Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

T wo days after the incident he liked to call major fuckupery, Del strode his way into Jack's. He still had a good mad going from his fight with Cassie. Fight? More like annihilation. The woman steamrolled over his damn heart, and she didn't even care.

No. That wasn't true.

She cared. He saw it in her eyes. He'd also seen the fear, the doubt.

Damn. It burned his ass to see such raw emotions on her beautiful face. If her parents weren't dead, he'd call them up and give them a piece of his mind for what they did to their daughter. They had loved her, he'd bet that, but they never showed her love, never made her first in their lives. They could have taken a few days off from saving the world to show their only child she was important to them.

And then they had died. Not their fault. Death took everyone eventually. He knew that, but he also knew that her parents' deaths had caused Cassie to wall off her heart. To operate under the misguided assumption that things, not people, were what was important in life. To protect herself from a loss like that again. She was afraid of what she felt for him, afraid to love him. And he knew she did…he hoped she did.

"Shit!"

He was an idiot. A delusional fool who'd created their entire relationship in his head. The intimacy changed things for him. He thought it had changed things for her too, but…

Didn't matter. He loved her, and whether or not she loved him was irrelevant. Until she got over her fears, they could never be together.

Damn, it was going to suck being married to her. How was he going to get through months, possibly years, pretending to be a happily married man when the woman he loved refused to love him back?

Fake it 'til you make it?

The rising lump in his gut warned they might never make it, and a nightmare formed in his head. Days and nights with Cassie, sharing meals, a home, a bed, but never being able to touch her like he wanted. Never being able to share with her again or tell her he loved her. She wouldn't welcome any of it, he knew. Not until she faced her fears and realized he would always put her first.

He would always love her.

Thumping his fist against his chest, he choked back the stupid tears forming in the corner of his eyes. This wasn't the time for senseless emotional outbursts. He had a meeting with his brothers, and they would jump up his ass if he went in blubbering like a baby.

The Jackson family wasn't known for displays of emotions. Their father had been a good man, but hard. Tears had never gotten any of them anywhere with the old man. Not even Charlie had ever shaken Lawrence Jackson with her weepy baby blues.

Pushing open the heavy back door, Del made his way through the gleaming silver tanks full of Jackson Family Distillery's finest. A quick glance around revealed no one was there, so he headed through the swinging door to the tasting room. Ace stood behind the bar, taking inventory, Del's job, but his annoying older brother liked to double-check everything. Anal asshole.

BJ sat at the bar with Penny, crouching over her shoulder to peer at her laptop on which she was furiously typing. "Can't you just add a button where people can click and buy our stuff?"

Penny hunched in on herself at his brother's frustrated question. "No, I can't just add a button . You're talking about adding an entire ordering system. There are services you can hire out for that functionality, but if you guys want to do it yourself there's security issues to deal with, banking and tax things to consider, not to mention you sell alcohol, so you would need to check the legality of your buyers, and I'm not even sure of the laws regarding that."

"People sell wine baskets over the internet."

Hearing his brother argue for an addition to their business when he basically had to strong-arm the Jackass twins into giving his restaurant idea a shot, broke the last straw in the suck that was currently his life.

"Yes, but that's different, BJ. I can't—"

Del couldn't hold his silence any longer. "Hey!"

All action stopped. Three pairs of eyes turned to him, two narrowed and one wide. Okay, maybe he'd spoken a bit louder than he'd intended.

"Sorry to interrupt, Penny." He didn't care if he'd pissed off his brothers, but Penny was so sweet and skittish, a geek to the core. No one liked upsetting the poor woman. Judging by the murderous glare the second-born twin currently sent his way, BJ was about ten seconds from kicking his ass. The guy was extremely protective of his best friend.

"I-it's okay," the meek woman stuttered. "I was heading out anyway."

His brother sent him one more glare before wrapping an arm around Penny's shoulders. "You don't have to leave on account of this jerk."

Shutting her laptop, she tucked it into her bag and slipped away from BJ. "It's okay. I have an appointment with another client anyway."

"Call me later."

"I always do." As she slipped by Del, she placed her hand on his arm. Gracing him with a small smile, she whispered, "Good luck. I believe in you."

Damn. He kind of loved Penny. She was socially awkward as all get out, but there wasn't an insincere bone in her body. Of course, she knew about the meeting because BJ told her. Those two shared everything. He'd once thought it weird, but after getting closer to Cassie, he understood. Having someone you could confide in, share your ups, downs, and everything in between with was amazing.

A lightning bolt went off in his brain as he realized Cassie was his best friend. Somehow she'd not only become the love of his life but his best friend, too. The person he wanted to spend all his time with, laugh with, cry with, share with.

And dammit, she shut him out.

No time to think on that now. He had two very pigheaded brothers to sway.

"You wanted to talk to us about the restaurant?" Ace said, getting right to the point.

"Yes." Throwing back his shoulders, he called up all the confidence he could muster. "I have the start-up money."

BJ and Ace shared one of those annoying twin communication looks before glancing back to him.

"Really?" BJ plopped down on the barstool Penny recently vacated. "And where did you get this money? Bank loan?"

