19. Jack
Chapter nineteen
Jack
W hen we got home that night, tension buzzed between us.
I was hard as steel from claiming Maggie like she was mine.
I was aroused as fuck from being claimed as hers.
I silently opened the car door for her. Quietly unlocked the front door to the house. Let her ascend the stairs before me. Stood at the top of the staircase and held the banister when she reached the second floor.
Maggie walked to her bedroom—so close to mine, but it felt like they were miles apart—and stood in front of the closed door. My breath caught in my lungs when she didn’t move to turn the handle.
Did she want to go to bed alone?
Was she feeling this too?
I fucking meant it when I said she looked perfect.
That Kyra-whatever-her-name-was drove me fucking wild with possession over my wife with her pass at me. I thought keeping my loyalty to my new baby mama would be hard. I thought the hungry wives would come after me like prey.
But all her flirting did was make me want to shove Maggie into the nearest gift shop and fuck her like I did at the last polo party we attended.
My feelings were growing out of control. And I needed control.
Living with Maggie was my undoing. I couldn’t sit across from her at the dinner table anymore without wishing our arrangement would never end. I couldn’t pass her in the hallway without breathing her perfect, cider scent. I couldn’t look at her without thinking one thing: mine .
I was quickly falling for the woman before me, and she had no idea. She felt just out of reach. Like if I had gotten to know her better and realized my feelings before putting a baby in her, things would be different between us.
Maybe we could have gotten to know each other under different circumstances.
Maybe she wouldn’t look at me like I was a rich playboy with no morals.
Maybe she would fall for me, too.
But that wasn’t us. Our lives were fated to cross, and it might have been the luckiest chance in the universe that the woman I was crazy for was carrying my baby.
Mine.
When had I become so damn possessive of her?
Sure, we had been together in public. I would touch her arm this way and that. I would kiss her on the cheek and put my hand on her lower back.
But tonight?
The first polo party we attended after we conceived?
No fucking way was I letting anyone think Maggie was anything but mine.
And now she was staring at her door like she wasn’t sure if she should go in without me.
“Mags,” my voice was low. She turned around.
God, she looked so beautiful tonight. She was so worried about the way she fit into her clothes.
So conscious of the small bump beginning to show at her midsection.
But she couldn’t have been more wrong. The way she looked in that black dress…
it was fucking killing me. I couldn’t help but trace her curves, her breasts.
Linger on her collarbones and fantasize about kissing every inch of her skin.
I was on edge tonight. If Maggie didn’t walk through that door, I was going to do something rash.
She looked like pure sex. I wanted to claim her for real.
And she looked at me the same way. Her eyes roved over me, heating me from the inside out. If I thought I was hard looking at her before, it had nothing on right now.
My cock swelled as I took her in.
Even worse? The house was dead silent. All I could hear was my breathing picking up in my lungs.
I stared.
She stared back.
I waited.
For an agonizingly long time, I waited.
Was she going to say something? Should I say something?
I didn’t even have anything to say. I wanted to show her exactly how I was feeling.
And just how hard I was feeling.
I stepped off the last stair and walked until I stood in front of her.
I held my breath. She smelled so good.
Reaching to touch one of her waves, I watched her eyes follow my hand. Instantly, I retracted it. “You did well tonight.”
She swallowed and looked up at me.
Her gaze moved from my eyes to her lips. Mine moved to her lips, too.
I moved closer. “Go in your room.”
She didn’t.
Fuck, she didn’t.
An exhausted sigh left my mouth. “Maggie, go to bed,” I growled. I was seriously afraid of what I would do if she didn’t listen to me.
If she didn’t, I was going to throw her over my shoulder and fuck her exactly how I wanted. The way she looked like she wanted me to.
When she still refused to move, I shook my head and gave her a stare that would make a grown man shiver. I could see the want in her emerald eyes. The desperation in the crease of her brows. It had been weeks since I’d touched her for real. In the quiet. Alone.
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the romantic partner she wanted—the husband she needed. And worse, I was terrified I would breach our trust if I made a move on her tonight.
“Good night, Mags.” I breathed the words into her mouth.
And I turned around and walked away.
***
“She looks good. Sound movements, good body, and this neck is huge.” I cantered a dark bay mare in front of Arthur Van der Hill’s massive barn.
Arthur was a new client I had taken on to earn additional money for our family.
