CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Gizmo
N o. He’s my everything.
Her voice breaks as she says it and my heart cracks wide open.
There was such conviction in those words that were absent in the ones she told Nathaniel.
No. He’s my everything.
Those words repeat in my head as I walk into Josie’s Java, and despite protests from the barista at the cash register, I head straight to the back.
I may be impatient as fuck, but I wait for Josie to notice me. The brief conversations we’ve had in passing over the past few months were enough for me to know this might not be the easiest of conversations.
She has always had Hendrix’s back, and I doubt this time will be any different.
Josie’s eyes widen when she sees me standing in her kitchen. Her eyebrows lift and her posture stiffens. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” Sarcasm drips from her lips.
I don’t have time for small talk. “The bakery has a sign up. It says ‘closed for a few days.’”
“That’s the great part about owning your own business, right? Setting your own hours.”
“Where is she?”
Josie crosses her arms, already on the defensive. “If she wanted you to know, she would have told you.”
My smile is tight, unforgiving. “Josie, I—I screwed up. Plain. Simple. Truth. I fucked up big time, and I’m worried about my wife. I need to find her and make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s fine. She’s okay. She doesn’t want to see you.”
I clench my jaw. “I need to see it for myself.”
She stares at me, expression unreadable. “Why?”
A simple question with the most complicated answer I’ve ever had to give. So much so that the words clog in my throat before I finally force them out.
“Because I love her.” Four words that have never been more accurate . “I love her, and she needs to know that.”
Josie’s expression softens, a quiet sound slipping from her lips.
“Please?” I ask, barely holding myself together.
She exhales. I can see her struggle with betraying her friend. “She went home. To her mom’s.”
“Thank you.” Relief surges through me but then I realize, I have no idea where home is. “Josie, do you know where that might be?”
“I do.” She picks up her phone and scrolls through presumably her contacts to look for it. “And when you get back from groveling for her to take you back, you’re going to repay me the favor.”
“Sure. Anything.” Just give me the fucking address .
“A social media post about the café would be great.”
She holds up the address for Sandra Wright, and I quickly enter the information into my contacts. I look up and meet her eyes. “You got it.”
I don’t waste another second. I head straight to the airport, my phone pressed to my ear the entire way.
Halle is on the other end of the first call. She’s getting the pilot to the band’s jet and whatever it is he has to do to get an immediate departure cleared.
I hang up with her, my head spinning as I listen to that damn voice text from last night again.
And again.
Paul’s threat. His attempt at blackmail. The smug fucker.
My next call is to my brother.
Nathaniel picks up on the first ring. “Jase?”
“Why were you at my house the other day? Talking to Hendrix?”
“I came to get her thoughts on how to dissolve the marriage once the court date comes and goes.”
I think of the words I heard Hendrix say. The denial of how she feels for me. And... then I think of the look in her eyes last night.
How could I have believed she really felt what she told Nathaniel?
She was protecting me. Making me look better in the eyes of my brother. Right?
“And what did she say?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far. She said she’d only talk about it after the judge ruled. That she didn’t want to jinx anything.”
“And that was all you came to talk about?”
“What are you getting at?” Nathaniel asks.
Just making sure you’re not sabotaging what I have . But the words don’t come out. Years of animosity have me thinking them while a newfound attempt to fix what the two of us have broken makes me bite them back.
“Jase?”
I shake my head to clear it. Get my mind back on task. “I need a favor,” I say, no nonsense. “I don’t want an ‘I told you so.’ I don’t want a damn word.”
“Is it illegal?” Nathaniel asks, always the lawyer first.
“No.” I sigh. “I need you to draft up a letter. A contract with a payment in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.”
Nathaniel swears under his breath. “Please tell me you’re not hiding a dead body.”
I bite back the snark. “I need it presented to Paul the Fucktard. Not sure of his last name but Josie at Josie’s Java will know it.”
“That’s a lot of specifics,” he jokes but then his laugh dies when I don’t laugh too. “For?”
“It has to be in exchange for the release of any and all claim of ownership of Cookie Cutter as well as the sale of any information to the media—”
“What’s going on, Jase?”
“Hendrix’s ex is trying to blackmail her. He put money into the company but is trying to extort her by leveraging ruining my reputation. And of course, in true Hendrix fashion, she’s willing to pay to protect me, to protect the world tour.”
“And so you want to pay him off instead?”
“He’s asking for half a mil. I’ll give him less than half that along with the resignation of all his rights. He’ll take it. He’s a greedy fuck. And then regardless of what happens between Hendrix and me, he’ll be out of her life.”
“Regardless of what happens? That sounds like I should know something.”
“I love her, Nathaniel.” Christ, I said it again and it doesn’t hit any easier a second time. “I love her and need to make this right.”
“You already screwed up?”
I chuckle. “Yes. And I probably will several more times, but I’m trying. I’ll get it right. She’s too damned incredible to lose.”
His silence is dramatic and unnerving, and I’m just about to say fuck it and hang up. “I’ll take care of the ex. I’ll make sure you’re both covered. And... fuck, man, good for you. She’s a great woman. I’m... proud of you.”
I end the call with a lump stuck in my throat and emotions I’ve never really had before racing through me. I love her . I treated her like absolute shit, and she still put me first.
I. Love. Her.
As I pull into the airport, I feel steadier than I have in hours.
I’m going to fix this. I’m going to make this right.
Hendrix is mine.
And I’m going to make damn sure she knows it.