Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
JAXON/JAX
Then
Candied Chaos & Vineyard Delight
The trouble with fire is you never know which way it will burn.
The elevator doors part, and Livianna storms out like she owns the place with her hair mussed, cheeks streaked with heat, and her anger snapping through the air before I even register that she’s here.
No warning. No call. Just Livianna dragging chaos through my penthouse.
My first thought isn’t about her being here. It’s about protocol. My doorman let her up without notifying me. Unacceptable.
Her voice splits the room in half. “If I can’t have anyone else, then neither can you.”
I lean back against the leather arm of the sofa, a glass of bourbon loose in my hand. “Bonsoir to you, too.”
She doesn’t blink and doesn’t soften. “I mean it, Jax. If this is what we’re doing, then it goes both ways.”
I stand slowly to make my point. “You storm into my home and start with ultimatums? Bold strategy.”
She paces like a panther trapped in a glass enclosure. Her heels click against the floor.
“Don’t mock me.” Her pulse flutters beneath her words. “I won’t play the fool while you keep…companions on the side.”
“Companions?” My brows arc at her assumption, and I’ll let her stew in it for a moment. “Is that what we’re calling them now?”
Her jaw tightens. Her silence is louder than any accusation, but the flicker of something painful is behind her fury. She’s carrying someone else’s voice in her head. Not hers.
Brendan’s. Always Brendan.
Of course. Every time she talks to him, she becomes defensive, volatile, or triggered by something. Something I didn’t summon.
I close the distance, patient enough to test her resolve. “Let me guess. Things didn’t go well when you saw your brother tonight.”
She flinches. “What does that matter?”
“It matters because every time you two interact, you get like this.”
“Like what?”
“Triggered. Destructive. Ready to go to battle.” My voice dips lower, the steel beneath velvet. “So tell me, firecracker, what did he say this time?”
“This isn’t about Bren.” Her gaze flits away for half a heartbeat. “It’s about us.”
Her defiance sparks, but her pulse betrays her. It’s hammering in her veins like it’s begging me to press my thumb to her throat and hold her steady until she’s calm.
I stop inches from her, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her skin. I study her, suspicion coiled tight in my chest.
She’s not just angry. She’s haunted. And whatever she saw or heard tonight pushed her here, demanding terms like we’re writing contracts in blood instead of skin.
I’m not seeing anyone other than her, but this isn’t behavior I’d normally accept. But then again, this is the wild woman I never saw myself falling for, yet here I am.
“You want exclusivity, Livianna? Fine. But don’t mistake your ghosts for my sins. I’ve done nothing to deceive you, so you don’t get to dictate my life without admitting what’s destroying yours.”
Her eyes burn with equal parts hostility and ache. For a suspended second, I can’t tell if she’s about to confess what’s eating her up inside or kiss me hard enough to bruise.
Her lips tremble as if the truth is scratching to get out, but she swallows it back, defenses rising in its place. “I don’t need to admit anything. What I need is for you to stop acting like your rules don’t apply to you.”
I tilt my head, studying the cracks running beneath her defiance. “That’s not what you want, firecracker. What you want is for me to tell you I won’t leave you. That you’re the only one I see. Say the word, and you’ll have it.”
“You think this is a game?”
“No. I think this is a war you’re fighting against yourself, and I’m just standing in the crossfire.” I cup her chin in my palm. My thumb grazes the heat blooming over her lips. “If you want me to burn everything else down, admit you’re willing to do the same.”
“I already agreed not to be with anyone else, but I need the same from you.” Her voice wavers on the edge of command and plea, and it hits me harder than her anger ever could.
“Done. You can have exclusivity.” I let the words fall between us like a binding and irrevocable seal. But I don’t step back. “On one condition.”
Her eyes narrow. “What’s that?”
“I need all of you.”
“You have me.”
“I’m talking about birth control. No more condoms. If we lock this down, I’ll have all of you.”
For the first time tonight, she stumbles. Color drains from her face, and the unguarded truth slips out.
“Jax, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I almost died. I’m prone to blood clots. The pill nearly killed me. My doctor said she’d never put me on hormones again.”
The room stills, the admission anchoring her to the spot. I see it, the memory of hospital lights and the threat of death etched into her skin too young.
My heart aches for her, but my voice stays steady. “Then we’ll find another way. But don’t think for a second I’ll let fear keep barriers between us.”
