Page 148 of Extra Dirty
Beneath me, Jay stills, as if his heart has shattered for me once again. I press my lips to the yellow star and wait for him to take a breath before I continue.
“They treated me differently. I don’t know what my grandfather told them, but Cash looked at me like I might break, and Carter didn’t look at me at all. I didn’t want that to continue, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I thought you had gotten Mia pregnant. Hell, maybe they thought you did too. But the idea that they pitied me? Well, you know I’m not someone to pity,” I say fiercely, looking into the proud gaze of my husband.
Jay chuckles, and it’s like the sunlight comes back into the room. The beams warm every inch of my body from deep within. “No, Kitten, you are not someone to pity.” He kisses my forehead again. “And your father?”
Now I’m the one who turns to stone. The man is the devil himself. “I don’t ever want him to know about Chloe. He’d use it somehow. He’d use her.”
Jay nods. “I think he might be behind what’s going wrong at James Liquors.”
My stomach sinks. “Something’s wrong?”
Jay’s fingernails circle my back, a light featherlike touch that eases me instantly. “You remember how you mentioned Forester being a problem months ago?”
I nod. “But I haven’t heard anything more about him since.”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s no way your brother has this little knowledge when it comes to the business. Your grandfather groomed him for this position, but the company is in some serious shit.”
I sigh as I lean further into Jay’s chest and close my eyes. “What did he say to you before the engagement party?”
“Your father?”
I hum a yes.
“Nothing I didn’t already know. I can’t marry you. Chase is my brother. My mother wasn’t happy.”
The last words are tinged with a pain so acute, it slices through me.
I hate my father even more in this moment. He’s evil. Pure and simple.
“My father wouldn’t know love if it kicked him in the face. Don’t believe a word he says about your mother.”
“She left us, Cat. She disappeared after I caught her and your father. Her concern wasn’t me or what I needed. She just…left.”
“I thought she died,” I whisper, utterly lost in how to comfort him.
“Not at that point. Obviously,” he chuckles darkly. “She was pregnant and had a baby.Our brother.”
“Right.”
“Part of me always wondered if she saw the bright and shiny, perfect life—two perfectly behaved boys, a beautiful house on the water,you; the daughter she’d always wanted—and decided to start over.”
I rest my chin on his chest, tears blurring his face. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“Why?” His tone is so bewildered, so lost, so not the happy-go-lucky, cocky, know-it-all. And yet the humility makes me love him even more.
“She was coming back, baby. I believe it in my soul. But also—” My voice breaks, because what I’m about to say is unthinkable.
Jay’s attention is rivetted to me. He needs an explanation he can cling to.
“If she’d come back and brought you with her…”
Jay’s mouth drops open. “We’d be siblings.” He curses under his breath. “That’s fucked up.”
I shrug and give him a wobbly half smile. “I don’t know what happened to your mom, and I don’t know why my dad is so evil. But you and I are here—” I hold up my hand, and he mirrors the movement so our initials are pressed firmly together. “We were meant to be, Jay. Nothing else—no oneelse—matters.”
“You really mean that?” He’s watching me like I’m an apparition, a fantasy, like I’m spun from gold.
I crawl up his body so that our lips are only inches apart. “Yes, husband. You, me, and Chloe. If I only ever have you, I’ll have everything I need.”