"No." He tilted up his chin, ashamed, but knowing his brothers could smell a lie from a mile away, went with the truth. "I couldn't get any bank to finance a loan. Too risky."

His brothers nodded as if they agreed. Screw them, screw everyone. His idea would work. He knew it. And if it didn't….at least he tried to be something more than the slacker everyone thought he was.

Dammit , I want to be more.

"I sold Beatrice."

At that, both of the twins' jaws dropped.

BJ recovered first. "You sold Dad's car?"

"I sold my car. Mom gave it to me. I was the one who put in hours upon hours rebuilding it with him. I found a buyer in Denver. Sold it this morning."

"But…why?" BJ asked.

Ace still had yet to say anything. He just stared at Del with contemplative silence.

"I know no one else believes this restaurant can succeed," Del said, "but I do. I know it can thrive and bring us more money, more stability. I can help provide for us, for Mom, Charlie. I can be more than the face of Jackson Family Distillery. I even have the paper to prove it."

"What are you talking about?" Ace said, his stoic face showing the barest sign of curiosity.

Time to lay it all out.

Exhaling a fortifying breath, he willed his racing nerves to calm as he answered. "For the past few years, I've been taking online classes to finish my degree. This past spring I graduated from Metro with a BA in business management. My senior project was the proposal and running of a restaurant, so I know what I'm talking about."

There was a moment of shocked silence before his brothers both spoke at once.

"You went back to school?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

He shrugged. "It took me ten years to graduate because I dropped and bummed around. That's nothing to celebrate. I know when I quit school I disappointed everyone and…I don't know, I guess I didn't think finally finishing what I should have finished ages ago was something to celebrate. Guess I was embarrassed."

BJ rose from his seat. Taking a few long strides, his brother stopped at his side, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "We've never been disappointed in you, little brother."

Swallowing the lump of emotion in his throat, Del raised a brow. "Could've fooled me."

BJ glanced over at Ace and they did that freaky twin thing again. Ace made his way from behind the bar over to Del's other side, placing a hand identical to BJ's on his other shoulder. "I'm sorry if we were ever hard on you," Ace said. "But we hated seeing you waste your potential. We know— I know —you can be so much more than what you show the world, Delta. That's why I've tried to push you so hard. I'm sorry if I failed you."

"You're my brother, Ace. Not my dad."

The oldest Jackson got a haunted, faraway look in his eyes. Del knew his brother had taken the role of man of the house very seriously after their dad passed, but he didn't need that burden anymore. They were all grown up. Del was grown.

"I wish you would have told us about the graduation," Ace said, coming back to the moment. "I would have loved to see you walk across the stage."

"I chose not to walk. They just mailed my degree."

"What?" BJ slapped him on the back. "Why would you pass up wearing a kickass gown and the chance to bling out your cap? That's still what the kids call it, right? Bling?"

Ace removed his hand from Del's shoulder to shove BJ, who barely budged. "I still would've liked to have known." Ace glanced at Del again. "But no matter what, we're proud of you, Delta."

Words he'd never thought he'd hear from his big brothers. Words that meant a hell of a lot more than he'd ever realized.

"Thanks."

His vision blurred as, sonofabitch , tears swam in his vision. Thankfully, Ace took that exact moment to pull him into a fierce hug. Ace soundly thumped Del on the back, breathing deep.

"Aww. It's a picture-perfect moment."

Del pulled back to glare at BJ. Twin number two had a smart-ass grin on his face. One glance at Ace and the two of them sprang forward, taking BJ to the ground. A quick, energetic wrestling match occurred. Normally, the twins ganged up on him. Felt nice being on the winning team for once.

In less than two minutes, he and Ace had BJ pinned underneath them, arms twisted behind his back, legs pinned, calling uncle.

"Drink?" BJ asked, hopping up, not fazed a bit by having his ass handed to him.

"Drink," Ace concurred.

Del followed his brothers to the back office where they brought out—whoa—a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Glenlivet. The scotch was only taken out for special occasions, like Charlie's graduation or their mom's retirement party.

"What's the occasion?" he asked, accepting a tumbler of the delicious single malt.

Ace glanced to BJ, and the twins held up their glasses. "To our new restaurant. And its general manager, Delta Jackson."

Del froze, his drink poised in the air as he pondered if he'd heard his brother correctly. "Really?"

"Really," BJ said, clinking his glass to Del's.

"You proved yourself." Ace clinked as well. "In more ways than we ever asked."

Pride swelled in his chest. He couldn't believe it. His brothers were finally seeing him as an equal. He had to blink back tears of joy. All his hard work was paying off. His dreams were happening.

"To Jack's!" Del raised his glass.

"To Jack's!" The twins followed.

The smooth burn of the scotch was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. Well, second sweetest, after Cassie. Even as his spirits soared over the news of the restaurant and his brothers' faith in him, a heavy, dark cloud settled over his heart. The one person he wanted to share this with the most, he couldn't. Because even though he was still going to marry her, help her get what she wanted, the sad truth was, Cassie didn't want him.

He sat there, drinking some of the world's finest scotch, discussing plans for his inclusion in the Jackson family business, ignoring the giant hole in his heart getting bigger by the moment.