Chapter 28
“ W ho’s this?” Mallory Monroe asked just loud enough for me to hear her across the table, her tone still holding a hint of the laughter Hudson Gray had just pulled from her. But I knew from the way her eyes were locked on something behind me, and Hudson’s gaze all-too-casually swung that way, that I wasn’t imagining her alarm. “Heading right for her.”
My heart skipped painfully.
Definitely not imagining her alarm.
“Not familiar,” Hudson murmured in a tone that matched his expression—just slightly too casual to be normal. “Eyes on us, Lainey,” he added as if he expected me to turn around to look.
I mean...he wasn’t wrong. It was instinctive to turn and look at the thing you shouldn’t.
“Considering where we are, I could probably ease your worries if I did ,” I reminded them as I moved Kaia so she was directly in front of me, scrunching my nose at her and earning a belly laugh that nearly warmed my heart.
But despite the late spring heat, I was cold. I’d been cold ever since Asher left the apartment the night before.
I wasn’t sure when I’d expected him to come back, but I hadn’t thought he’d still be gone by the time I finally crashed on his couch or when I woke this morning. And I definitely hadn’t thought he’d still be gone by the time I’d convinced my newest babysitters to let me leave an hour ago.
It was probably reckless. Asher would probably be furious.
But for the first time, I’d felt claustrophobic in his apartment.
I’d jumped at every sound. I’d nearly been consumed with fear every time Mallory or Hudson had moved from their positions at the front of the apartment. I’d been so wrapped up in worry and what-ifs and frustration that my babysitters wouldn’t give me any kind of update, that the majority of my day with Kaia had been spent pacing. And I hadn’t been able to take it any longer.
So, there we were, hanging out in Huntley Square—my absolute favorite place in the heart of downtown Huntley. Out in the open. Surrounded by people who were enjoying a Sunday evening out with their families. People I knew .
And even though I was breathing so much easier than I had in the last twenty hours, the words heading right for her had me regretting ever leaving the apartment.
“ Lainey .”
A ragged breath punched from my lungs so quickly that it nearly sounded like a cry when the familiar voice reached my ears over the music playing throughout the square.
“It’s fine,” I hurried to assure Hudson and Mallory when they both jerked forward. “It’s fine.” I glanced over my shoulder at where Jackson was nearing the table, then quickly looked back at the two now openly glaring at the man approaching us. “It’s my boy— ex . My ex,” I said awkwardly, stumbling over the foreign title.
“We need to talk,” Jackson said once he reached the picnic table we were occupying.
“Hello to you too,” I said as I met his wary gaze, my voice still a little breathless as my pulse tried to find a steady rhythm again.
Jackson’s eyes shifted from Kaia to the lethal people sitting across from me who looked more like models and narrowed. “You keep showing up with new people and that baby.” He jerked his chin at Hudson and Mallory. “Who are they?”
“Friends,” I said before either of them could answer. “And you’re being rude.”
“Because we need to talk,” he ground out. “I can’t remember the last time you answered your phone, and you keep running away.”
“Take a hint,” Hudson drawled before a grunt wheezed from him.
My lips parted to remind Jackson that we were done and that was it, only to close as I glanced at the people watching me expectantly. “Can you?—”
“No,” Mallory said without remorse as if already knowing what I’d been about to ask.
“Please.”
“We’re fine right here,” she said as she reached for her water, a hissed curse leaving her when Hudson stood and started hauling the Barbie-lookalike off the bench. “Let go,” she snapped, ripping her arm from him.
“You’re adorable,” he muttered and flashed me a grin. “Isn’t she adorable? We’ll go order some food.” With a pointed look at Jackson, he added, “We’ll be right over there .”
“Where did you find these people?” Jackson asked under his breath as he watched them go, Mallory smacking and shoving at Hudson the entire time. His head shook as he dropped to the bench beside me. “It doesn’t matter. We need to talk.”
