Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That had been cruel . Bree knew it as soon as she hung up.
It was a lie . But she was releasing the kind of anger she hadn’t allowed herself to feel or express as a child, waiting for her father to notice her. Or when she’d been an adolescent, beholden to her father for payments into her college fund. Or when she’d been an adult needing a referral to a good obstetrician.
But this was different. She had laid her heart bare to Jax. Not only when she told him she loved him, but when she told him how she hadn’t been loved when she had had every reason to expect it.
And yes, she knew she couldn’t force those feelings out of him. It was fine if he didn’t feel them. She didn’t want him to pander to her.
But the part where he left her in Virginia Beach and acted as though she didn’t have a place in his life? When they were married? With a child?
What a callous way to behave! She refused to stand for it. Refused.
So, when her mother and Quinto had left for Miami, she brought Sofia to New York. Was it underhanded and passive-aggressive and juvenile not to tell Jax that’s where they were? Absolutely.
She didn’t care. She was furious .
And now she’d lost her job.
She knew Jax would find something for her in the Naples office, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to prove she didn’t need him. That she would be fine without him.
Fine was a sliding scale. She was devastated at the way things were falling apart, but she wouldn’t pine. No, she would build her life back to what it had been before. Better.
Or, at the very least, learn to live with this Jackson-sized chasm inside her.
The recruiter was someone who’d helped negotiate her contract with Eve’s team. It had felt silly at the time. A needless expense, really, but she was glad now that she’d had a savvy eye on her contract because she had a comfortable severance package to look forward to.
The woman happened to be in the neighborhood when Bree texted her, so Bree met her for a quick chat over a glass of wine to let her know she was open to offers and to keep her in mind for anything that might be coming up.
On the way home, Bree stopped to collect takeout from Sofia’s favorite noodle house. When she entered the apartment, Jax was there, standing in the middle of the living room with an air around him like a simmering volcano threatening to blow.
Her heart leaped with her usual reaction to his fiercely sharp good looks, but for once he wasn’t turned out perfectly. His shirt was wrinkled and his eyes were ringed by circles of sleeplessness. His hair was disheveled in a way that suggested agitated fingers had been combing it.
A twinge of guilt accosted her. He had been under a lot of stress with Tucker. Maybe another tantrum on her part hadn’t been the right move.
But she’d been so hurt .
“Sofia?” she asked.
“I had the nanny take her to Eve’s. Astrid and Jevaun are bringing their children over. Sofia was excited to see them again. I said we would come get her as soon as we could.”
Her nerves tingled as she realized they were alone, but she steeled herself against letting him know he was affecting her.
“You made good time from Mom’s.” She set the bag on the counter in the kitchen and removed the boxes. “Did you take a helicopter from Teterboro?”
“I’m not here to talk about my unnecessary commute to and from Virginia, Bree.”
“You sound angry.”
“I left anger back in Norfolk.”
“Maybe you’re hungry.” She began plating the food.
“No, that’s not it,” he said in a dangerous tone.
She brought the plates to the table anyway. “What did you expect me to do, Jax? Sit in Mom’s condo like a good little girl until you remembered that I exist? I chose to take your advice and tell the people who treat me badly to go to hell.”
“That’s not what you’re doing, Bree.” He came closer and leaned his hands on the far side of the table. “You probably don’t remember what you said the first time Sofia had a nuclear meltdown with me, do you? The first one where you were out of the house. It was just her and me. I called you, I was so surprised by it.”
“Are you suggesting I’m behaving like a child?” She crossed her arms.
“You told me it was a good sign that she lost her temper with me. You said she never kicks up for other people, only you and your mother. You said it meant she trusted me enough to push me away, knowing I’d come back. You said I should take it as a compliment.”
She swallowed the embarrassed heat climbing in her throat, unable to hold his gaze.
“I can’t tell you how flattered I am right now.”
“Prepare to be charmed to death by divorce papers, then.”
“Prepare for me to return the compliment, amore mio .” He splayed his hands as he leaned even closer. “Because I am ready to break every piece of furniture in this room.”
