Love Hard

by Nalini Singh

  Smiling within at the thought, she waved goodbye to Everett and headed downstairs. She didn’t bother to put on her coat since she’d soon be in the car. Hers and Everett’s vehicles were the only ones in the lot, but it was plenty bright enough with the external lights Iris had insisted be installed before they moved to these premises, and there were cars passing by on the street just beyond.

  She’d opened up the passenger door and put down her satchel and coat when she heard a scrape behind her. Spinning around, her heart in her throat, she groaned. “Reid, what are you doing here?” She’d thought this was all behind her—he’d gone quiet soon after her and Jake’s return from New York.

  He lifted a bottle in the air. “You made me… laughing… laughingstock.” Alcohol fumes wafted off him, his feet not exactly steady.

  Juliet wasn’t afraid. Reid might be psychologically toxic to her, but he’d never been physically violent—toward her or anyone else. “You’re drunk and you’ll be embarrassed by this in the morning. Go home.”

  “I loved you,” he wailed. “Why? Why?”

  She had no idea what he was on about, but she took out her phone, intending to call him a taxi.

  He lurched forward, staggering toward her. “Juliet, why did you leave me?” A wobble as he tripped on his own feet and into her.

  Her phone dropped to the asphalt as she slammed her hands into his chest, trying to keep him from falling onto her. She heard something smash with a corner of her mind and winced because her phone wasn’t that old… Then she felt a numb kind of pain in her side. Her foot was wet too. Strange.

  Looking down with a spinning in her head, she stared at the bottle sticking out of her side. Reid had accidentally smashed his bottle against the car, sending vodka spilling onto her foot and driving part of the broken bottle through her thin work dress and into her body.

  “Fuck! Oh fuck! Juliet, fuck!” Reid staggered backward, his eyes huge. “Juliet, what do I do?”

  “Call an ambulance.” She couldn’t see her phone and her head didn’t feel right.

  Sliding down to sit on the ground, she said, “Reid. Ambulance.”

  He scrabbled in his pockets for his phone just as a door opened nearby.

  Reid looked up, relief harsh on his features. “Call an ambulance!”

  The last thing Juliet saw before she lost consciousness was Everett’s horrified face coming around the car.

  “Jake,” she whispered and was gone.

  36

  Love

  Jake and Esme had just sat down in front of the TV to watch a bit of her princess movie for the seven billionth and thirty-seventh time when he got a call from Everett. Wondering why Juliet’s boss was calling him, he answered—and felt everything inside him turn to ice.

  “You’ll stay with her?” he said. “I have to drop my daughter off at my parents’.” It was hard to form words, hard to think.

  “I’ll stay right here,” Everett promised. “The doctors are with her.”

  “Daddy?” Esme was looking at him, her face scared. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, baby,” he said and hoped he was telling the truth. “But Juliet needs my help with something. I’m going to drop you off at Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

  But Esme was too smart to fall for that. “No, I wanna come with you.” She clung to him as he rose.

  Gathering her up in his arms, he found his keys and took her out to the car. He didn’t argue with her, just drove to his parents, and though she cried, he dropped her off into her grandmother’s arms.

  “Hush, Boo.” A big hug, a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you soon.” A hospital waiting room was no place for a little girl who’d lost a mother and adored the new woman who’d come into her life.

  Jake’s heart was a rock in his chest as he drove through the night to the hospital. It wasn’t far from his parents’ home, and all he could think the entire way there was that he hadn’t told her he loved her. Juliet might go into surgery never knowing how much she meant to him.

  He squeezed the steering wheel so hard that he was afraid he’d break it.

  The hospital building appeared in the distance, big and white. After finding a parking spot, he ran to the emergency ward to which Everett had told him she’d been taken. The slender man jerked to his feet as Jake arrived. A nurse appeared at the same time.

  “You’re Juliet Nelisi’s family?” she said, looking from one to the other.

  “Yes,” Jake said, even though legally he had no right—and that pissed him the hell off. He was hers and she was his. He wanted the right. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes.” The nurse smiled. “She’s fine. In recovery. The glass didn’t penetrate as deeply as it initially appeared.”

  Relief shook his knees. “Can I see her?”

  “Yes, follow me. We used local anesthetic to stitch her up, so she’s lucid.”

  Jake was aware of Everett following, didn’t ask him to stay back. The man’d had a hell of a shock—and he might’ve saved Juliet’s life. “Everett, how did Juliet get cut?” He hadn’t bothered to ask that question during the initial call.

  “I’ll let her tell you that. I’m not sure myself.”

  “Here you go.” The nurse pushed aside the curtain around Juliet’s cubicle.

  She was sitting up in bed in a hospital gown, a scowl on her face. “I fainted,” she muttered the instant Jake appeared. “I fainted like a great big drama queen.”

  “It was shock, dear,” the nurse said soothingly before leaving.

  Jake, meanwhile, was having trouble maintaining any kind of composure. Which was why he stood by the curtain while Everett rushed over to gently embrace Juliet. Their conversation was a buzz in Jake’s head. He barely even saw the other man say his goodbyes and leave.

