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“Yeah. She was a supermodel a couple decades ago, right?”
Jade nodded. “She was. She’s also my mother.”
I arched my eyebrows. Brooke Bailey had been the hottest thing walking when I was a teen. Jonah had nursed a major hard-on for her while we were growing up. The signature poster of her in the royal-blue bathing suit had hung on the wall right by his bed. She was taller than Jade and thinner—leaner and not as buxom. Her hair was a dark blond compared to Jade’s soft brown. She must’ve gotten her father’s hair.
But Brooke’s eyes—they watched you from the wall. Every guy fantasized that Brooke was looking at him, smiling for him, her nipples hardening and poking through that blue spandex for him. The camera loved Brooke Bailey. She must have made a mint on that poster. So why had Jade had such a modest childhood?
I gazed at her.
And then I saw it.
Jade had Brooke’s eyes—that steely blue-gray that seemed to penetrate through every layer of a person.
That’s what had first drawn me to Jade—those eyes. I felt naked, like she could see right through me, into the very recesses of my broken soul. It scared the hell out of me.
So why did I want her so much? I hadn’t been able to get that kiss out of my mind. Her lips were so full, so red, and she tasted like champagne and strawberries. I had never tasted anything when I kissed a woman. Something about the kiss with Jade had been different, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. All I knew was that I desired her.
In my bed.
She was my sister’s best friend. I couldn’t just bed her and forget her like I did with the others. Even more scary? I didn’t want to.
Those eyes… I could never let her get close to me. She would see right through all of the walls that I had built up around me, all the secrets I’d buried deep inside. I could never tell her the truth about why I didn’t sleep, about the demons that haunted me in my dreams. I could never tell anyone.
“Really?” I finally replied to her revelation.
She looked down to her teacup. “I know it’s hard to believe. I don’t look anything like her.”
“You have her eyes.” I couldn’t help myself. It just popped out.
“You think so?”
I nodded. “Joe was obsessed with Brooke Bailey when he was younger. He had that blue swimsuit poster that she made. You know, the one where you could swear she was looking right at you and smiling?”
Jade rolled her eyes. “That poster embarrassed the hell out of me while I was growing up. Most people didn’t know Brooke was my mother, and I kept as quiet as I could.”
“Why would you be embarrassed? That poster was a hit. Your mom is beautiful.”
“Yeah, more beautiful than I’ll ever be, but that’s not why it was embarrassing.”
I didn’t agree that Jade wasn’t as beautiful as Brooke. Brooke was model beautiful, but Jade… Jade was stunning, warm, inviting.
“Then why?”
“Well…it’s kind of hard to say…” Her cheeks flushed an adorable pink.
“Come on,” I urged. “Tell me.”
“Well…because pretty much every teenage boy I knew had masturbated to my mom’s hard nipples poking through that blue suit, that’s why.”
I let out a chuckle. Poor girl did have a point. “I’m sure the poster made a lot of money for you.”
“I never saw any of it. Her second husband took most of it and gambled it away. After she divorced him, she came back, wanting to work things out with my father and me. I was around fifteen at the time, and I was having none of it. Neither was my father.”
The pain of loss washed over me. I knew what it felt like to lose a mother. My mother had been great up until… I shook my head to erase the images that tried to sneak in. I was twelve when my mother killed herself. Marjorie didn’t even remember her.
“I see. So it was the classic ‘choosing the career over the family’ kind of thing.”
Jade nodded. “That about sums it up. She was more interested in being Brooke Bailey than she was in being my mom, until she lost everything.”
