Chapter Nine
There it was, right in front of him. Cold, hard proof that he’d fucked up big this go-around.
Looking down at the trash, the torn piece of latex lying pathetically at the bottom of the can, Jace’s skin crawled.
He’d made some epic mistakes before, but nothing that had the potential to wreck someone else’s life.
Worse yet, they’d just talked about the kid issue, and Aurelie had told him pretty point-blank how she felt about them.
Four or five, she’d said. But not with a man who couldn’t give her any real commitment.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Thoughts of his mother swirled in his head while he cleaned up the results of their escapade.
She’d died giving birth to him. He hadn’t allowed himself to fall in love his whole life, in large part because of that defining moment at the start of it.
But he cared for Aurelie, and the idea that something might happen to her made him sick to his stomach.
He needed to run, to leave, to get the hell back to LA, where things may be less than ideal, but at least they wouldn’t undo him.
He peered through the crack in the bathroom door at Aurelie, curled up in a ball on the bed, her naked form somehow still alluring as fuck.
Well, leaving was out the fucking window. He’d committed to protecting her, but from himself? He was shit at this fake-husband thing, wasn’t he?
“How are you doing?” he asked her, placing his hand on the small of her back. When she flinched like she had at Joe’s, he had his answer. God, was he a first-class asshole. This was something that happened to high-schoolers; it didn’t happen to adults who had their act together.
“I’m fine. It’s fine. Mistakes happen, right?”
“Right,” he echoed.
“I should check on Maddie.” Aurelie threw on his shirt and buttoned it, then walked out of the room without meeting his gaze.
Her actions screamed that she was anything but fine.
The only problem was he had no damn idea what to do about it.
One of the liabilities of marrying someone you knew nothing about was that you had no clue how they reacted to tough news.
Or what they needed to heal. Did Aurelie want space?
Or to talk? Or space, then talk? Or did she need to go for a run to get out her frustrations?
Maybe she was one of those women who journaled her feelings, coming out the other end refreshed and calmer.
Somehow, as he mulled over that last possibility, he didn’t think Aurelie was one of those women.
She ran hot; he knew that much. Learning much more would be a liability to falling for her, but what choice did he have?
Screw it. He ran after her, found her standing over Maddie’s crib, rubbing the infant’s back as she slept.
“Hey,” he started, but was cut off by a choked sob that shook Aurelie’s chest. He leaned forward and saw a stream of tears falling on the faded blue fabric of his shirt, confirming how she felt about the incident. “Talk to me, please,” he whispered.
Aurelie turned to face him, and though he would give anything to make sure she never shed a tear out of fear or sadness again, his breath hitched when he saw what the moisture did to her lashes.
It was as if she’d just come in from a storm, the heat captured in her cheeks adding to the effect. She was stunning.
“It’s just a lot. You don’t want kids at all, and I don’t want them with a man I’m fake-married to.”
That simple admission said everything. He’d done this whole thing wrong from the start.
Tried to be the real-life hero who swooped in and saved the day, the attentive lover, the friend who listened.
But all of that didn’t matter when the real him was safeguarded behind a wall of protection from anything resembling true emotion.
Ask Harley, Cammie… All the other women in his life were aware he had nothing to give.
Now what?
“I know. Listen, can we talk? Out in the living room?”
They made their way there, both quiet.
“Here is fine.”
“I’ll grab some water.” And maybe a time machine if Paige had one of those.
He brought them both their drinks, then went back for the sandwiches.
He finally decided that there was no way they were going to tackle the discussion they were about to have without alcohol, so he grabbed a decent bottle of Petite Sirah and two goblets and made his way back to Aurelie.
She sat as still as the mountains that flanked them on all sides, as formidable as well.
Jace opened the wine, poured with a heavy hand, and set one in front of Aurelie. “Here you go.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Thanks. This is pretty much the worst-case scenario, isn’t it? For a man who didn’t want a relationship to have sex with a fake wife and end up with a broken condom on night one?”
He laughed, and that one break in the tension caused her to laugh as well. Before they knew it, they were both in a puddle on the couch, lost in fits of maniacal giggles.