  The antiseptic smell of the hospital, the noises of the machines, even the bed, it all had nausea churning his gut. Again and again, he saw Calypso’s lifeless face, except his brain kept trying to superimpose Juliet’s on the memory.

  “Jake.” Juliet held out a hand.

  Jake jerked forward because he’d made a promise to himself to never let Juliet down. Sinking into the chair beside her bed, he took her hand, and then he dropped his head and his shoulders and just shuddered. He didn’t cry, not this time. The waves of emotion were too huge and too merciless. He squeezed her hand until it had to hurt, and he tried to find a way through the chaos.

  “Hey.” Her voice cut through the mess, made him look up.

  She gave him a tight smile. “Every time you run onto that field, I worry. Rugby isn’t a gentle game. But I can’t protect you from the world. So I live with it. Just like I live with knowing that I can’t wrap Esme in cotton wool.”

  His entire soul twisted and torn, he looked at her and he knew he’d be savaged if she died. He’d be destroyed. Broken to pieces. “Do you know how much I love you?” he rasped out and saw an expression on her face he’d never before seen. “Until it hurts me to breathe sometimes. Until seeing you in this bed is my worst fucking nightmare come to life.”

  He pressed his lips to the hand he’d gripped. “Fuck, Juliet.” Shaking, he rose and got up onto the bed, then—with care—wrapped her up in his arms. “Fuck.”

  Silence… and a bloom of wet heat on his T-shirt where Juliet had pressed her face.

  “Jules,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “God, I’m sorry to be such an ass. I should be—”

  “Tell me again.” A teary but firm request. “Tell me again.”

  “I love you, Juliet. I love you.” He repeated the words again and again as she cried. “I’m sorry I was too chickenshit to say that before. If I’d lost you and you’d never heard it from me…” The idea tore him apart. “Forgive me.”

  She shook her head against him, mumbled, “Nothing to forgive.” It came out bleary. “Words are nice,” she said on a hiccup of breath. “So nice that I’m stupid-crying like a baby, but I’ve felt you loving me all this time. You love hard, Jake. Impossib
le to be yours and not know.” A salt-laced kiss pressed to his lips. “It’s okay, baby.” She stroked her hands over his trembling shoulders. “I’m right here. Loving you back just as hard.”

  Unable to speak, Jake held on, just held on.

  * * *

  The doctors released Juliet a couple of hours later with strict instructions for her to not physically exert herself for a week.

  Esme was mad at both of them when they picked her up that night and refused to say a word. She stomped to her room and shut her door. Jake, well aware his daughter had a full measure of the Esera stubborn streak, let her be.

  “Did Everett call the cops?” he asked Juliet as they got ready for bed.

  “I think so.” Juliet sighed. “Reid didn’t mean it—he was an idiot.”

  Muscles tight, Jake gripped her chin. “Don’t you dare let him get away with this.”

  Smiling, Juliet pressed a hand to his chest. “No, he has to be held responsible, but I hope the judge gives him mandatory alcohol-addiction counseling along with any punishment.”

  Jake didn’t give a shit about Reid, but he was clearly much more of a hard-ass than Juliet. Since he couldn’t stop touching her, he gave in and took a long, deep kiss. “Behave,” he said when she made a kittenish purr in her throat. “No exertion for a week.” And they definitely exerted themselves when they got together in bed.

  Juliet pouted.

  Chuckling, he dropped a kiss on her nose before wandering into the master suite bathroom. When he came back out, it was to find the bedroom empty. Figuring she must be making a hot drink in the kitchen, he padded that way, but she wasn’t there either. Then he heard a soft murmur coming from the direction of Esme’s room.

  Walking over, he peeked in the half-open door. Juliet was sitting on the side of the bed while Esme stubbornly faced the wall, her back to Juliet and her arms tightly folded across her chest. But Juliet had her hand on Esme’s shoulder and she was telling Esme a bedtime story.

  Jake’s heart was already so full, but it expanded all over again right then. He stayed outside and just listened as Juliet completed the story.

  Closing the book, she said, “I love you, Boo” and made sure the blanket was tucked up nicely around Esme’s drowsy body.

  When Esme mumbled something, Juliet said, “I know you’re mad at me, but I still love you.” Another kiss pressed to Esme’s temple before she came to the door.

  Seeing Jake, she walked into his arms.

  “Will you love me too, even when I’m grumpy?”

  She looked up, eyes dark. “I’ll love you always.”

  Scared, so scared at the love that filled him up and could destroy him, Jake said, “Let’s grow old and wrinkly together, Jules.” He knew she couldn’t promise that, that life wasn’t predictable, but he needed to hear the words. A statement of intent against fate.

  “We will grow old together,” Juliet said firmly. “We have a daughter to raise, and some day we’ll have grandchildren to spoil.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

  Epilogue

  Happy Ever After

  Jake glanced at the gleaming supercar in the lot of the local park where he and the family came often to hang out and play a game of rugby. A bunch of teenagers were gathered around it, snapping pics, pure awe on their faces.

  He got it. It was a beautiful machine. He’d hooked up with the engineers and mechanics who’d worked on the engine and knew that the car was as beautiful inside as it was on the outside. Thanks to Juliet’s encouragement, he was thinking seriously about continuing his education and getting into something to do with high-performance cars when he eventually retired from rugby.

