Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

MARY

Jace made it very clear that he doesn’t want to learn what I’ve discovered.

But what a person wants and what they need can be two very different things. So even though tears are still tracking down my cheeks and I barely managed to get out of that ridiculous poodle skirt and change into my comfy UVA sweats, I grab a glass of wine—because I do have some sympathy for my broken heart—and sit down at my laptop. Dennis has already sent me his report, and I prepare to forward it to Jace.

My hands shake a little as they linger over the keyboard. What in the world should I write? In the past, I would have apologized, but Nicole is right. Apologies shouldn’t be doled out like breath mints at a restaurant. And the thing is, even though I hate being at odds with the man I care about, I’m not sorry I did it. Not even a little. If I’d told him what I wanted to do, he wouldn’t have let me, or he’d have insisted on spending money he can’t afford, and there’s no reason for him to go another day without being an uncle to Ben.

I’m still wary of Glenn’s motivations for suddenly wanting to see Aidan, especially since he didn’t once mention him in his voice message, but Jace?

I’ve heard the hurt in his voice when he talks about Ben, the raw edge of a pain that hasn’t dulled. And even if he’s decided I’m (a) a mess, (b) a control freak, and (c) utterly not worth the trouble, he deserves to have a relationship with his nephew. I want that for both of them.

I just wish it wouldn’t take him from Aidan and me too.

More tears escape my eyes, and I swipe them away, staring at the blank email. Feeling a weird sucking emptiness at the core of my being. When Glenn told me he was leaving, I didn’t feel like this . It’s like my belly is full of broken glass but I’m ravenous, and the only food is more broken things.

Before I can write a word, a knock sounds at the front door, and I startle enough to spill the wine on both the couch and my shirt.

“Shoot. Shit. Shit.”

The knock sounds again, so I settle for swiping at the mess with my hand, which only makes the stain larger. I’m not going to be satisfied until I wash the cushion cover and my sweatshirt—on hot—but someone’s at the door, dang it. Who’s here on a Saturday night, anyway?

My mind conjures images of Nicole, saying she’s decided to honeymoon in my attic. (It’s just a crawl space, actually, but there’s really no knowing with her.) Or Dottie, come to offer tea and cakes because she psychically felt the shattering of my heart.

But when I open the door, it’s him . Snowflakes glitter in Jace’s hair, and his eyes are shining with some emotion I can’t begin to read. His cheeks are slightly pink from the cold, and good God, no wonder, he’s in a T-shirt and shorts. Relief courses through me, even though it’s bitterly cold tonight, until I see the box in his hands.

Oh.

He came back to bring me Nicole’s present. Self-consciousness rides on the wave of that revelation. Because I’m wearing an old sweatshirt—currently covered with wine; red, because screw Glenn—and I’ve always been an ugly crier. My face is probably blotchy with it. I’ll bet he’s looking at me and wondering what he ever saw in me, and…

And he’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts in winter weather, Mary. Take the present or invite the man in.

I run a hand ineffectually over my wet sweatshirt, then reach for the present, intending to take it. Somehow, my hand falls on his arm instead, his very cold, very muscular arm, and I find myself pulling him inside. He comes without an argument, that inscrutable look still in his eyes, but at least he doesn’t seem angry.

Once he’s inside, I close the door behind him. I’m tempted to lock it, but if he wants to leave, a measly lock won’t hold him. Besides, I’ve learned the joy of being around people who want to be there. Jace helped me realize that.

“You have a bad habit of underdressing for the weather,” I say, because the words just spill from my mouth.

His expression stays solemn. Intense. He lowers the gift to the foyer table, and the action must have triggered the gift inside because the box suddenly starts vibrating.

“I wondered if you were joking about that,” he says, and now the corners of his mouth do kick up a little.

I shrug, riding another wave of self-consciousness, because I still look frightful, and now there’s a vibrating box sitting next to my door, and we both know what’s in it. “I wanted to get her something she’d actually like.”

He eyes the box and then picks it up. For a moment, I think he’s going to unwrap it and suggest that I get Nicole something else, something wedding-ish, so we can test it out instead. But that’s obviously just wishful thinking. He raps it against the table again, and the vibration stops.

It’s his turn to shrug. “You must have spent a lot of time wrapping it. I didn’t want you to have to redo it.”

My heart swells. Jace has a way of noticing me that’s both wonderful and unnerving. I want to ask him if he’s changed his mind. If, maybe, he wants to hear about Dennis’s report after all. But I also don’t want to break this fragile truce, if that’s what it is.

