I nod, fighting back a fresh wave of fear.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“What?” I’m not sure if my response is surprise at his statement, or bafflement that he’s brought the subject up now.
“I didn’t kill Reed. You’ve stuck by me, believing you knew what happened. It’s only fair I tell you the real truth.”
“Oh.” Relief overwhelms me, and yet there remains an undercurrent of some odd disappointment. Because the truth is that I liked the thought of Jackson being the one who erased the man who tormented me.
“So you don’t need to worry. The truth will win out, and I won’t go to prison. I’ll always be beside you.”
I nod, because I know that he is saying it to soothe me. But at the same time, it’s cold comfort. Because innocent or not, that is one promise that it’s no longer in Jackson’s power to keep.
fourteen
I wake up naked and alone in my bed, and I immediately sit up, afraid that Jackson changed his mind and decided to go back to the boat after all.
He’d taken me home because I had told him I needed my own bed, and in that moment, I’d been wrecked enough that he hadn’t argued. But the disagreement or fight or whatever-the-hell-it-was that we’d had about the paparazzi and the boat had still lingered between us.
I know that we will have to deal with that, especially since we will need the boat to get to the island today. Granted, we could take one of the Stark International boats. Or even, god forbid, a helicopter. But Jackson’s office is on his boat, and if he wants to make the most of the trip, then he needs to have his computers, software, and other various gadgets and gizmos with him. But surely he didn’t already leave me to go there. Did he?
My body is stiff as I toss the sheet aside and then sit up in bed. I hug my knees to my chest, my attention drawn to the tattooed star on my ankle. Idly, I trace its design, as if by doing so I’m claiming it all over again. I want to claim it, because this star represents strength. It marks an escape—my flight from the home I’d grown to hate to boarding school in my sophomore year of high school.
I draw a breath, then get slowly out of bed, this time brushing my fingers over the ribbon inked at the juncture of my thigh, a ribbon covered with initials of men I cared nothing for, but needed in order to prove to myself that I was in control. Not Reed, who’d so greedily stolen control from me. Not those men whose initials now mark my legs.
Just me.
Me taking. Me holding. Me keeping so tight a grip on my world that there was no way it could spin out of control.
Slowly, I ease my hand around to my back and the intricately inked “J” entwined with an “S.” Cass had inked that tattoo five years ago, after I’d so brutally broken up with Jackson in Atlanta, shredding both our hearts in the process. At the time, I’d thought I could never have him back, and yet I couldn’t bear the thought of surviving without him. And so I’d kept a piece of him on me, a quiet reminder that he would always have my back—would always give me strength—even if he didn’t know it.
I close my eyes and sigh as I continue to move my hands over my body, this time coming to rest on the newest tattoo—a flame on my breast. Cass inked this one less than a month ago, when I’d pulled Jackson back into my life despite my better judgment. Out of the frying pan, she’d said, because I was leaping headfirst into the fire.
Hadn’t I learned the hard way that my nightmares were too close to the surface with Jackson? That the passion that pulsed between us wiped away all my control, leaving me soft and vulnerable—and too damn close to the nightmares and memories of Reed?
But I was desperate to save my resort and so I’d taken a deep breath, clothed myself in battle armor, and walked through the door into my own personal hell.
Jackson, of course, stripped all my defenses away. More than that, he’d turned everything around. And the man who had once conjured my demons now slays them. He keeps me sane. He keeps me safe.
He makes me feel loved and cherished and beautiful.
With Jackson, I can surrender control without opening the door to fear. To self-loathing.
With Jackson, I can lose myself to submission. To passion. To love.
We’ve come so far, he and I, but now I fear that we are about to hit a wall. That we’ve taunted the gods, and the gods are pissed.
I’m scared to death that he’s going to be arrested for murder. That he’s going to be yanked from me forever, and I hate that it is not just him that I am scared for, but myself, too. Because while I used to rely on my tats to give me strength, now I rely on Jackson.
I do not want to be a woman without the strength to stand on her own. But at the same time, I know that I am stronger with him than without him.
And oh, dear god, what will I do if I lose him?
I shiver, suddenly cold, and put on the T-shirt he’d left hanging over the back of a chair the last time we stayed here. It’s for Dominion Gate, a heavy metal band that he likes, and the hem hangs down almost to my knees and the whole shirt seems to swallow me.
My phone is on a table beside the chair and when I glance down and see that it is past four in the morning, my self-analysis turns into worry.
The door to my bedroom is shut, but now that my eyes have adjusted, I see that there is the faintest glow of light creeping in from the gap below the door. I open it, then step into the tiny area between my bedroom and my living room, moving quietly so that I don’t wake him if he’s fallen asleep out here.
As soon as I pass the utility closet and can see into the living room, I see him. Not inside, but out on my patio. He is perched on the side of the chaise, bent forward so that he is using the fold-up chair that Cass usually sits in as a make-shift desk. He’s got his tablet propped up and he’s sketching furiously on a pad of paper in his lap. His dark hair is tousled, as if he has been running his fingers through it, and I can hear the gentle scrape of lead against paper.
I want to go to him. I want to step behind him, put my arms around him, and hold him close.
But that’s only my own selfish desire.
What Jackson wants—no, what Jackson needs—is to get lost in his work. I can practically feel the concentration and pleasure rolling off him, and I don’t want to be the one to take him from that. Not now. Not tonight.
I’m about to turn around and return below when a woman’s voice stops me. “I’m back. Sorry. This early, coffee is a necessity.”
“Thanks for this, Amy,” Jackson says. “I didn’t actually expect you to answer my email until later.”
For a moment, I’m confused, then I see that he’s on a video call. I shift to the left so I can see the tablet screen, and realize that he’s talking to Amy Brantley, his estate and family law attorney in Santa Fe.
“It’s almost six here, and I’ve started getting up before dawn to go to the gym. I figured I’d rather talk to you. Are you hanging in there? Ms. Frederick doing all right by you?”
“She’s doing as good a job as she can, but we both know there are no guarantees.”
“No,” Amy says. “There aren’t.”
“I spoke with Stella yesterday. Betty won’t say a word, but her health is deteriorating fast.”
“I know,” Amy says. “I was actually going to give you a call later today. Right now, if anything happens to Betty while she’s caring for Ronnie, custody shifts to you pending establishment of your paternal rights. But if you’re incarcerated, then the next in line is still Megan, at least on paper. Are you okay with that?”
He hesitates, and though I know that it pains him to admit it, he says very simply, “No.”
It’s the right choice, of course. Megan may be Ronnie’s biological aunt, but she’s checked herself into a clinic as she battles mental health issues, and though I know it breaks Jackson’s heart, she’s in no position to take care of his daughter.