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“Why did you call me by my first name when I was losing it in the bathroom?”
The question caught him off guard. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the first time I felt like I saw Astraea. Beautiful name by the way. What is it?”
“Pull over,” she said, her voice distressed.
“What?”
“Stop the truck,” she ordered, her voice watery.
He complied and she opened the door and stepped out into the foliage on the side of the road. He put the truck into Park and got out to follow her. He came around the front of the truck, and she had made it to a small copse of trees, standing with her back to him. What the hell had he said?
There was a soft, muffled sound, and his heart jammed up in his chest, then started to pound with a different rhythm. She stood stiffly, dwarfed by the towering trees in front of her. Something twisted loose in his chest. He went to her and said, “Aw, babe. I know you don’t use your first name. I—”
“That’s not why I’m upset,” she said. “You silly man.” She wiped at her eyes with her fingers. Then she drew a shuddering breath, and all Easy wanted to do was comfort her, not leave her all huddled up like that. He slipped his hands around her upper arms, pulling her to him. “Come here, babe,” he murmured gruffly. She raised her head. Her lips so close. So kissable. But she needed a sounding board here, not a horn-dog. She resisted for a moment, then relented, her arms sliding around him. “So why are you upset?”
“You said that was the first time you felt like you were seeing the real me.” She buried her face in his throat. “Jack would never cry. She has to be a cold-hearted bitch. So, maybe it was the first time anyone saw me.”
She pulled away and folded down to the ground, plucking a blade of grass. He settled next to her. She stared at the grass in her hands stroking it through her fingers. “It’s Greek. My mom is Greek.” She played with the grass some more. “I go by Jack because that’s what she wanted me and George to use in the business world, as if having men’s names made us more competitive. It just made us women with men’s names, as if our real names weren’t enough. Like I wasn’t enough.” She gave him a side glance. “It didn’t help. Just because I was a woman, the slightest misstep, the smallest failure would blow up in my face. I had to fight, claw, and work like hell to get where I am.” She scoffed. “Like that’s anywhere.” She bit her lip and her eyes welled again and she went to wipe at her tears, but he beat her to it.
“Someone cared, Jack. We’re here because someone cared.”
“Who? Certainly not my company or my family. My company only cares about the contracts that are signed, the accounts—the profits. My family never knows where I am. We go weeks between contact.”
“Rosa Montoya. She called the State Department and when that didn’t work, she went to DC and wouldn’t leave until they sent someone after you.”
She stared at him, and then she burst into the kind of deep sobbing she had done in the shower yesterday. She covered her face, the harsh sounds so hard for him to hear. It was as if there was so much pain inside her, she had to get it out. He reached out and picked her up off the ground and pulled her onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around him in a desperate hold, burying her face in his neck. Closing his eyes, Easy inhaled raggedly, tightening his hold on her. She was going through something so deeply personal, and he knew that made her feel exposed and vulnerable. The fact that she was breaking down in front of him again gave him hope. He squashed it. No hope, he told himself. He couldn’t reach even that far.
He just held her like yesterday and let her cry it out, because as he’d experienced in BUD/S, sometimes the tears had to flow to release the pressure of all that emotion inside.
Finally, she stopped crying. “You must think I’m nothing but a huge baby who puts a pair of designer shoes in front of real lives. I’m so pathetic.”
“No. This kind of situation would affect anyone, Jack. You’ve been through some horrific experiences.”
She looked up at him. “I couldn’t even allow myself to call Rosa my friend,” she sobbed softly. “She’s been so good to me. I should be ashamed.” She took a shuddering breath. “For the longest time, as a little girl, I thought I was part of my mom. It wasn’t until I was like six or seven that I realized I was a separate person. People said I was just like her. They said I had this fire in me, like my mom, who is a successful lawyer, and now has just been promoted to the bench.
“She had always wanted to be a judge, and she sacrificed everything for that honor, including her family. She never let anything get in the way of reaching her goals. The partners in her law firm looked to her for important decisions. Clients begged her to take their cases. Law students acted like they’d won the lottery when they got to intern with her, even if it meant they were nothing more than someone to make copies, pick up her dry cleaning, and to run out for coffee.
“Even at home, my mother ruled the roost. My father was quiet, subservient, and made sure my mother’s needs were fulfilled every day. It was then that I decided I wanted to rule the roost. My mom said that most women had no backbone. She said weak women ended up alone because their husbands left them for someone else, broke because they never got the respect they deserved, and ugly because they worked day and night for other people and never took time to take care of themselves. That image terrified me.
“I didn’t care how hard I had to work. I decided I would be in control of every aspect of my life.” She shifted against him, reaching up to touch his face as if that gave her comfort. “Back then, I just wanted to outshine everyone, make my mother happy so she wouldn’t dismiss me. But the catch was that almost everything I did was never good enough to please her. I turned myself inside out like a pretzel, trying to come up with something that would win her approval and acceptance, but even with a foray into law, which I hated and found boring, she was never really elated,maybe she never wanted me to outshine her.
“She often pitted my sister George and me against each other. We still have a contentious relationship and are still competing for supremacy in the family. I buried my genuine desires and inner life—and found myself in sales because I was really good at one thing, public speaking. That is one thing I like about the law. I excelled in debate. I loved it. But as I grew and won competition after competition, fearing failure every step of the way, I knew it was my special superpower, but my mother was always my kryptonite.” Jack swallowed hard and smoothed her hands up his back, her eyes filling up with tears again.
His hand not quite steady, he gathered her hair back off her face and smoothed it down, his compassion for her aching in his chest. She had been carrying some baggage, her own and her mom’s. “The irony is, the only bright spot in my life was my dad, even though he was overshadowed by my mom. He taught me woodworking, he was a master at it, and he also taught me that no matter what I did in the world, a little kindness would go a long, long way. It never costs anyone anything to be kind.”
Shaking his head, he wiped away more tears. “My dad says that too.” She smiled and nodded. “So, the shoes?” he asked.
She wrapped her hand into his T-shirt, hanging on to him as shame and fear filled her eyes. “So, the shoes…I bought them after I landed my first huge sale. I got so much attention from my mom about those shoes, and even though I have wealth and a Porsche in my garage, nothing has made me feel more noticed than those damn heels. It was liketheywere my identity and if I left them in that guard’s possession, let her take them from me, it would be like she was taking my soul. Does that sound stupid?”
“No, I get it.”
She huffed out a breath. “So, I’m so sorry I was a crazy, whacked-out whacko back at the prison. I just had to have my Jimmy Choos back.”
“Maybe you should take your dad’s advice and try to be a little kinder to yourself.”
“You really are Prince Charming.”
He smiled softly. “And you’re not the wicked queen.” He gave her a wry look. “But maybe a little of a whacked-out whacko.”