“Would you like something to drink?” I ask casually, as if men frequently stop in with vibrating presents intended for other people.

“No.” He paces inside a bit, as if restless, and his gaze lands on the tree before skipping back to me. “You don’t have to do anything else for me, Mary.” There’s frustration in his voice, and his eyes look like the ocean in a storm. “You know, at first I thought you hired that guy because you didn’t trust me, but Mrs. Rosa and Roger talked some sense into me.”

I’d be more relieved if he didn’t seem so ill at ease, like a tiger in a cage.

He scrubs a hand through his hair, now wet from where the snowflakes melted. “You told me about your club. Nicole keeps trying to get you to stop putting your own needs last. But here you are, trying to right my wrongs. Mary, I don’t want to be another item on your to-do list. I don’t want to be one more person you feel responsible for.”

For a moment, I can only gawk at him, because he’s at once so right and so wrong. I always have felt responsible for the people around me. Those words my mom drove into my brain— big sister, big sister, big sister— stayed with me, and not just in regard to my actual sisters. My tendency is to fill that role or wound myself trying. But that’s changing—well, not in regard to Aidan, obviously, since I am responsible for him, but with the other adults in my life. It has finally allowed me to see them for who they are and for them to see me.

Finally, I find my voice. “I didn’t do it because I felt like I had to, or because I felt sorry for you. It was something I wanted to do. This was me putting myself first.”

I take a step toward him, needing to touch him, but he steps back. My heart lurches, but then he asks, “Don’t you see?” There’s torment in his tone, as if his words are tearing him apart. “I can’t give anything back. I’m a dead end, Mary. A nonstarter.” He waves at what I’m wearing. “You went to law school at UVA. You’re a successful, beautiful woman, and I’m a convict with a shit job and no money. I’m no one.”

His words feel like they’re tearing me apart too because I can’t stand for him to see himself that way. For him to suffer from the same awful feelings that have lurked within me for years, whispering in my ear that I’m not good enough. I’m only pretending to be all right, and someday it will all catch up to me. Jace is gorgeous and strong and brave and confident. But that same nasty voice lives within him, and I expect it sounds like his sister. Or maybe that bastard Lester.

“How can you say that?” I ask, sounding angry. No, furious. Tears are running down my cheeks again, and they’re so hot they sear me.

I cross to him and take him by the arms. I’d shake him if I could hope to do such a thing, but he’s as solid as ever, so I only grip him as if he’s a lifeboat and I’m marooned in that storm in his eyes.

“I’ve never met a better man. You listen to people when they talk without trying to tell them what they’re saying, and you go out of your way to do things for the people you care about. You got Aidan that model, you make Roger dinner every night, and Mrs. Rosa told me about the mobile kitchen island you built for her. Free of charge, even though you say you’re broke. And you’ve helped me more than you can possibly know. You’ve helped me feel again, Jace, in ways I didn’t think were possible. You’ve opened me to new experiences.” My voice breaks. “So don’t you dare fucking say you can’t give anything back. You already are, just by being you.”

I try to shake him, because I need him to understand what I’m saying. I need him to see himself as clearly as he sees me. I need him to look into the mirror I’m lifting, just like he showed me my reflection earlier.

He reaches up—his hand shaking slightly—and wipes the tears from beneath my eyes, his touch so gentle I almost cry harder.

“You don’t want to get tangled up in my shit life,” he says, his voice husky. “I want more for you.”

“Well, I want you.” My voice is firmer than I’ve ever heard it, and suddenly, the tears dry up, because I know it’s true. I repeat it. “I want you .”

Still, he hesitates. “I can’t be casual with you, Mary.”

“Good,” I say firmly. “Because I don’t want casual. I want everything .” It’s what I said to him our first night together, but the meaning is different now, and we both know it.

“What about Aidan?” he asks, still unsure.

“Maybe I’m selfish,” I say, “but I’m not willing to give you up. I want you for both of us. We’ll figure out later what to tell him and when.”

Before I can lose my nerve or allow any what-ifs to creep in, I take his hand and lead him toward my bedroom. His breath catches, but he follows me. Is his heart hammering in his chest too?

When we get inside, I shut the door behind us, savoring the click it makes. Savoring the sight of him standing there, staring down at me with eyes full of wonder and warmth and admiration.

I thought we were done.

I thought I wasn’t ever going to see him again.

My heart feels like it’s going to swallow me whole.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and it’s obvious it killed him to ask.

