Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In many ways, Bree’s life was a fantasy come true.
The next weeks were taken up with decorating their new home and making the move to Capri—Capri!—where they lived from Thursday through Sunday. On Mondays, they commuted into Naples by ferry, which Sofia loved, then worked a short week before returning to their island paradise.
Their travel schedule picked up, too, which meant overnights in London, Berlin, and Madrid. Bree enjoyed it. Sofia and the nanny usually came along and Bree often had a chance to poke around the new city with or without them before she put on something a princess would wear and accompanied her husband into a ballroom.
She was growing more confident in those spaces, too, learning how to make small talk and recognizing familiar faces.
Lazy Sundays were her favorite, though, when Jax took Sofia into the pool in the afternoon and she sat on a lounger, reading or texting her mother if Melissa was up.
They would have an early dinner and remind Sofia that they were going into the city in the morning, necessitating an early bedtime. One of them would put her to bed and they would go to bed early, too, making love with unhurried passion that was always thorough and gratifying.
That’s when it was hardest for Bree to hide that she loved him. Not just during, but in the quiet aftermath when they lay tangled and sated. When his heart steadied beneath her ear and their skin dried and everything felt so right, she thought she would burst from happiness.
How would he react if she told him he possessed her heart?
She probably should tell him, but she couldn’t face him offering some kind of tepid response about that not being something she should expect from him.
“Everything all right?” he asked in a quiet rumble.
“Yes. Why?” She picked up her head.
“Your sigh sounded very heavy.”
“It’s Monday tomorrow,” she prevaricated.
He swept a hair off her eyelash, delving into her soul with a long look that she couldn’t hold. She pressed a kiss to his chest and rubbed her cheek back and forth like a cat against his pec.
Then he sighed, and she thought, He knows. He knows I’m hiding something .
It was a terrible catch-22. She was afraid to trust him with her heart, making it impossible for him to trust her.
He unwound his arm from behind her and rolled to reach for his phone. It was on silent, but with his family in different time zones, he always checked it before going to sleep.
She had got in the habit of doing the same, to be sure nothing had cropped up with her mother. On weeknights, Eve or some of her other coworkers often sent something through that was better handled immediately, so the team could keep working rather than waiting until Bree’s morning when they would be finished their own workday.
Her mother had sent photos of her and Quinto beaming inside their new condo in Virginia Beach. Bree’s smile was still on her lips as she tapped on the email from Laura.
Her stepsister must be getting married. The subject line was Save The Date .
Bree opened it and completely lost her temper.
***
Bree spat out a word she never said, not even when they were in this bed where anything went. She threw her phone across the room, hitting the wall and chipping the plaster.
“What the hell, Bree?”
She fought her way clear of the sheet, spitting out another string of filthy language about where “they” could go and what “they” could do when they got there. She thrust herself into the pajamas she wore to bed in case Sofia came in.
He rose and pulled on the briefs he wore for the same reason, then he picked up her phone to see the screen was cracked.
“What’s going on?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted hotly, eyes bright with tears. “I don’t care.”
“You clearly do care—Where are you going?”
She stopped at the door. “To break some dishes. I don’t know.”
“Just tell me. Is it work?”
“My stepsister is getting married. Next year. I’m invited. Do you know why? Because Laura wants me to ask you to comp them a ballroom for the reception.” She was shaking, voice quivering with fury. “She’s asking me to help her keep costs down because they’re liable to have upward of two hundred people. She wants me to do her that favor, then sit and watch my father walk her daughter down the aisle when they couldn’t be bothered meeting my husband when you offered to go to them.”
This man’s lack of connection to his daughter absolutely baffled Jax. Did he not know what a kind, intelligent, funny person he’d sired. Why wasn’t he proud of her? Why was he so bent on hurting her?
“Tell them to go to hell,” he said. “Block them. You don’t owe them anything.”
She only made a noise of acute anguish and walked out.
He swore under his breath and dragged on some clothes before following, but damn this big house they’d bought. He wasn’t fast enough to see where she went. She wasn’t in the kitchen breaking dishes and she wasn’t in Sofia’s room, comforting herself with a cuddle with their daughter.
