Now #3
“There,” his low, tight voice says next to me.
When I look, he’s extending a thick envelope, which must have come from his inside coat pocket since it’s folded in half.
“Did you sign them?”
“Yes. But this isn’t the divorce agreement you gave me.”
“What?”
“I had my lawyers draft a new one.”
Panicked, I slip the papers out of the envelope and start shuffling through them. “Everything is the same,” he reassures me. “The only difference is you get ten million from me.”
My jaw hangs loose as I stare up at him. “What?”
“One for every year we were married.”
“Jax, I told you, I don’t want your money.”
“It’s my condition.”
I scowl at him. “Your condition was meeting Nathan.”
“I did, and he’s boring as fuck. So this is the new one.”
“You can’t keep changing the conditions.”
“It’s the last one. I signed those, so all you have to do is sign them and have your lawyer file everything.”
The papers weigh a ton in my hands. I don’t want to accept his terms. It feels like blood money, and I don’t like it. Though I could find a way to not have it anymore. So much good can be done with ten million dollars.
“Oh, there are two catches,” Jackson remembers. Of course …
“What?”
“You can’t give it to charity. I know how your mind works, so I know you’re already thinking of ways to get rid of it.”
“Second catch?”
“You need to sign a prenup before you marry anyone else.”
I sigh, tired of his schemes. “Even divorced, you’ll interfere with my relationship with Nathan.”
“It’s your money. Not his.”
“No, it’s your money.”
“Ours. You made an investment, remember? This is your return on it.”
“From two thousand to ten million in under fifteen years … That’s one hell of a passive investment.”
The corner of his lips rises, offering me a crooked smile.
“You were far from passive.” He must sense my reluctance because he adds, “You could take this to court, but I don’t think a single judge in this country would agree to your terms. In fact, they might demand that I give you far more than ten million. ”
I look at the documents, still determined to read them thoroughly once I get home. “I don’t have a choice, do I?” I ask, feeling defeated.
“Just take the money, Evie. If you’re going to have a boring life, at least make it a comfortable one. With an infinity pool.”
“I’ll talk about it with Nathan.”
“This has nothing to do with him. It’s about us. About a deal we made. He doesn’t need to get involved in any of it.”
I’m not sure what I can answer, and Nathan arrives with his car before I find something to say. So, after one last look at the man who will soon become my ex-husband, I quickly make my way down the few steps and rush into the car.
I don’t want to talk and debrief during the hour-long drive back to Nathan’s place, so I lean into the window and close my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
It’s only once we are in bed later that night that Nathan brings up the big question. “So, did he sign them?”
“Kind of.”
“Good. It was all worth it then, right?”
I’m facing away from him as we’re spooning in the dark, which is good because I don’t have to control my expression. “Yeah, it was worth it,” I agree.
But was it?
Those few minutes of madness in the bathroom have completely messed with my head. With his treacherous lips and deft fingers, Jax planted a seed of doubt in my mind.
Being pressed against him like that felt amazing.
So much better than I remembered it. And infinitely better than anything I’ve experienced since leaving him.
Nathan isn’t the first man I’ve been intimate with after I walked out of my marriage.
But neither he nor any of those other men ever conjured even a tenth of the pleasure Jackson can so easily trigger.
He taught me sex. Together, we discovered what I like, what makes me come the hardest, what has my knees shaking and my eyes tearing up … We spent hours, and hours, and hours exploring everything that could be explored. He knows me better than I know myself because he essentially made me who I am.
Thinking about it is enough to awaken those lustful needs again. The tingling between my legs that took almost an hour to die down is quick to resurface. But this time, when I arch my back into the hips behind me, those very sparks that drove me mad remain elusive.
“What are you doing?” Nathan asks when I grind into him.
I don’t answer. Instead, I take his hand draped around me and lower it over my shorts, between my legs. Nate is quick to understand what I have in mind, and he presses on me the same way Jax did.
He isn’t as alarmingly precise as Jax was, but it still feels good. Good enough for me to release a shaky breath.
Without being prompted, my fiancé’s lips come to my neck, kissing a line all the way to my lips. I twist my face to accept his kiss and spread my legs a little more to allow him better access. Nate makes good use of it, drawing circles right where I need them.
This is good. This is enough. It’s predictable and comfortable. I don’t need more than that.
I’ve had more in the past, and it didn’t work out well.