25. Jackson
“Ijust… I don’t understand.”
“How can I help you understand?” Mandy asked, her sigh palpable as she leaned back against the passenger seat. “I mean, I know we’re a thing, now. But I’m also used to living on my own.”
“You lived with Amanda in college,” I pointed out. I twisted in the driver”s seat at a red light, locking my eyes on her. “I’m not trying to make you move any faster through this than you’re ready. I’m coming at this from a safety perspective, that’s all.”
“And I appreciate that.”
“Then move in with me. At least for the time being.”
We’d spent the last five days together since the wedding. She’d stayed at my house as the police gathered what they needed from hers, but the second they’d finished, she’d said she wanted to go home. It was confounding. She was safer with me, even if I littered her house with security, and somehow that didn’t sway her. Although nothing was stolen and all she had to do was replace a few windows and clean up, I found my thoughts wandering to putting bars on the windows or replacing them with bulletproof glass. Someone as special as her needed to be kept safe, and even though our presence in the news cycle was waning, she was clearly still a target for someone.
“Please, princess. For my own peace of mind.”
She grunted as she pushed her door open, kicking her feet out and planting her fur-lined boots in the snow. “I’ll think about it, okay?” She said over her shoulder, her lips pursed, her fingers tightening around the frame of the door.
I left the car on as I got out, keeping the heat blasting so it wouldn’t be freezing when I got back in. Winter had hit hard, bringing a lot of snow and ice. There was something magical about seeing Boulder from the angle of her office, and if I wasn’t so damn stressed out of my mind with keeping her safe after the break-in, I would have insisted we take a moment to appreciate the white mountaintops and the glittering snowfall surrounding us.
“What are you doing?” She asked, turning to me as she grabbed her bag from the car.
“Walking you in.”
“Oh.”
My brows furrowed as I shut my door. I’d been walking her in every day that I’d dropped her off at work recently. I padded across the wet ground to the passenger side and took her hand in mine as I led her toward the glass entryway of her building. Not a single photographer stood outside, no one there to snap photos of us or beg us for an interview, trying to obtain any comment they could get their hands on. The plan was working— we were slowly but surely being left alone.
“I guess you don’t have to kiss me at the door anymore,” she chuckled, pushing the loose curls that hung from her bun back behind her ears.
I sighed, the frown forming almost painful. I didn’t like this, any of it. Not her nonchalant attitude, not her wanting to go back home, not whatever this was.
I wrapped one arm around her waist, hating the way her woolen coat separated her skin from mine, and pulled her into my chest. I pressed my lips to hers as I cupped her cheek, a little rough at first and thinking far too much with my cock, but turning softer as she melted into me, welcoming me in. I could spend an eternity kissing her, kissing her and nothing else and be happy.
I pulled my mouth from hers just far enough to speak, our foreheads pressed together, the winter wind whipping around us and coating her jacket in little specks of snow. “I don’t need a reason to kiss you, princess. Never forget that.”
The fog of her breath hung thick between us for a moment before I let her go, her lips a little swollen and her cheeks pink, a small smile on her face.
————
I floored it as I made my way across town to the offices we were still, annoyingly, renting. I was desperate for Mandy and Harry to finish up at the new campus, I fucking hated coming to work here.
“Good morning, Jackson,” Angela deadpanned from behind her desk before glancing back to her computer screen. “Public Relations is waiting for you in meeting room two.”
“Perfect.” I set a takeout coffee on the top of her desk, the words vanilla beanwritten across the top in block letters. “Thanks for getting them set up.”
She glared at the coffee, her nose sniffing the air. “What is that?”
“Read the lid.”
She picked it up, her face contorting in disgust. You can’t be serious Angela.
“Vanilla bean? Eww.”
“My God, Angela, just be appreciative,” I snapped, reaching out toward the coffee to snatch it back before she had the chance to pull it closer, missing by an inch.
“I don’t like vanilla bean. I’ll drink it, though.”
“You liked vanilla bean, what, a month ago? You can’t just change flavors on me and not tell me.”
“I like caramel now,” she grumbled, setting the coffee down in front of her as she turned back to her computer. “You could have checked.”