“Don’t call me that. Don’t you dare.” She took a half step back, chin up with challenge, but that only left her throat feeling exposed. It left her fluttering heart feeling naked and open to another mortal wound.
“I dare, carissima . I dare to pull you closer when I’m furious with you because I love you.”
“No, you don’t ,” she cried.
“Do you need me to throw these plates across the room to prove it? Once I start, the table and chairs will go after them. Believe me, I am very angry.”
A frisson of terrified thrill crackled in the air. She had wanted a reaction. Here it was, wild and powerful as a lightning storm.
“But I don’t want to scare you,” he muttered. “Especially when it’s not you I’m angry with.”
A hacked-off laugh came out of her and she looked away. “No, I don’t have that sort of power over you, do I?” Her voice cracked with the despair that fractured her sternum.
“Why the hell would I be angry with you for looking after yourself? I’m angry with Tucker. I’m angry with your father. I’m so angry with him, Bree, I truly hope I never meet him. It will not go well. Mostly I’m angry with myself. Because I knew I was hurting you when I didn’t say the words back. I knew you might never forgive me for that.”
“Then why didn’t you?” she cried, fighting the pull in her brow and the crinkle in her chin. The threat of tears scalded from the back of her throat to the back of her heart.
“Because—” His brow flexed with anguish.
She bit her quivering lip. Waiting in agony for the awful reason, the one that would reveal the true depth of her flaws.
“Because I have never deserved you,” he said in a voice thinned with agonized self-contempt. “I knew it the first time I saw you. I sat there thinking you were the most beautiful, vibrant, intriguing woman I’d ever met, and I knew I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“How can you say that?” she asked, genuinely baffled.
“What kind of man seduces a woman who’s still in love with someone else? I didn’t take your number because I would have chased you down and tied you to me then.” He sounded so tortured.
“Would that have been so bad?” Her soul was still crying over the time they’d lost.
“It was too big a risk. I had already lost everything I wanted once before. My future had been mapped out and it was gone.” He snapped his fingers, then flicked his hand through the air. “My family sent me away. It felt like a sentence. One I deserved.” He let her see the anguish in his eyes. In his soul.
It was such a harrowing sight, her heart began to ache for him.
“I was so damned lonely, Bree. Eve was there sometimes, but she had her own friends, her own future to mold. Once Nonna was gone, I was staring at a life that was empty of meaning, but I knew I deserved to feel that raw.”
“No, Jax. You didn’t.” She took a step, one hand dropping to the edge of the table. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
His mouth twisted with pained irony. “Then, there you were, so pretty I could hardly breathe. You were hurting like I was. Feeling rebuffed and wanting the pain to end. I wanted to keep you, Bree. But I didn’t feel I deserved to be happy. And I was immediately punished for my time with you, which proved I shouldn’t be.”
“Do you hear how flawed your logic is?” Why were humans so good at being cruel to themselves?
“My grandfather proposed to Nonna three days after they met. Did you know that? She was supposed to marry Dom’s grandfather, but she eloped with Nonno instead. That’s what started the feud between our families. It was an all-consuming animosity that went on for three generations. I never understood how she could have caused something like that. But there I was that day, wanting you with every fiber of my being, not caring what it might cost my family in the long run so long as I got to talk to you. Touch you. Kiss you…” He shook his head. “I hated myself for being so weak. I made myself leave that day. Made myself let you go. And hated myself for that, too.”
She bit her lip, trying to keep it steady, trying to take in all that he was saying. Afraid to believe it, but for once his expression was unguarded. His inner pain was on full display. He was baring his soul.
“I ached for you, Bree. I looked for you wherever I went. And when I finally found you again, you’d had my baby .” He closed his hand into a fist and swallowed. “Maybe if I hadn’t been blaming myself for my sister marrying a damned Blackwood, you and I would have got off on a better foot. Instead, I was full of fresh self-loathing. At least I could be angry with you, though. For keeping her from me. That was a crime just bad enough that maybe we were on an even playing field. Maybe you weren’t too good for me after all.”