My response is to pull him to me by the hem of his T-shirt. He leans down as I lift up, kissing me with a passion that consumes, our mouths fitting together as if we can only get oxygen from each other, not the air. But it’s not enough. I break away and lift the hem of his T-shirt over his head, revealing his ripped torso and his tattoos. He sucks in a breath as I trace the meandering line of the anchor tattoo with one finger. Then, because I want to, I lean in and trace it with my tongue, pausing here and there to plant a kiss. A slight moan escapes him, and he spears a hand through my short hair.

I’m close enough to feel his arousal against my body, but he doesn’t try to take over. The anchor tattoo ends just above his shorts and boxer briefs, and I pull them down, gasping at the sight of him. He’s hard for me even when I’m like this—undone, no makeup, no polish.

Nicole wasn’t wrong. Although I obviously haven’t had much basis of comparison, Jace’s dick is absolutely impressive enough to be a model for dildos. And it’s mine.

I run my fingers down his length, memorizing him. I feel a shudder of pleasure run through him, but he doesn’t try to take over or urge me to do anything. He just strokes my hair with his hand, his gentle touch sending shivers of sensation through me as I trace his dick with my tongue and then take him in my mouth. I experience a moment of panic—Glenn once told me that I wasn’t any good at this—but I don’t let that stop me. Everything in me wants to know Jace this way. And then he moans, and a feeling of power builds within me, edging my own pleasure higher. Swirling my tongue, I work him, up and down, his fingers still woven in my hair, tightening slightly but not pushing me to take him deeper or change my pace.

Then, suddenly, he’s pulling me up. The panic surfaces again for only an instant, there and then gone, because no, he’s not stopping me because he wasn’t enjoying it.

“Fuck, Mary,” he says, his expression strained. “I can’t take anymore. I need to come inside you.”

The words send a dirty thrill through me, like I made my claim on him and now he wants to make his claim on me, and I start to tug off my sweatshirt before his big hands still me. “Let me do that.”

He slips it over my head and lets it fall to the floor, sucking in a breath when he sees I’m still not wearing a bra underneath, and one hand is already reaching for my breast, palming it and playing with my nipple, while the other slides down my sweatpants and underwear. (I changed into an old, comfortable pair before he came over, but I can’t find it in myself to care about that or the stain currently setting into my couch cushion.)

I step out of the pants, our mouths already locked together again, our lips and tongues fighting to be closer, to connect deeper, and his clever hand finds the sensitive spot between my legs, and he touches me there and strokes in one finger, two, and I’m already so close, and…

He pulls away, breathless, and it takes him a second to get out the words. “Please tell me you have a condom. Mrs. Rosa tried to put, like, twenty of them in my suit pockets, but I didn’t let her.”

At another time, I’d be tempted to laugh and ask about a dozen questions, but right now, a more demanding need is coursing through me.

“I don’t,” I say, feeling another flutter of panic, but new sensations and emotions push it out. Warmth. Adoration. Trust. “But I was tested after Glenn and I separated, and I have an IUD. Have you been tested since your last partner?” Even though it’s beyond stupid, I feel a little prick of jealousy toward whoever she was.

“I have. I’m clean.” His eyes are boring into me in a way that instantly soothes me. “Are you sure?”

I know what he’s asking. He’s asking if I trust him, and I do. All the way.

“I am. How do you want to…”

He takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, and leads me through our strewn clothes to the bed. I don’t have a single errant thought about the mess. My focus is solely on him. On us .

I thought maybe he’d ask me to turn around like last time, or that he’d throw me onto the bed and lower down over me, but when we reach the edge of the mattress, he picks me up, my legs wrapping around his waist as if they’re desperate to keep him here too, and kisses me again—one of those oxygen-stealing kisses that makes me lose myself and not care—and then lowers backward onto the mattress, leaving me straddling him, his hardness pressed against me, rubbing against me. And oh God, he wants me to…

“I want you to ride me, Mary,” he says, looking up at me with those blazing blue eyes. But he doesn’t reach down to align himself, and I realize he’s leaving it all to me tonight. He’s giving me the power. He reaches up to touch my breasts, reverent, and kisses the tip of one of them, flicking his tongue over the nipple. For once I don’t let myself worry about whether I’m doing it right or whether we’ll both find pleasure. I just reach down and adjust him, engulfed by a hot blaze of anticipation and then raw pleasure as I slowly sink down, taking in a little of him at a time until he’s fully seated. Until we’re fitted together with absolutely nothing between us. For a moment I stay like that, enjoying the sensation of him inside me and the wonder of being infatuated with this man. Then he pulls me down for a kiss, and I start moving against him again as our mouths meld together.

