“I’m not blaming you at all…I just want to understand. Why didn’t you say anything when you were a minor? When it was happening?”
“Fear.” Her answer was spoken with so much truth, as if it were the only plausible answer and made all the sense in the world. “He had me convinced that if I told anyone, I would be the villain. People would look at me and believe I had seduced the happily married man. That was his MO, Cash. That’s how he kept me under his thumb. Guilt, fear…of what people would think of me, of what would happen to me if anyone knew.”
“How did you finally get rid of him?”
“I got pregnant.” She rolled her eyes, her strength showing more and more. “He wanted me to get an abortion, and to be honest, I’d contemplated it. But as soon as I heard her heartbeat for the first time, I made the decision to keep her. I refused to let him take anything else from me. If I couldn’t be strong for myself, I’d be strong for my child.”
“And he let you go? Just like that? He wasn’t worried you’d say anything?”
Her shrug told me she didn’t know, but also, that she didn’t care. “He’d make snide comments from time to time about how fat I was, or how loose my vagina would be after pushing out a baby. How no man would ever want me, that everyone would see me as a used-up piece of trash. I guess he thought I’d change my mind or something—that his hateful words would affect me enough to give up my baby. But they didn’t. I just ignored him.”
“But I thought…I thought you had left him. Were you still with him at this point?”
“Oh, no. I had nothing to do with him by then. I’d still see him around, but that wasn’t by choice. I think he found entertainment in messing with me or trying to hurt me. I don’t know what his reasons were for anything that he did.”
“When was the last time you saw or spoke to him?”
“Whatever day that was that I called you and told you I was moving in a week earlier than we planned.”
“That’s it? You haven’t heard from him since?”
“Not a word. He has my number since I’ve had the same one for years, but he hasn’t called.”
I guess there’s a silver lining in everything.
Taking in the dark circles beneath her eyes, I reached up to run my finger along her cheek. “You’re tired, and it’s late.”
She covered her mouth to stifle a yawn. “Yeah…I bet you’re beat, too.”
Her ability to bounce back amazed me. “You good?”
“Yeah. Just as long as you don’t try to kiss me again.”
Just the thought of it brought my attention to her lips. A shadow of a smirk played at the corner of her mouth. “Deal.”
“Night, Cash.”
My thumb lingered on her cheek for a second longer before I dropped my hand and pushed off her bed. I made it to the doorway before glancing back, needing to see her one last time before I walked away. “Goodnight, Jade.”
I went to my room, but sleep didn’t come easily.
I tossed and turned, thinking about everything she’d said tonight. She had brought up what I’d told her weeks ago about how I hadn’t found her sexually attractive. She could deny it until she was blue in the face, but that had hurt her. I could see that it had. When I had originally told her that, the words had been true. Jade was beautiful, and although I’d recognized how appealing she was that first day we’d met for lunch, the desire to touch her hadn’t been there. And I’d allowed myself to believe my own lies when I assumed that desire would never exist.
Truth be told, this realization was a long time coming. Watching her with her daughter, seeing the kind of mother she was, had shone a new light on her. After the misunderstanding that almost led to her packing up and leaving, I was afforded the chance to see her in a more relaxed element. Once we’d found that niche of comfort with each other, it was like she’d let her guard down, and I was able to see the real Jade.
That added a new dimension to her, one I couldn’t ignore.
The way she laughed with her head tilted back, just like Aria did so often, ignited something within me that I pretended wasn’t there. How she’d come into the house and taken over with the kitchen and dinners, the laundry—including mine—even though I’d never asked or expected her to, never went unnoticed. She’d filled a void I wasn’t aware had existed, one that had apparently been there both before and after Colleen.
I’d ignored it for weeks, but while she sat curled into my side after I’d gotten home tonight, all those pieces of her started to come together and form a different picture than the one I’d had from that day in the restaurant. And when she pulled her head back and looked up at me, I couldn’t deny my attraction any longer. I might’ve told her that she didn’t make me kiss her, and although that was technically true, the moment she touched my face, it was like I’d opened my eyes for the first time.
I’d realized then that the reason I hadn’t found her sexually enticing in the booth that day was because she was sitting in the dark. I couldn’t see all of her. But over the past six weeks, each time I’d learn something new, or notice another desirable quality about her, it was as if she’d slowly come out of the shadows, shining brighter and more vibrantly. And tonight, I’d finally taken a real look at her, finding her completely illuminated, and there was no denying my need for her. It surpassed the hunger to touch her physically.
I had an ache within me only she could soothe.
I was skilled at observing things around me, yet it appeared I lacked that proficiency when it came to discerning things within myself. I wasn’t sure when it’d happened, or even what it was that tipped the scale, but somewhere in the last month and a half of living with her—or hell, even the last two and a half months of knowing her—I’d started to fall for her.
And by the time I’d recognized it, it was too late.
I spent the entire weekend with Jade and Aria. In the evenings, after Aria was asleep, Jade and I would hang out on the couch either talking or watching TV. It was like Friday night had never happened—other than my hesitation to touch her, which she must’ve picked up on. During our regular Sunday walk for shells, she grabbed my hand. It surprised me—not because we’d never done it before, but because I hadn’t expected her to be so affectionate after our talk. Honestly, I’d expected our kiss to cause uncertainty between us, but she didn’t let that stop her from carrying on the way we had before it happened.
When I woke up Monday morning, I didn’t want to leave. It had been the first time in nine years that I didn’t want to get on a plane and go to work. I would’ve given anything to spend more time with Jade—and Aria. And as much as that realization confused me, I knew the reason for it.
I just wasn’t sure what I could do about it.