When they calmed, he rubbed her back. “It’s not ideal,” he admitted, finally. That sent her into another fit of giggles.
An hour into their marriage, and he’d already thrashed her trust, her faith that this relationship wouldn’t damn her more than the alternative.
“But Aurelie, we’ll figure it out. I’m not going anywhere.” As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. The time to cut and run had long passed. He was in it now, whatever that looked like.
“Can I tell you something scary, then?” He nodded, grateful that she trusted him after this latest twist in their new relationship.
“I barely made it off of North Caicos alive because of my dad, because of the weight he pulled. If I get pregnant and have to take my baby back there? I can’t do that.
I just can’t. This matters more than anything now, that we fool whoever needs to think we’re a real couple.
Do you understand? It might not just be about me anymore.
If nothing happens, if I’m in the clear, we can go our separate ways sooner, but if I’m pregnant, we’ll need to see this through. ”
“Of course. Now, come with me. Let’s enjoy the afternoon air.” He swept her up and carried her to the porch, a wrap-around so well-constructed he made a note to ask Owen who’d done the work so he could hire them to help on his when the basic construction was complete.
Next door, high up on the hill above them, dust swirled as the weight of the back half of his century-old farmhouse—and first eighteen years of hard-earned life lessons—fell on the dry ground, thanks to the crew he’d hired.
It left Jace with a view of his land, bare and stripped down.
Damn. The demo part had happened quickly, but the hold on his heart was still strong.
It also showed what could happen when money and power combined, which only served to remind him what would happen to Banberry if Isaac Puckman’s money and power gained any leverage.
It was a nightmare, almost as bad as what Aury was facing.
There was more than one reason to see all this through.
He sat on one of the lounges, Aurelie curled in his lap, her head against his chest.
“My dad and I didn’t talk much until the past few years.
Did he ever tell you that?” She gazed up at him and shook her head.
He owed her a reason for his distance but wasn’t sure how much to share.
Still, he trudged on. “Not really. Just a Christmas card and a phone call on my birthday.” Aurelie’s breath was warm on his chest. He tried like hell not to recall what it felt like on his bare skin; this was neither the time nor place.
“My senior year, I’d told him my dreams were bigger than the ranch, than this town with barely a stoplight.
I basically told him that everything he’d worked so hard to give me wasn’t good enough, which, to him, meant he wasn’t good enough.
It took me a long time to realize that as kids we are supposed to do more, want more than our parents, but by then, the rift was too big. ”
“Was it always Hollywood that called to you?”
Ah, the million-dollar question. In for an ounce, he reasoned.
“According to my aunt and father, acting was my mother’s dream.”
“Did she get to see you do any of it?”
He closed his eyes against the heat. He’d never met her, and still, he could picture how it might have been to have her in the front row of the Oscars, where he’d been nominated last year for best supporting actor.
“She died in childbirth.”
“You’re an only child?” she asked, seeming to put the pieces together. He nodded. “I’m so sorry. If she’s anything like you, I’ll bet she was an amazing woman.”
“That she was, at least according to everyone who knew her.” He didn’t get into the rest, that his dad didn’t only think he wasn’t enough for his son, but that his son was the reason he’d lost his wife.
There was no saving that relationship, but Jace had always wondered if he could have tried harder to bridge the gap between them.
In the end, he’d known it wasn’t his bridge to build.
He was the son of a man wrapped up in grief.
“She’d have loved you, I think. If for no other reason than you’re the one source of joy—honest-to-goodness joy—that I’ve come by honestly in years. ”
That was true, too. It didn’t—couldn’t—mean anything, but it was a fact.
“Thank you for sharing her, them, with me. I’m sorry for thinking your life is perfect, and I was the only one with problems. You deserve better.”
The moisture burning the bottom of his eyelids stung, but not as much as hearing the words he’d felt every day of his life coming from the woman he’d just wed.
She already knew him, the adult version of him, so much better than anyone else.
That should have scared him, but instead it filled him with a peace he hadn’t felt since he left town all those years ago.
“So do you, Aury. We both do. It may not be conventional, but let’s be that for each other.”