It was almost March, but still very cool at night. He didn’t think she would have gone outside, but when he couldn’t find her in the house, he texted the nanny that they were outside and checked the gazebo, then noticed the wrought iron door to the beach stairs was unlocked.
Their shoreline wasn’t a sandy beach like where the tourists flocked. It was a rugged, rocky cove where storm waves crashed in to take bites out of the brittle land. There was a jetty out to a small dock, where he could tie up a runabout if he wanted access to his yacht from here, but they’d bought the house for the view, not to swim in the sea.
Bree was at the end of the jetty, colorless in the moonlight, arms hugged tight against the wind. The tide was up so the waves churned close enough to her feet to make him uneasy.
He walked out. “Come back to the shore. It’s dangerous out here.”
“I don’t understand why I care,” she said to the water, voice thick with anguish. “I try not to. I try so hard not to care anymore. But I still do.”
“Bree, come on.” He slipped his arm around her, heart squeezing as he saw the shiny tracks on her cheeks.
She was a column of tightly wound pain, mouth pinched and eyes staring into the horizon.
“You care because you’re a better person than they are.”
“He saves people’s lives ,” she said on a jagged lilt of laughter. “And he doesn’t care about the life he made. He cares more about strangers than me. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a parent. He’s a great father to Laura’s kids. He doesn’t want me .”
He opened his mouth, but what could he say? The man was a fool. A cruel one. If it were up to Jax, he would cut him out of her life completely. Now.
“You’re freezing,” he noted, hugging her stiff body close. “Let’s get up to the house, in case Sofia wakes.”
“I wish I could hate him. I want to, but I always come back to wanting some little shred of proof that he…” Her expression crumpled.
“All right.”
They were doing this here then, where they were raked by the wind and soaked by the mist off the water. It was cold and damp and the way she sobbed battered him like the tossing waves, knocking him against jagged emotions that tore into him, but he held her while she broke apart. He rubbed her back and kept her upright as she sobbed.
When she was weak and leaning on him, he picked her up like she was Sofia and carried her down the jetty. Then he set her on her feet and guided her up the stairs, locked the gate, and stripped her down to put her in the hot tub.
She was quiet and withdrawn now. Docile. He put her to bed a while later and promised he’d join her shortly.
Then he took his phone to the den and called Melissa.
“Jax!” she answered with surprise. “Is everything okay?”
“We’re fine. I promise. But Bree’s had some news that upset her.” He explained about the wedding.
“God, I hate him,” Melissa spat with true vehemence. “He’s such a cold bastard. The ways he hurts her and thinks it doesn’t matter. He does it to hurt me . If I could divorce him a thousand times over, I would. If I could go back in time, I never would have told him I was pregnant. He would have had nothing to do with her. Nothing. ” She took a shaken breath, gathering her composure. “Do you want me to come?”
“I actually wondered if you would take Sofia for a week. We never got a honeymoon and I threw Bree into the deep end when we got here. She could use a break. If we stay here, she’ll go to work tomorrow and pretend she’s fine. She’s not.” She was deeply hurt and deserved some time to heal.
“Of course I’ll take her! We’d love that.”
They worked out a few details and he called Nico, then Eve. He didn’t tell them why he wanted the time and they didn’t ask.
Then he called one of their Caribbean properties to book a villa.
When he finally headed to bed, he found Sofia snuggled up against Bree. Their daughter was more settled these days, not coming in very often. He wouldn’t have put it past Bree to have brought her in here herself, purely out of a desire for comfort, but he didn’t mind. There was something reassuring in falling asleep with both of them in the bed where he knew they were completely safe.
He would bet his entire fortune that Bree had never been welcome to sleep with her own father.
Jax couldn’t think too hard about that man or he’d keep himself awake plotting murders.
He undressed to his briefs and slid in, reaching out his hand so it rested on Bree’s hip, sheltering their daughter between them.
But as he was drifting off, Melissa’s voice kept echoing in his head.
If I could go back in time, I never would have told him I was pregnant.