“So you keep saying, but I already told you, we no longer have any business together. And that’s all I’ve become to you, your parents, and mine these past years: business.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” I challenged as I gently bounced Kaia on my thigh. “Jackson, you don’t want to marry me. You aren’t even in love with me.”
“How can you?—”
“Stop lying to me,” I softly begged. “Stop lying to yourself. You already know I know about Heather, so just stop .”
His jaw tensed and twitched as he studied me before eventually saying, “Lainey, I need you. Your family needs you.”
A sad laugh bled from my lips. “You aren’t even denying it.”
“Lainey, I love you,” he claimed, the words nearly a growl. “I want to marry you. I’m going to marry you.”
Sadness swelled in my chest as I searched those light green eyes I’d memorized throughout my life. “No, you don’t,” I finally said. “And you won’t.”
Fear and anger flared, but before he could respond, I added, “You keep saying you need me—that my family needs me. What’s sad is none of you realize that you don’t .” I pressed a hand to my chest before curling it around Kaia’s waist again to steady her. “My parents don’t need me to run the farm. It will suffer with me at the head of it because I have never wanted it. Wren wants it. She will do great there if they would just give her a chance.”
“Wren,” he said in the same doubtful, condescending tone as my parents.
“Give her a chance,” I nearly begged. “And our families do not need us to merge the businesses.” An irritated sound rolled up my throat. “Why is our marriage a requirement of the merging? Just tell our parents to merge. Then you can finally be happy with Heather, and I can be?—”
“Don’t finish that,” he said in low warning and leaned close. “Do you realize that this is decades of planning you are trying to destroy?”
“Y’all keep reminding me,” I said softly as that sadness nearly became overwhelming and tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “Do you realize that by trying to adhere to their demands, it’s destroying you ?”
Jackson’s brow furrowed, making him look even angrier in his confusion and denial.
“You do not want this,” I said with absolute certainty. “If you did, I wouldn’t be talking to a stranger right now. I wouldn’t have watched you grow increasingly angry these past years—and don’t say it’s because I went to school. I know it’s because of whatever was going on with you and Heather.”
“Lainey—”
“You wouldn’t have turned into someone who would get so mad that I wanted to be happy and live my own life that he’d grip me until it felt like my jaw was being crushed,” I seethed under my breath and watched his face fall.
“Stop calling me,” I continued when he just sat there, staring vacantly ahead with a look of horror, remorse, and indecision. “Stop demanding we talk. Stop saying we’re engaged because we aren’t. We’re done, Jackson. We’ve been done. Tell your parents to merge without our marriage and maybe ask why they didn’t just do it a long time ago. And stop hiding Heather—it isn’t fair to her.”
Jackson’s stare focused on me, a determined sort of desperation filling his eyes. But just when it looked like he was going to try for the same argument, a defeated huff left him instead.
With a heavy exhale, he dragged a hand through his hair before leaning closer to me. His words soft but no less intense than before. “This future is all I’ve ever known, Lainey. I’ve grown up knowing I would take over the ranch— merge our businesses. I’ve grown up knowing I would marry you.”
“I know,” I whispered because it’d been the same for me, and he knew that.
“There was never a second option,” he went on as if my parents hadn’t tried ingraining that in me as well. “This is my life. This is our life.”
“That’s just it, Jackson; these are our lives. We should be allowed to live them how we want.”
He studied me for a long while before admitting, “I don’t know how to move forward without you.”
I lifted a shoulder and drew Kaia closer to my chest. “You do. You’re just afraid of what happens when you step off the path our parents want.”
Jackson’s mouth parted only to shut. His gaze snapped up and narrowed just as fingers swept over my shoulder and tenderly curled around my neck as an iced caramel macchiato was placed in front of me.
And there went my heart, taking off in a dead sprint, so unlike all the other times today.
This wasn’t fear. This was the fierce, uneven pounding that threatened to escape the confines of my ribs every time I so much as thought of the man I was now looking up at.
Dark, dark eyes greeted me as he passed his lips across my forehead before settling onto the bench beside me.
If I hadn’t been so relieved to finally have Asher near after so long of worrying over him, I was sure I would’ve realized how awkward it was to be sitting between him and Jackson long before I did.
