And if you loved our daughter, you would stay to protect her.”

There’s something so wicked in her accusation that I step back. “You’re the one stressing over nothing, Evie. I’m just doing my job, not causing your hypertension. You are.”