“Hurtful.” She winced.
“I know. Especially when I realized why you thought you were better off raising her alone. That distrust of yours was hard on me, though. No. Let me say that differently. I didn’t trust you . I was convinced that you would see through me at some point and know you could do better. And when you told me…” He had to clear his throat. “When you said you loved me, I guess I thought I had to show you why you shouldn’t.”
“You did.”
His breath cut in as though he’d been stabbed.
“You taught me to demand better for myself. It’s fine if you don’t love me, Jax. But I won’t let you hurt m—”
“Of course I love you,” he cut in sharply. “Do you think I’d pour my guts out to anyone else like this? How did you not get that from the part where I said my grandfather fell for my grandmother on sight and I’m just like him?”
“Okay, so you implied it, but—”
“Bree. Right this minute, Dom is telling Tucker to back off or there will be consequences. Do you have any idea how much it galls me to let a Blackwood do me a favor? But I don’t want you to lose your job. And I thought saving my marriage—I thought telling you I love you—was more important than anything else in the world right now. Tucker will still be there in the morning. You might not be. You are my heart. My other half. I love you, Bree. If you leave me, you will break my heart. I mean that. You already nearly snapped it in two, telling me I’d killed your love for me.”
They were only a few feet apart, but as she met his gaze, she saw his remorse. She saw the canyon that had stood between them all this time, the one they had both kept between them because it was such a leap of faith to cross it.
He was extending his hand, though, inviting her across the invisible bridge. She only needed to believe it was really there.
“Ti amo,” he said. “Ti amo tanto.”
No one had ever put themselves on the line like this for her before. It was what she wanted, but it was so monumental, it made her heart feel too big for her chest. Her vision blurred with emotive tears and her lips quivered so hard she struggled to form the words she needed to say.
“I love you, too.” The quake began in her voice and extended into her chest and resounded in her soul. It made her feet feel heavy and awkward as she took a faltering step.
He pulled her close, crushing her into his arms.
For a long moment, he merely held her with her ear pressed to the thud of his heart. Then she looked up at him and he set his mouth against hers in a tender kiss that felt sacred. It tasted of apology and yearning, celebration and elation. It tasted of love. The kind of love that was pure and strong and everlasting.
When he picked her up, he stood unmoving for a long minute, holding her cradled in his arms, just looking at her.
“Yes,” she said, thinking that’s what he was asking.
He smiled faintly before his expression sobered. “I am very sorry for hurting you.”
“So am I.” She buried her lips in his throat. “I could never stop loving you even if I tried. And stop saying I deserve better. We’ll both be the better that we deserve.”
“We will,” he promised solemnly.
***
Jax was never more at peace than when they lay replete like this, Bree tucked against his side, fingertips drawing secret messages against his skin.
“Do you know what we should do?” She came up on an elbow.
“Collect our daughter so she doesn’t think we’ve orphaned her?” He had missed her, too. Sending her to Eve’s, when she had wanted to stay with him, hadn’t been easy.
“Definitely that, too.” She flicked a look at the clock, then relaxed in a splay across his chest. “But we should have a reception like Eve and Dom’s.”
“A big party? I’m always happy to show you off.” He swept a wisp of hair off her brow. “But I thought you didn’t want anything grand like that?”
“Because I don’t love being the center of attention, but you can’t let him think he ran you out of the city. Take it back. Show him who won.”
The spark of battle was in her eyes. For him.
“I’m touched.” He was. “And I will give you anything it’s in my power to give, but you don’t have to do that for me.”
“It’s for us. All of us.”
“My mother would be thrilled to plan another party.”
***
Three months later, after a sumptuous meal, Jackson invited Bree to start the dancing.
As a combined force, the Blackwood-Visconti clan had neutralized Tucker, sending him back to Brazil with his tail between his legs. They had won. Everything about this night was magical and drama free.
The only gossip was a few sly, amused whispers noting both Bree and her sister-in-law were eschewing champagne…