  Her laughter broke the air.

  He looked to where she stood chatting with Charlotte and Ísa under the spreading branches of a flowering cherry tree, unable to believe how his life had changed so much in the space of a year and a bit. All because of her. A woman who loved openly and without fear, and who challenged him to do the same.

  “Spot! Wait!”

  He laughed as he saw Esme’s mutt of a rescue puppy race away from her with a Frisbee in his mouth. Danny took off after the dog, his long, powerful legs eating up the ground. Emmaline ran over from the other side at the same time to try to cut Spot off from absconding with the Frisbee.

  Given how much Sailor’s daughter adored the puppy, Jake had a feeling another dog would soon be joining the family. Lawyers had nothing on the pint-sized negotiating team of Esme and Emmaline.

  Gabriel and Sailor were at the portable grill they’d brought out for today’s picnic, and their parents—plus Ísa’s mum—were on loungers, watching the shenanigans. They were also taking turns cuddling Ísa and Sailor’s happy, healthy baby boy—who seriously looked like a miniature copy of Sailor.

  The newest human member of the family was named Joseph Connor, in honor of his grandfather. Said grandfather was already predicting another generation of rugby greatness. To avoid mix-ups between Joseph senior and junior, everyone referred to the baby by his second name. Connor took it all in his baby stride.

  Alison called out right then, and Ísa and Charlotte headed her way while Juliet stayed behind to flip out a picnic blanket on which he knew she planned to put snacks for the kids. The dark pink petals of the cherry tree fell around her where she stood, and she looked up, a soft smile on her face, her hair as vibrant a pink as the petals.

  Juliet was wild color, and she’d drenched his life with it.

  Jake was walking toward her before he knew it. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out what he’d hidden there. She smiled at him as he neared, said something, but he didn’t hear. His heart was pounding too hard.

  He’d meant to do this at another time and place, but this moment felt right.

  Going down on one knee in front of her, he opened his hand to expose the ring within. A burst of color. Not only diamonds but all the hues of Juliet.

  Her hands flew to her mouth, her nails shimmering gold and her eyes shining.

  “Marry me?” he said, his mouth dry.

  Nodding jerkily, she held out her hand and he slipped on the ring. She jumped on him the instant it was on, tumbling him to the picnic blanket. Laughing, he rolled on it with her as the cherry blossoms fell on them, and he felt young and alive and invincible.

  “Daddy! Is Jules gonna marry us?”

  Opening his arm as Juliet opened hers, they enclosed Esme in the hug, her delight added to theirs. Spot, not to be left out, jumped into the pile, and it dissolved into a thing of wild joy with the wiggling puppy butt in Esme’s face causing her to laugh hysterically.

  Across the blanket, he kept one hand linked with Juliet’s, and when she turned her head, he said, “I love you, Jules.”

  She said, “I know,” and it was the most wonderful thing she could’ve said.

  I love writing about the Bishop-Esera clan, and I hope you love reading their stories just as much. There’s only one more brother to go now—Danny’s turn in the spotlight is coming up next. If you’d like to be notified when his book is available, please join my monthly newsletter at: www.nalinisingh.com Along with release information, I send our free short stories and/or exclusive deleted scenes several times a year.

  I’d also like this opportunity to acknowledge my friend and fellow author, Wendy Vella, and her son, professional rugby player Nathan Vella. They were incredibly generous with their time and knowledge of professional rugby. Any mistakes are mine (and I confess I did take some small artistic liberties).

  If you’ve missed the stories of the other brothers, they are: CHERISH HARD (Sailor) and ROCK HARD (Gabriel). –Nalini

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Psy-Changeling, Guild Hunter, and Rock Kiss series, Nalini Singh usually writes about hot shapeshifters, dangerous angels, and sexy rock stars. With the Hard Play series, she decided to write about a sinfully gorgeous set of brothers and their friends, all of wh
om will make your blood pump and your heart melt.

  Nalini lives and works in beautiful New Zealand, and is passionate about writing. If you'd like to learn more about the Hard Play series or her other books, you can find excerpts, behind-the-scenes materials, and more information on her website: www.nalinisingh.com.

  Other Books by Nalini Singh

  The Rock Kiss series

  Rock Addiction

  Rock Courtship: A Novella

  Rock Hard

  Rock Redemption

  Rock Wedding

  * * *

  The Hard Play series

  Cherish Hard

  Rebel Hard

  * * *

  The Psy/Changeling series

  Slave to Sensation

  Visions of Heat

  Caressed by Ice

  Mine to Possess

  Hostage to Pleasure

  Branded by Fire

  Blaze of Memory

  Bonds of Justice

  Play of Passion

  Kiss of Snow

  Tangle of Need

  Heart of Obsidian

  Shield of Winter

  Shards of Hope

  Allegiance of Honor

  * * *

  The Psy/Changeling Trinity series

  Silver Silence

  Ocean Light

  Wolf Rain

  * * *

  The Guild Hunter series

  Angels’ Blood

  Archangel’s Kiss