As it was, it was all I could do to look away from the dark shadows showing his sleepless night, and those eyes that gave away nothing.
No hint as to what was happening at his office. No hint that he was worried about the mafia and their retaliations. No hint as to what he was thinking about finding me here—in public and far away from his apartment. With Jackson, no less.
“You remember Jackson,” I mumbled, finally feeling the weight of Jackson’s stare and every ounce of that awkward tension.
A rumble of assent sounded in Asher’s chest as his gaze flashed Jackson’s way. But he just took Kaia from me in a move that seemed as unconscious as it was surprising. Like he hadn’t even thought about reaching for her. Like he’d needed to hold her.
“Like I said,” Jackson began in an oddly subdued tone, drawing my attention back to him. “I get now why you wouldn’t quit.” He jerked his chin meaningfully toward Asher.
I didn’t defend my job or why I’d been doing it. I didn’t tell Jackson nothing had truly happened between Asher and me until just last night. I didn’t remind him that he’d been in some sort of relationship with Heather—physical or emotional—for years now.
I just watched as he stood and muttered, “Bye, Lainey.”
“Bye,” I said a few seconds too late because I was already so focused on the disconcerting energy rolling off the man still beside me.
“You brought me coffee,” I mumbled lamely as I waited for what I knew was coming. “Thank you.”
“This is dangerous,” Asher said in a way that had my head snapping in his direction.
I’d expected him to be furious and reprimand me. But he’d delivered the words so indifferently as if he was sure I already knew, but still needed to say it out loud.
My head bobbed a few times before I admitted, “I couldn’t stay in your apartment any longer.”
“What’s wrong with my apartment, Miss Pearson?”
The subtle tease of his question had an unexpected smile tugging at my mouth, and for the first time in what felt like so long, I felt my body relax. Turning to face him, I grabbed my coffee and placed an elbow on the table, letting my head fall into my hand as a heavy sigh bled from me.
“Where do I begin?” I asked playfully before taking a long drink. “I just felt like I couldn’t breathe in there. Not with all the unknowns.”
“So, you thought going into public was better?”
I searched his unreadable eyes, trying so hard to figure out what he was really thinking, when the easiness of his tone was so unlike anything I’d expected from him and was throwing me off balance.
“I’m waiting for you to be mad.”
“I was,” he said without missing a beat, then slanted his head in the smallest movement that still seemed so big. “But then I couldn’t figure out if I was actually mad or terrified that something would happen.”
For a second, I saw it. The same lethal mixture of rage and fear that had pulsed from him when he’d gotten the call last night flashed through his eyes then. But when he glanced at where Kaia was chewing on teething beads, everything disappeared.
“But I’ve seen how much it wrecks you when you think you do something that might make me uncomfortable,” he went on. “I figured if you were putting y’all in danger like this, you felt like you had to.”
Even though he’d been uncharacteristically kind in his delivery, guilt unfurled in my chest. “When you put it like that,” I murmured and took another sip. “I did try to think of the best place.”
“Public,” he reminded me.
“You were afraid your apartment wasn’t safe,” I gently countered. “They had my address which, I get, is in Huntley. But you said they would be looking for wherever I was— if they even looked for me. So, I told Hudson not to close out my hotel room, and he left my phone in it to see if anyone tracked it there. As for here...” I gestured to the adorable square.
“There are never so many people out that it’s hard to sort through them all, and it’s Huntley ,” I said as if that was all the explanation I needed. “I know everyone here. I would know if a stranger was coming at me. And we’re at the Square, so people can only come from one direction.”
Asher studied me for so long that I opened my mouth to apologize and ended up releasing a stuttered breath when he said, “You’re incredible.”
“What?”
“It’s dangerous,” he added, backtracking a little. “I still wouldn’t have risked either of you. But what you did, that line of thinking...you’re incredible.”
A wave of heat crept into my cheeks at his unexpected praise.