I opened my mouth to spit out a retort but closed it as I realized it was pointless. Doing something nice for Angela would never be appreciated, and that was okay. She just wasn’t that person.
I made my way through the dark and dreary hall, the ceiling too low, the windows practically nonexistent. I almost wished I’d asked them to meet me at my home, but I needed to be in the office today, needed to check on how things were going with Infinius, and to deal with the situations at hand concerning coding and getting it all off the ground. We were so close.
But I’d still rather be at home with Mandy.
Pushing my way in through the door and rattling the blinds, I nodded at the room full of people already seated and ready to go. They’d asked Mandy to be in attendance as well, but seeing as she had her own work to do I’d scheduled myself alone.
“Good morning, Mr. Big,” Samantha chirped as she slid a small stack of papers out from her binder.
“Please don’t call me that,” I said. I sat down in the chair at the head of the table, my briefcase slapping against the wood. “When have you ever called me that?”
She shrugged as she twisted in her chair, rocking side to side. “Just don’t want to be on your bad side this morning. Angela said you were in a mood.”
“Angela always thinks I’m in a mood.”
“Then I guess we can just get straight to business, Jack,” she chuckled. She pressed a clicker in her hand, lighting up the far wall with a projector, a few scattered pictures of me and Mandy littering the poorly painted drywall. “Here’s the thing, bud. The plan”s working.”
I nodded as I stared at the photo hovering in the top right, the one of Mandy feigning excitement in her black dress as I held the ring in front of her. I want that. I want that to be real excitement. “I figured as much. There weren’t any reporters outside her office this morning and I’ve not seen many articles about us recently, either.”
She nodded as she clicked to the next slide in her presentation. A few emails littered the screen. “We’re mostly being contacted specifically about J.B. Tech now. Media houses want to know about Infinius, the new campus, and its grand opening.” Another click, another slide. A few well-known actors and actresses popped up on the wall. “There have been quite a few new relationships and engagements coming out of Hollywood that have broadly taken over the spot you two were filling.”
“That’s great news.” No, it isn’t. I don’t have an excuse to be close to her anymore unless she wants me to be. I booted up my laptop, my mind too full of emails and worry to really focus. “The break-in hasn’t made the news, right?” I asked absentmindedly, logging in to the server.
“No, we bought every photo off of the press that was taken. No one has the rights to the story but us, and if they try to publish it, we can get it taken down fairly easily,” Jason said.
“Perfect.” I scrolled through email after email, trying my best to look as though I was paying attention. The new secretary had done a good job of filtering through the bullshit, but some of it still made its way through to me. Clear threats against Mandy for being ‘engaged’ to me and stake claims on either of us were being sent straight through to security as requested, but the juvenile ones that were nothing more than empty threats or silly statements, were still slipping through. “Any updates from security?”
“Uh, we don’t really handle that,” Jason said.
“Can you get one anyway?” I pressed, trying not to let the irritation seep into my voice. An email less than twenty-four hours old caught my eye. READ ME, JACKSON BIG.
“Online security will let us know if anything comes in that is particularly worrisome, Jack. The moment anything comes through about the new campus or a direct threat toward you or Mandy, it will be investigated.” Samantha slid her stack of papers across the table toward me, but I ignored them. “That’s everything they’ve found so far, but none of it has been worth speaking to the police about.”
Temptation and sheer curiosity made me open the email. I’d avoided my inbox for days, leaving it up to those I’d hired to sort through the mess, but this one felt like it was something worth reading, and it had slipped through undetected.
My breath left my lungs as I started to read.
You would think that a billionaire like you would hire someone specifically to keep your ‘fiancée’ safe. But you haven’t done that, have you, Jackson? At least not well enough. Not secure enough to keep me out of her house.
I laid in her bed. I showered in her bathroom. I know the layout of her house by memory now. Don’t worry, I was smart. They won’t find a trace of me left behind, and really, I have you to thank for that.
Didn’t you learn anything from your past? Or was all that military protection enough to make you forget? Or, better yet, do you just not care because of all that money you’re making?
I would care if I were you, Jackson.