Page 150 of Into the Dark
“He said someone came in—someone who has something on me.” He sees the panic in my face and pulls me into him again. “But baby, listen to me: it’s bullshit. They haven’t got anything.”
“But how can you know that for sure?”
“Because what he’s saying they have on me didn’t happen.” It’s so hard to tell what’s going on in his head because I can’t see his eyes. I extract myself from his hold again to stare at him. He looks…genuine. Not frightened.
“So someone went to the police to accuse you of something you didn’t do?” Christ, my head hurts. I can’t breathe. I feel sick. I go to pull away, but he pulls me back.
Jake shakes his head. “I think he’s bluffing, trying to force my hand. To give him more than I have already.”
“But what if it isn’t a bluff? It has to be Vicky, Jake. This is what she said she’d do. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I mean, who else would want to hurt you?”
Jake smiles a little—actually smiles. “Alex, you wouldn’t fucking believe the number of people who’d want to hurt me. It’s not Vicky. Trust me.” He’s convinced, but he didn’t see the look of conviction in Vicky’s eyes as she spat the threat at me.
“So you spoke to her today, I assume?”
His jaw hardens. “Yeah, I did. She isn’t going to bother you again, I promise.”
Bloody hell, as if I care about that now. “And so nothing you said might have…driven her to this?”
He sighs. “Alex, it’s not Vicky.”
He sounds so certain about it I see no point in pressing the matter. I’m not sure why I ask the next question because I’m not sure what it would mean for us. I also think I understand his reasons.
“Why don’t you give Mark what he wants?” I need more.
He doesn’t respond immediately. “I’ve already given him more than I ever thought I would. If that isn’t enough…if he can’t make it work…then I will. But I’m not making it fucking easy for them.”
What about making it easy for us? Is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say it. I trust Jake. I trust he knows what he’s doing. I trust he’s doing it in the safest way possible for him and me, and now for the baby. It doesn’t rid me of the fear I’m living with though. That he’ll be discovered, that Mark will decide he’s served his purpose and arrest him anyway. Christ, it’s petrifying whenever I analyze it too closely. I’m trying to train my mind not to, but it’s still hard.
My hands slip under the layers he’s wearing to stroke the warm skin at the base of his spine. “I hope you know what you’re doing because I can’t lose you, Jake… I don’t know if I’ll survive,” I whisper. I told him once I couldn’t lose him to prison, but I’ve been forced to confront that possibility often these past few weeks, and I think possibly, Jake in prison would be manageable. I could learn to deal with that. I could live in a world where I could see his face and hear his voice.
Jake dead, however, is not something my mind will let me consider. Even the merest, faintest hint of the thing causes my entire body to rattle with pure terror. Which means giving Mark what he wants is the preferred option here.
“I know what I’m doing, baby.” His voice is a warm promise against my hair. He kisses the crown of my head and rests his chin on top of it, his hand moving again in slow, deep circles over my lower back. The heat is immense and seeps into the base of my spine comfortingly. My bones still feel as frozen as ice though.
“This is all my fault,” I murmur against his chest. I know it’s a stupid thing to say, but in this moment it’s exactly how I feel.
“How the fuck is any of this your fault?”
“Because you’re doing all of this for me. Because of me. Because of what I said to you that day in here. Because I told you I couldn’t love you…”
He takes my face between his hands and stares down into my eyes, the green pools of his going from dark to light and back to dark again. “Alex, everything I do now is for you. That’s the truth. You and Cale. But this isn’t your fault.” He takes a deep breath and scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Baby, I’ve been living on borrowed time my entire fucking life. Remember I told you that day in here that I did the things I did to survive? To make a life for myself?”
I remember everything about that day in here.
“Well, the truth is I wasn’t really fucking living, and I sure as fuck didn’t have anything worth surviving for. Cale changed how I looked at things, gave me a reason—an excuse—to do the things I did. I had to survive for him, give him a good life—or if not good, then at least better than I had. But if I kept on like that, he’d have grown up to hate me. Or he’d have grown up to be like me. And I think I’d rather he hate me.” He looks away and swallows hard, pain flickering across his eyes. But then he looks at me again and smiles. A full, canine-flashing Jake smile.
I fall a little harder in love with him whenever he smiles at me like this, and this time is no different. He’s so indescribably beautiful. A strong, fierce, suffocating rush of emotion floods my body. I can’t lose him. I won’t lose him.
“Then you came along. The most perfect woman I’d ever fucking seen, talking to me like you did and looking at me like you did. And then you wanted me. Baby, that changed everything.”
I feel the blush creep up my neck, up my cheeks, to my ears. He reaches up to brush his thumb down my cheek, circling the freckle that sits below my eye.
“That very first time I looked at you, nothing else fucking mattered. Nothing I’d done before, who I was before—none of it. None of it mattered because I knew every moment from then on was going to be better. I was going to change no matter what happened in here that day. No matter what you said. I was gonna do whatever I needed to do to be someone you deserve. Because you’re my something good, my something perfect, and you make me better. I don’t ever want you to apologize for that, yeah?”
I can’t say anything for a long time; I can only stare at him. Marveling. Wondering how he does that. How he can reduce me to nothing with words or a look or a touch. I love him so much.
“Okay,” I manage. It’s painfully ridiculous. I think I might be crying again, but I’m not sure. “I won’t ever apologize for that again.”