Chapter 33 Janie
JANIE
“What do you mean, you told Brax to make me a manager?” I pushed to my feet so fast my chair tipped over and landed with a loud clatter against the tile floor. I left it where it lay, my eyes never leaving Jack’s face.
His beautiful, lying, rat bastard face.
“Janie.”
I watched his lips shape my name, but all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears from the pounding of my heart. “You’re Brax’s investment partner. This whole time?”
“We went in on it together, but I wasn’t interested in being hands-on. I was never in town more than a few days at a time. I get a cut of the profits, but it’s his bar. He handles all the business, makes all the decisions. I stay out of all that.”
“But you made an exception for me.” My laugh sounded brittle to my ears. “Gee, thanks. I’m flattered.”
He rounded the table and I instinctively backed up.
The thought of him touching me right now made me panic.
I wasn’t strong enough for that. My feet tangled in the chair legs and I tumbled backward, arms flailing.
He caught me—he always fucking caught me—and I half bellowed, half sobbed in his face, “No! Don’t fucking touch me! Just let me fall!”
“I can’t do that, Janie.” His face was granite except for the muscle popping in his jaw. “Please don’t ask me to.”
He held me as tightly as if I were Maya having a meltdown. “I hate you,” I said into the crook of his neck. It was a lie, but I wished it were true.
His body jerked like I’d hit him but he didn’t let go. “I’m so in love with you I’m willing to look past that.”
My stupid, stupid heart gave a pitiful leap of hope.
Jack fixed things. That was what he did.
Was it too much to ask that he fixed us, too?
I crumpled against him. Even when he was the one hurting me, he was still the one I turned to for comfort.
“No. Don’t say that to me. I’m so fucking mad at you right now. It’s not fair.”
“I know, honey.” He smoothed my hair back from my damp forehead. “I understand.”
“Do you?” I pulled back to search his face. “Because I thought we were a team. We were in this together. We made a plan together. Yes, I needed you, but I thought—” My throat constricted around the words, choking me. “Didn’t you need me, too?”
“Yes.” He cupped my face in his large, capable palms. “Fuck, yes, I needed you. I still need you. You weren’t wrong about any of that. We are a team.”
My vision blurred with tears. “Then why did you go behind my back to Brax? Do you have any idea how that feels? Why didn’t you come to me first? I told you how things were with my parents and why I was bartending. You knew how I felt about people interfering in my life but you did it anyway.”
His shoulders slumped, his eyes lowering, but not before I saw the self-recrimination there.
“I don’t have a good answer for that. I wish I did.
I saw a problem, I wanted to fix it, and I acted on that immediately.
I wasn’t sure what Brax’s response would be, so I figured I’d talk it through with him first and see if moving you to management was a possibility.
You were so tired. I thought it would be good for you. You have to believe me.”
“I do believe you. That’s the problem.” I smiled sadly as a tear spilled over my lash line.
I dashed it away impatiently. “People have been making decisions for me my whole life. Always for my own good, like I can’t be trusted to do it myself.
I fucking hate it, Jack. That job…it’s the only thing that was completely under my control.
Or so I thought. But you took that from me. ”
His lips pressed together and he shook his head. “I didn’t take it from you. You gave it to me.”
I jerked back. “What?”
“You have every right to be mad at me. I shouldn’t have gone behind your back. We should have talked it out together. But you didn’t have to take the management position. You could have told Brax no. Why didn’t you?”
I blinked rapidly. Why hadn’t I? I ran it back through my mind. It hadn’t felt like I’d had a choice in the moment, but that wasn’t really true, was it? Of course I had a choice. “I did what was best for Maya.”
“If you really believed that, you would have done it a lot sooner.” He shook his head.
“You use Maya as an excuse. You say you’re making decisions based on Maya, but the truth is, you’re not making any decisions at all.
You’re frozen, just letting things happen to you instead of making them happen.