He was buying a new string of horses to play in Golden Meadow’s summer season while the horses he played in Wellington were turned out in a pasture for a few months’ vacation.
His budget was high, which gave me room to find a lot of viable prospects.
“Price?” He looked at me.
“We’re looking at about $75,000 for this one.”
He nodded. His high budget also meant he wanted to spend money just to spend it.
“It’s open to negotiation, though,” I continued, speaking loudly atop the horse. “Horses from this trainer are highly coveted, but it doesn’t mean she’ll sell to the highest buyer.”
“Have you bought horses through this trainer before?” Arthur asked, not paying enough attention to the horse.
It was a novice move. I was here to advise him on the horses he should buy, but that didn’t mean he should invest all his trust in me.
Not everyone played by the rules—especially the middleman in buy-sell transactions.
I moved my hand to the right, and the horse performed a flying lead change as we moved in the opposite direction.
She was incredible. Only six—the prime age for a sponsor like Arthur playing high-goal polo—and she was highly responsive to each of my commands.
I barely had to move my rein hand to ask her what I wanted.
“Yes, Ani is a fantastic trainer.” She was a woman I met in Wellington a few years ago who worked with horses in high-goal polo.
Her demeanor was stern, but she was patient and forgiving with the horses she trained.
Some of the best players in the world hired her to train horses for them, but she never fully committed to one professional.
Her goal was to find the best horses with the worst problems.
“Alright then,” Arthur reached into his pocket while I asked the mare to turn, and she complied willingly.
She was smooth beneath me, never fighting the bit, and keeping her haunches beneath her when we stopped.
If this horse weren’t over my budget, I would have loved to buy her for myself.
As I approached the fence, Arthur wrote in his checkbook. “Did she pass the vet check?”
I raised a brow. I wasn’t sure who had helped him buy his horses in Wellington—or how involved he was in the process at all—but usually, the potential buyer asked for the vet check after they decided they liked the horse enough to purchase it.
“She hasn’t had one yet, but if you like the horse enough, I will give Ani a call and arrange for it.”
“Okay, thanks, Jack. And how do you think this horse would do with beginners?”
I patted the horse’s neck and dismounted. “Beginners? You mean someone who has never ridden or someone new to polo?”
Arthur glanced back at his barn, where a brunette who looked to be around my age walked outside toward us.
“That’s my daughter, Aurora. She’s busy with college and such, but I would love to get her on a horse with me one day.
Not my primary reason for buying the horse, but I don’t get to see her very often with her being at Princeton, so I feel like this could be our thing. ”
Smiling, I thought about bonding with my own child the way Arthur wanted to bond with his.
I hoped that we could trail ride around the club together and I could teach them how to swing a mallet and ride a horse.
If the baby were anything like their parents, they would be galloping down a polo field before they could ride a bike.
“This mare is extremely responsive and quiet, so if Aurora has a little bit of experience under her belt, it shouldn’t be a problem to ride her.”
Arthur nodded. “Good to know.”
As Aurora walked closer, her eyes perked up when she heard her name. “Hi, Dad.”
Arthur turned around. “Sweetheart, come on over. I was just discussing with Jack if this horse was safe for you to ride.”
Her brows raised as she looked between us and propped her arms on the fence. Then she reached a hand out, silently asking to pet the horse.
“Go ahead,” I motioned. “She’s sweet.”
Arthur smiled at his daughter as she tickled the mare’s nose with her fingers. “What
do you think, darling?”
“I don’t know if I feel comfortable riding, but if you want another polo pony to play here, I won’t stop you,” she said softly, never taking her eyes off the horse. She looked nervous about her father’s proposition.
His brows fell. “Oh, okay. No problem. I just wanted to know if you would be interested in learning.”
Aurora turned to Arthur apologetically. “Sorry, Dad. I’m just not sure I am ready to ride a horse, yet.”
He shook his head. “No, no. It’s okay. I would buy her just for you to look at if that is what you want.”
She smiled softly, guilt flashing in her eyes.
Arthur turned back to me. “Yes, let’s get her vet checked and, if all goes well, I want to buy her.”
I nodded, glancing between him and his daughter. “Gotcha. I’ll call Ani.”
When I brought the horse back into the barn, one of Arthur’s barn hands took her from me to untack and shower her. “Hey, Jack,” Arthur said before I could say my goodbyes. “You have a kid on the way, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t let them grow up too quickly.” His eyes were distant. “They leave you way before you are ready to let them go.”