Chapter 22
“You’ve really never been here?” I watch Jade as she takes in the enormity of Broadway Market, eyes bouncing around stall after stall.
Aromas from every cuisine you can think of waft through the air around us, making my mouth water almost as much as Jade does in her tight workout clothes.
We walked the length of Regent’s Canal, talking the whole way, occasionally stopping to admire a houseboat bookstore or a particularly beautiful willow tree, until we wound up here.
“No, never.” Her answer is punctuated with a loud rumble from her stomach.
“That’s mad. In all the times you’ve visited for work or to see your dad, I can’t believe you never came here.
” The market is popular amongst the locals, favoring this over the more touristy markets throughout the city.
It’s not the most convenient to get to, but it’s worth the trip for the bao buns alone.
“Usually, when I come for work, I’m stuck going to Michelin-starred dinners with business associates, and when I visit Dad, we’re usually getting takeaway from his favorite chip shop.”
I whistle. “Michelin-starred restaurants. That must have been a hardship.”
She smiles softly to herself before facing me. “Would it surprise you if I said I’d much rather be somewhere like this.” She nods to the market.
“A bit, yeah.”
She looks a little sad, and it makes me want to push and pry to get her to tell me everything about herself she hasn’t yet. I want her to show me how her brilliant mind works, tell me what she does love, find out what she wants out of life, because I want to give it to her.
I have this nagging need to take care of her, because I suspect she hasn’t let anyone help her with anything in a long while.
Maybe not ever.
“It lost its luster a long time ago,” she admits candidly.
“Even fresh out of high school, when I first moved to L.A., all the lavishness seemed excessive. We grew up…not poor, because Dad always made sure we were okay, but certainly not well off. So, when I’d go to a restaurant on a brand invite, and I’d see how much was being spent on a meal that left me hungry…
I don’t know, it sat like a rock in my stomach.
Five hundred dollars per person, and I would leave and find the nearest taco truck. ”
She starts walking away from where we had paused at the mouth of the market, and I’m helpless but to follow her.
“What was it like? Growing up in a small town and then moving to a place like Los Angeles?”
She thinks on it for a minute, biting the inside of her cheek, before answering. “I find that people are the same everywhere you go. Only the landscape changes.” There's a bite of bitterness in the words as her eyes trace a sandwich stand.
“What do you mean?”
“In my world, I have rarely seen the beauty in people, they’re always inherently selfish, oftentimes cruel.
When I was twenty in L.A., it was someone cozying up to me, becoming my friend, only for me to hear them bashing me behind my back at a party, or a male business associate assuming I was the assistant, not the CEO.
I’ve been cornered in a boardroom after everyone else left and felt up because they wanted me to prove myself.
That happened more than once,” she says wryly, and I want to fucking break something.
“It doesn’t matter how powerful I am, there will always be someone who wants to invalidate me, take something from me.
My power, my body, my money. No one ever wanted to give me anything without receiving something in return. ”
“Do you find people in London the same as everywhere else?” Do you find me the same as everyone else, is what I’m really too scared to ask.
I study her face, trying to decipher an answer before she says anything, but her expression is unreadable. It’s making my palms sweat as we weave in between stalls.
“Yes,” she finally says, and my stomach drops.
“But not everyone. Some people,” she glances up at me before looking away, “are warm and kind. The type of person who made a lonely stranger in a pub feel a little less uncertain about life. Some people here have given me hope. I haven’t felt that in a long time, maybe not ever. ”
“Hope for what?” I ask, waiting on the edge of a knife, begging for any morsel, any word out of her lush mouth.
She finally looks at me, a shy smile playing across her lips. “That there is more to life than what we see through a screen. I just had to leap across the ocean to find it.”
I grab her hand, bringing her to a halt. Jade’s breath hitches, and she glances down at where my fingers wrap around hers, where my thumb is now brushing lightly against the back of her hand.
“If I were to invite you over for dinner, what would you say?” It’s a shot in the dark, and my heart is beating out of my chest. Every time we’re together, I can see the reluctance ebbing away like smoke drifting from the tips of a flame.
