AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thou shalt not be in the league of the woman you want with every breath of yourraggedy ass self.
Maybe he had been wrong to encourage her to make up with St. James. The guy was a Grade A douche and yeah, he was probably bad news but no one knew better than Tad the pain of wanting that second chance. Needing someone to see the potential and the possibility. He was being kinder to St. James than he was to himself.
Jack tilted his head, waiting for Tad to agree with him.
Fight for her. Tell everyone she’s yours.
But she wasn’t and she never could be. She had made it clear that finding a way past his wham-bam ways was a bridge too far and now with this St. James business, he might have screwed up their friendship forever.
“You don’t have to worry about me, Jack. Your perfect family won’t be contaminated.” Hell, he was tempted to wink.
Jack’s mouth pulled at the corners. Ah, don’t say his Lordship felt bad.
“It’s not personal. It’s about Jules,” he said, less belligerently now. Easy to cop that attitude when you’ve won. “After what she’s been through, I just have to look out for her. You understand?”
There were a million things Tad could have countered with, starting with how Jack’s neglect was part of the reason why she had gone through a shitty time in the first place and ending with how he had thrown her at St. James like a sheep to the slaughter. But it was easier to check out of the conversation and easy was his default setting. His mind was already walking—taking the simplest road to the front door, the street, the rest of his miserable life.
There was a bottle of scotch with his name on it back at his parents’ house and a couple of days’ shore leave to get through it.
“Got it.”
Thirty-Four
Food was the only thing that could soothe Jules’s soul.
She preserved mangoes and lemons until she ran out of jars. She conjured up ricotta ravioli using Vivi’s recipe. She made a dog’s dinner out of another batch of focaccia.
She wanted to talk to her bestie, spend an afternoon lying in his strong arms while he assured her she had done the right thing, but she knew his position. She had failed some test she didn’t even know she had been sitting.
Three days since Simon’s show-stopping arrival, and she had turned off her phone. The well-meaning prattle from everyone threatened to drive her insane. She and her bonny baby boy needed to take a breath, spend some time together so she could work through this.
Letting Simon into Evan’s life—intoherlife, because that’s what it amounted to—was the last thing she wanted, and when Jack took charge she had felt nothing but relief that the decision would be seized from her hands. Someone else could deal with it. Jack could deal with it. After all, he owed her.
Except that was a pit she had been trying to climb out of. Denying her problems.
Running away. Taking the easy way out.
But silent phones produced uninvited pop-ins. Now the girls were here to talk her off the ledge they assumed she was balancing on.
“You can put him in the cage, if you want,” Jules said, gesturing to the playpen in the living room of her flat. It always amazed her how someone as fastidious as Cara enjoyed her dirty little monkey. Cara tore her gaze away from Evan, who was making fists out of her no-longer-perfect hair while he climbed all over her.
“No, he’s fine,” Cara said, tightening her grip on the slippery bundle. “You’re fine, aren’t you, Evs?”
“Here, give him to me,” Lili said. “You’re going to overdo it. If I have to listen to your husband whine one more time about how you don’t know when to stop, I’ll punch something.” She plucked Evan out of her sister’s lap and got him settled in her own. “Has Simon been in touch?” she asked Jules, slicing to the heart of why they were here.
Jules shook her head. “He flounced out with his ultimatum and said he’d be in town until Friday. Not a peep.”
She didn’t need him to call because he’d already said enough.Poor rich girl.Always whining because Jack wouldn’t visit her, and that had been true. She had known Simon had an oddly competitive relationship with Jack, and that he admired and despised him in equal measure. He had listened to her complaining when Jack said he couldn’t make it back to London some weekend because he was too busy putting out fires at his restaurant in Miami or training his new commis chef in New York. He had played up the friction between she and Jack and she had played the part of Moaning Myrtle because Jack couldn’t read her mind.
But her brother had made up for his neglect in spades and their relationship had never been better. And now he wanted to make Simon pay for his sheer nerve at daring to touch the great Jack Kilroy’s sister.
Was she ready to do this? Was she ready to cut this man off at the knees? He had made her feel worse than the kitchen grease behind the burners at Vivi’s when he practically shoved her into the street.
But she hadn’t helped her case much. She could have stood up for herself. She could have demanded he treat her with respect and do the right thing by their child. Instead she took the coward’s way out. She scarpered like a mouse and took cover behind Jack.
“I’m more worried about how Jack’s going to adapt if I bring Simon into the fold.”
Lili sat up straighter, her eyes glinting. “Okay, you know I’m crazy about Jack but the best thing you ever did was move out of the house. And then the next best thing you did was announce your intention to find a man.”