Clearing my throat, I glanced at the cup in my hand and teased, “So, is it your plan to keep me locked up in your apartment forever? Because we talked about this. You eventually have to let me go.”
A smile briefly stole across his face, stunning me and stalling my heart for long seconds before it faltered back into that frantic beat.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Asher smile. Not really. And there was something about his smile, even as fleeting as it was, that transformed him completely. Made him softer. Somehow even more handsome than before.Mine.
Because that smile had undoubtedly been mine .
“Told you I’m not letting you go,” he murmured as something impish and wholly intimate danced through his eyes. “But, honestly, I want you wherever you’re comfortable.”
“Honestly, Mr. Briggs?” I asked in a soft tone that had his eyes darkening with heat. “You should smile more.”
“We were watching,” a feminine voice said defensively, jolting me from the little bubble that had formed around Asher and me. Baskets of food were dropped onto the table as Mallory added, “We weren’t far.”
“We were right there ,” Hudson said on an irritated groan as he set more food on the table and lowered himself onto the bench opposite us. He gestured from Mallory to Asher and me. “I told her I texted you, and she was still ready to bolt back here the entire time we were waiting.”
“I knew where y’all were,” Asher confirmed with a nod as Mallory punched Hudson in the arm.
“And I told you I wasn’t supposed to leave them,” she snapped.
Hudson’s lips parted, but I hurried to say, “I asked you to.” I gestured to where Jackson had been sitting just minutes before. “That conversation needed to happen and didn’t need an audience. So, thank you.”
Mallory stared me down for a few seconds before meeting Asher’s gaze as if expecting his fury.
Apparently it wasn’t just me.
But Asher asked, “Is it always like this out here?” instead, once again shocking me.
I looked between him and Mallory’s blatant surprise a few times before clarifying, “In the Square?” At Asher’s confirming grunt, I said, “Yeah.”
He made a face before reaching for one of the baskets. “Huntley’s nice.”
Even if it hadn’t been for the way the people across from us were staring at Asher as if he’d grown a second head, I was sure his carefree words and demeanor would’ve stunned me into silence.
“Yeah,” I began a while later, the word drawn out with all my hesitation even as I glanced around, trying to see Huntley Square with new eyes.
The cobblestone street leading up to the dead-end square wasn’t the main street of Huntley, but it was easily everyone’s favorite part of town. Lined with well-kept boutiques, little shops, and local restaurants, it was the perfect place to get...well, anything, really.
And the square at the end of it was filled with large trees that had café lights strung throughout, lighting up picnic benches, food trucks, and the stage where live music played on Friday nights.
“It is,” I finally went on, then stole a quick look at Hudson and Mallory to see they were both still staring at Asher. Lowering my voice, I leaned closer to him and asked, “What happened with the break-in?”
“Not here,” he mumbled softly as he took a bite of whatever the fatal models had gotten. “Has Kaia had dinner?”
I instinctively reached for the bag behind me that held everything I needed for Kaia even as I said, “Just before Jackson showed.”
One of those infuriatingly attractive grunts left him as he took another bite. “You never told me what you wanted to do with your master’s.”
It was a simple, prompting statement—a genuine one, even if it was completely out of left field. But it had ice-cold hands gripping at my lungs because the second it left him, I knew what he was doing.
The way he’d reached for Kaia when he was usually handing her over to me. The easy, casual tone when nothing about Asher was easy or casual. The comments about the town I lived in and loved, and the career I’d tirelessly worked toward...
I spared a glance at Mallory and Hudson and knew from the way they were avoiding looking at me that they’d already come to the same conclusion. “Can?—”
“Yep,” Mallory said tightly and hurried to pull Hudson from the bench as if she couldn’t get away from the tension quickly enough this time.
“You just said you weren’t letting me go, but that’s exactly what you’re doing,” I whispered as soon as they were out of earshot.
My chest ached and burned until I was struggling to take a breath as I waited the countless seconds that seemed to last an eternity before Asher tilted his head my way. The pain and resolve in his dark eyes confirming everything without him ever needing to say a word.