Her shocked and awed expression lingers on mine before she breaks away, pacing as though movement might keep her from unraveling.
I step closer, snatching up her wrist before she can spin out of control again. I wrap her in a tight embrace, and her resistance crumbles.
Her body melts against mine. Her sweet and tantalizing perfume drifts into my nose.
“Enough of this city.” I kiss her temple and find her gaze. “Tomorrow, you pack a bag.”
“For what?”
“I have a vineyard in the Loire Valley. It’s secluded and beautiful this time of year. I want you to see it and forget all the heavy burdens you seem to carry.”
Her eyes widen, a flicker of excitement blending in with her hesitation. She seems like she wants to defy me, but she doesn’t speak.
Her fingers curl into my shirt, and tell me everything I need to know. As I draw her closer, the promise of secluded days and tangled sheets at night hangs heavy in the air between us. Soon, I’ll have her on her back, and I’ll be savoring her like the finest wine.
The Loire Valley in October carries its own kind of intoxication. The air is cool enough to bite, but softened by the burnished gold of the vines. We’re out on the terrace of the small upscale restaurant that’s on the property.
“Jax, it’s stunning here.” She steps out onto a section where the music is playing louder, tugging me along.
“I thought you’d like it.”
My vineyard isn’t just an escape. It’s a place that reminds me that power doesn’t always have to come dressed in iron and steel. Here, control feels like earth under my feet, not empires in my hands. I can relax some when I’m here.
She has her arms around my neck, and her hips start shifting from side to side. “Come on, Jax. Let your hair down and dance with me.”
Her laugh laces through the breeze, and I let mine slip free in return, startling even me. She releases me and sways before me.
Her eyelids close, and her hands rise above her head. The October sun catches in her hair like it’s conspiring with her to undo me.
“Jax, close your eyes, move your body, and feel the moment with me.”
I should. But I don’t. Because I don’t want to take my eyes off her. She’s in her element, in her body, in her soul, and it’s devastatingly gorgeous.
I’ve known it for a while now, but it’s in this moment that the truth slices through me clean. I’m in love with the woman before me.
And it guts me, because saying it aloud would destroy everything we’ve built and everything we’re risking just to stand here.
She spins barefoot on the concrete, her flowy skirt swooshing around her thighs. She giggles with a recklessness that makes the years I spent constructing walls of rigidity feel like wasted time.
I step back and reach for the glass of Cabernet I poured from my own cellar. The wine blooms dark and full in my mouth. It’s a reminder that some things are meant to be savored slowly, without armor.
I return to her orbit, catch her by her waist, and pull her close until she softens against my chest. The music fades into something less important than the heat of her body swaying with mine.
She tilts her head up, blue eyes flashing victory, lips curving like she knows she’s won something that no one else ever has. And she has.
Because here, with October light spilling over her shoulders and her warmth pressed against me, I’m not the unbreakable man they whisper about in corridors of power. I’m just me. And that terrifies me more than I’m willing to admit.
“See?” Her voice daring me. “You don’t have to control everything.”
I laugh again. That’s the second time in less than ten minutes, and it unnerves me.
“Careful, firecracker. You’ll ruin my reputation.”
Her grin is wild, free, almost childlike, and for a moment I let myself believe she could carry that joy without it being extinguished by the weight she hides so carefully.
We dance until the song slows. Her cheek rests on my chest, and her scent wraps around me tighter than her arms ever could.
When we finally sit, the server brings a bottle of the reserve vintage I never pour for anyone but myself. Tonight, she gets the first glass before I even touch mine.
She takes a sip and swallows. Her lips part as though the wine is something sinful. “God, Jax. This is heaven.”
The sight of her tasting what I created…what I cultivated with my own hands long before Crowne Ventures became a billion-dollar machine does something to me I can’t articulate.
It roots me. Grounds me. And yet it threatens to unmoor everything else.
She stretches her legs beneath the table, her toes brushing against my calf.
I can’t stop the low chuckle that escapes me. “You’re dangerous when you’re happy.”
Her lashes lift in sin. “And you like it.”
I don’t deny it. I couldn’t. Not with the way she’s looking at me, peeling away every mask I’ve worn to survive.
For the rest of the afternoon, we linger. Eat too much bread, drink too much wine, and laugh at things I don’t remember laughing at in years.