And now I know why. You’re terrified because eight years ago, you trusted someone who didn’t deserve it.
You never let go of that. Never stopped beating yourself up over a mistake you made eight fucking years ago.
And now the person you don’t trust is yourself. ”
My chest heaved. “Fuck. You.”
We stared at each other.
“Janie.” His thumbs traced gentle circles on the side of my neck.
Because he was still holding me. Because he had been holding me this whole time. Through all that. Every harsh word, every painful truth. He’d held on. That was who he was.
But I couldn’t.
I pushed him back. “I can’t fight with you right now. Maya needs you here and I can’t risk it. I need to think so I don’t say something I can’t take back.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Janie. I wouldn’t do that to you or Maya.”
“I know.” Did I? Maybe. Fuck, I was so confused. “But this thing between us? It feels broken, and I don’t think you can fix it, Jack.”
He studied me seriously, his blue eyes moving over my face like he was trying to memorize every freckle, and then one side of his mouth lifted slightly. “Then I guess it’s up to you, Ace.”
I stared at the ceiling long past when I should have been asleep. Tomorrow was going to be rough.
All the tomorrows were going to be rough.
How was I supposed to live with him and not touch him? How was I supposed to watch him be so wonderful with Maya and not melt? How could I have been so stupid?
I had known getting involved with Jack while he was Maya’s manny was a terrible idea. Even Claire had warned me—she owed me an I told you so, which she would never say out loud because Claire was perfect and never petty. But I would hear it in my mind every time she looked at me.
A mistake. That’s what this was. Another fucking mistake.
Not like Rupert. I knew that. Jack was good and honorable. He hadn’t deceived me for his own selfish purposes. He’d done it for my own good.
And that felt…
Like absolute garbage.
I didn’t need Jack to make my decisions for me. I could do that myself.
So why hadn’t I?
He wasn’t wrong, as painful as it was to admit.
I had been in limbo for years, too terrified to make a move that would prove once and for all that I was a bad mother.
Everything I did was a reaction to a mistake I had made years ago.
Jack was right. I was still punishing myself.
And for what? Someone else’s lie? How was that my fault?
Fuck that.
Rupert, my parents—they had stolen my choices. But I had allowed it.
If I didn’t want someone pulling my strings, then those strings would have to be cut.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Brax was leaning back in his fancy leather chair, elbows pressed to the armrests, fingers steepled over his flat abdomen, contemplating the ceiling.
My skin felt hot. I hated airing my dirty laundry to someone I respected.
He was my best friend’s husband and my boss.
But Brax was the only lawyer in Aspen Springs—and possibly the only lawyer in eastern Colorado who wasn’t beholden to my parents in one way or another.
There was no one else I could trust with this.
He had finished reading the contract five minutes ago and had been staring at the ceiling ever since. His silence felt like judgment. I cleared my throat.
Brax blinked. “Sorry. I started counting to ten but then I got distracted imagining all the ways I was going to ruin this man’s life.”
Relief whooshed out of me in an audible breath. “Really?”
“Janie.” His head tilted on an almost offended stare.
“Of course, really. It won’t even be hard.
This contract is bullshit. In the first place, a trustee is supposed to be a neutral third party, not your mother.
In the second place, the annual disbursement you receive is nowhere near enough to support a child with special needs.
And third, I just saw his smug motherfucking face on an ad talking about the sanctity of family.
If he cared so much about marriage, then he shouldn’t have had an affair with a twenty-one-year-old and abandoned his daughter.
” His jaw twitched. “I take that personally.”
I buried my face in my hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Look at me, Janie.” Brax’s stern voice brooked no opposition. I lowered my hands. “The only thing you should be embarrassed about is waiting so long to come to me for help. Don’t let it happen again.”
Goodness. Essie’s husband was…something. “All right.”
“Good.” His slow smile reminded me of a supervillain who was too smart for his own good. “This is going to be fun.”