The pleasure of it. Oh, the pleasure of it. We continue like that for a while, and then I rise up again, needing a different angle, and he stares at me with a glint in his eye—pride and pleasure and something more—and caresses my breasts and belly and then the apex of my legs as I keep riding him, the strokes reaching something deep inside of me that sends pleasure unfurling through me. It’s that look in his eyes that sends me tumbling over a peak, free-flying but not fearing what I might collide with down below. No, I’m just enjoying the moment. Because he’s right there with me, and we’re doing this together.

Maybe it’s silly, but I tell Jace we should get dressed before we talk about Dennis. He doesn’t object, just smiles at me in this indulgent way that sends little butterflies of pleasure through me and pulls on his shorts. Since the sweatshirt clearly didn’t put him off, I put on a different one. (There’s a wine stain on the other, after all, and there’s only so much mess a girl can take without feeling sloppy.)

“Let’s sit by the tree,” I say, which is maybe a ridiculous suggestion, but he doesn’t say so. He just sweeps me up off my feet as if I’m a princess in a fairy tale and carries me to the couch. Then he lowers me, and he doesn’t even laugh when I insist on stripping the cushion cover and hastening it to the wash—no, he goes and gets the stained sweatshirt.

Once the washing machine is running, hopefully removing the stains, we get settled on one of the unstained cushions. I pull a blanket from the pile next to the sofa over us, and he says, “Tell me, Mary. I’m sorry I wasn’t ready to listen earlier.”

Nestled together as we are, in front of the tree that we decorated together, it’s tempting to let the whole thing rest for a while longer, if only so we can stretch this moment out. But Jace needs this information, and I need to give it to him.

I clear my throat. “Dennis is the private investigator who works for our firm. He’s a good guy, and I trust him, which is why I trusted him with this.”

He nods, and there’s no doubt or anger in his face, so I continue.

“He found several suspicious wire transfers to subcontractors your father worked with at Hagan Construction. Although they weren’t made by Lester himself, they can be directly traced to him. Dennis reached out to a few of the guys, and one of them talked. Apparently, the whole thing never sat right with him. He confirmed that he’d been paid not to do business with Hagan Construction. Another guy Dennis tracked down, an ex-employee of Lester’s, backed up his story.” I take a deep breath and squeeze Jace’s hand, because I know this next part is really going to hurt. “Jace, your sister fed Lester information that he used against your dad. I don’t know if she understood what she was doing, or rather what he was doing, but she was his source. And she continued giving him information about the company after your father died.”

“Fuck,” he says, flinching as if I’ve hit him with a sledgehammer. And I suppose I have.

I let the information settle for a moment, then say, “Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to believe the truth about Lester? Because if she lets herself believe he was really out to get your dad, then she has to admit she played a role in that.”

He runs his free hand through his hair, the ends flickering with gold in the light of the tree.

“What if she did it knowingly?” he asks softly, the vulnerability in his voice cracking something open within me.

“Then she might not let you see Ben willingly,” I say. “Maybe it’s no longer time to play nice.”

From the look on his face, I know he doesn’t want it to come to that. This woman’s treated him horribly, but she’s his only remaining family other than Ben. Still, his jaw sets, and he gives a slight nod. “Whatever it takes.”

I squeeze his hand. “There’s more.”

His lips tilt up slightly as he squeezes me back. “Give it to me, Mary. Tear it off like a Band-Aid.”

Holding his hand like a lifeline, I say, “He had a closed-door meeting with the county prosecutor after you were arrested. There’s no evidence that money changed hands, so I don’t think we can get your conviction overturned, but it doesn’t look good for either of them. Especially since they used to play golf together.” I stroke the back of his hand with my thumb. “He also has a confirmed social connection with your defense attorney, so the man should have recused himself and didn’t. We can’t sit on this. We need to hand the information over to the authorities. Lester made damn sure you paid for your crime, many times over, so it’s only right that he pays for his, even if it’s just a dent in his reputation. And if Dennis found all of this out in a matter of days, then you can bet you and your father aren’t the only ones who were burned by him.”

He’s quiet for a moment, staring at the tree. “This will stir up a lot of old shit, and there’s no guarantee any good will come of it.”

“No,” I admit.

Turning to me, he reaches up to cradle my cheek. “Let’s make that bastard pay.”

“Good.” I lean forward and kiss him, because I’m proud of him and also because I want to. I could go on kissing this man forever, and it still wouldn’t seem like enough. But I’m not done with truth bombs, so I lean back and say, “There’s something else you should know. Glenn wants to see Aidan.”