“Ask me and find out,” she challenges, a spark catching and flaring bright in the blue of her iris. God, that fire is addictive—it makes me feel like anything is possible.
“Jade, would you let me cook dinner for you tonight?”
She makes a big show of deciding, and it’s driving me out of my mind to the point that I’m practically bouncing on the balls of my feet like I do pre-match. “I don’t know…” She trails off, a smile starting to engulf her face, and the sight is so beautiful, my chest aches.
“Don’t toy with me, Hellfire. You know you want to say yes.” Her face scrunches a little. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Cocky rugby players.”
The smile she shoots at me in combination with the coquettish look in her eyes has me acting on impulse. Reaching out, I wrap my hand gently around her neck and pull her toward me, curving down and sealing her lips with mine.
For a brief second, she stiffens, but her surprise swiftly melts away, and she’s sighing into my mouth.
Her lips are soft and warm, and I feel dizzy, like London is experiencing a magnitude six earthquake, except it’s just me—her, making everything about my world tilt and rearrange itself with seismic intensity.
How is everyone around us acting like the world isn’t caving in and falling into place at the same time?
Jade coaxes my mouth open with her tongue, and the taste of her has me groaning, tightening my grip where it’s still settled around her neck.
She whimpers in response, left hand clutching my shirt as her other settles around my wrist, securing my hold.
Sensation sparks through every fibre of my being, making the hairs on my body stand on end, and my flimsy athletic shorts tighten.
With monumental effort, I wrench myself away, resting my forehead against hers and moving my hand to thread through her dark hair. “If we don’t stop, I’ll be locked up for public indecency.”
Her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling as she concentrates on leveling her breathing. “It might be the only way to get us to stay away from each other at this point.”
I huff a laugh. “Solid steel bars couldn’t keep me away, love. Don’t you know that by now?”
Her only response is a hum that vibrates through my whole body.
“Let’s go shopping, gorgeous. We need groceries for this meal.”
I don’t give her a moment to hesitate or pull away, leaving no room for argument or refusal as I thread my fingers through hers once more and pull her around the market.
I push through the front door, both hands carrying heavy bags filled with the food shop because I refused to let Jade carry anything.
We’re barely through the door when Pebble barrels toward us, her tongue lolling out of her mouth and a big smile stretched across her wide face.
Just as I’m about to set the bags down to give her the scratches she expects the second I get home, she veers off course, going to Jade instead.
“Hello, sweet girl.” She crouches and wraps her arms around Pebble’s thick neck, enveloping her in a hug, the sight making my chest squeeze.
Pebble was a shelter dog who had been found out in the countryside in pretty rough shape.
They suspected she had been abused, with no clue how she was able to survive when they found her near the side of a motorway covered in blood and feces.
I had recently signed up to be a foster for the shelter, figuring it would work better with my busy schedule to take care of her during the off season until she found a more permanent home, but one look into her soft grey eyes, and I knew my first foster dog was going to be an epic fail.
She had endured hell and still trusted people, still wagged her tail, and didn’t hesitate to hope for a better life.
Every day after she came home with me, she greeted me at the door, and every night, she curled up in bed and laid her heavy head on my chest before falling asleep.
Within the week, I called the rescue and told them I wanted to adopt her.
Seeing her now, so open and comfortable with Jade, who is giving her such unfiltered affection, has a lump forming in my throat.
“I feel slightly betrayed. She’s only met you once, and she ran to you first,” I say.
Jade squeezes Pebble’s cheeks, kissing her between the eyes, and says in the babying tone only reserved for cute animals, “Clearly, she has taste.” She gives her another kiss before adjusting the crocheted bandana around her neck.
“No food scraps for you, traitor.” My dog actually has the gall to look at me and then turn away, nuzzling further into Jade’s chest.
I’m not jealous of my dog, goddamnit.
“I’m going to go start dinner,” I mumble.
I expect Jade to stay a little longer, maybe put a little distance between us. She’s already let me too close today, and the pullback should happen any minute now, but she surprises me when I hear the soft falls of her feet connecting with the hardwood as she follows me into the kitchen.