by Mary Moreno
“Nope,” I tell him smoothly as I walk by him and smile at Tony before he can guess that anything is wrong.
“What are we going to do today?” Tony asks me full of excitement.
“First, we are going to have breakfast, and then we will figure that out. There are eggs and bacon still warm but getting colder by the second.” I tell him, and hearing him laugh makes me feel even better.
Thankful that Tony had come down just in time.
Chapter 14
Jessica Avoids Me
Jared’s POV:
It’s discouraging. Every time that I try to talk to her today, she wants nothing to do with me. I know that she’s busy with Tony, but she’s making it hard for me to apologize to her. I can’t believe this, something I would when I don’t want to talk about anything. When I’m still sore at someone.
She’s downright pissed at me. She won’t even make eye contact with me. During lunch, she wouldn’t even look at me, though Tony had a lot to say about how he was able to get his feet off the floor of the shallow end of the pool and could swim for a few seconds at a time before I know it he’s going to be going back and forth from the shallow end to the deep end. That’s going to be a sight to see.
Even when she doesn’t know I’m there, she doesn’t look sad; she isn’t looking for me. Completely focused on Tony, and for that, I’m happy. I’m glad that there’s someone I can trust with my son; however, I would like for her to even glimpse to see if I’m around.
Yesterday is so different from today, and I wish that I could take back my demand to know what the issue is, but you can’t take back the words once they are out of your mouth, and I should’ve learned that a long time ago…
I am hoping for Tony to grab a nap, but when she settles him down, he doesn’t quite go to sleep. She reads him four or five mini books before he gets up and starts playing again.
As the time ticks by, she’s making me upset when she doesn’t have dinner with us. The laughter, the adult conversation, there is none.
Tony goes on and on about how he likes Jessica, the funny character voices she uses when she reads him books. How dedicated she is to swimming, and above all, how dedicated she is to crashing cars. He gets me to laugh a few times, and it warms my heart, but Jessica is right there in the back of my mind, and it aggravates me that she’s doing this on purpose.
It’s not rocket science. She’s trying to avoid me, and she’s doing a damn good job at it!
Tony wants to watch a movie, so we settle down and watch one in the sitting room, and I hope to hear her at least come out of her room.
Nothing.
I put Tony to bed with no movie and keep the light on for him.
“You don’t need to keep that on. Jessica shut it off last night.” Tony tells me, proud of himself for not needing the lamp anymore.
“Alright. I love you.” I kiss his forehead and tuck him in.
“I love you too.” He wraps his arms around my neck and hugs me tightly. I smile and feel my heart melting as I hug him just as tight.
“I will see you in the morning?” He asks me.
“I hope so.” I grin at him and close the door, but not all the way. I at least want him to have hall light if nothing else.
Sighing heavily, I go to her door and knock on it.
“Jessica,” I say with my face just inches from the door.
Silence.
“Jessica, will you please talk to me?” I ask her, knocking again.
“She’s not in her room, what have you done to upset her?” I jump when I hear Helen’s voice from behind me.
“Do you need to sneak up on people like that?” I ask her, almost glaring at her.
“Well, I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I finished the last room and was heading back downstairs.” Helen tells me, giving me that look that I’d better stop talking to her the way I am.
“I’m sorry.” I sigh.
“She’s outside, taking a night swim.” Helen nods her head at me and continues on her way.
It seems like I’m messing up with everyone.
Everyone but Tony.
I follow her downstairs, and she takes the hallway to the maid’s quarter that I had set her up with. I continue going towards the sliding doors that lead out to the pool and the patio.
Watching her swim, she’s not even paying attention to me. I don’t think that she even knows I’m here just watching her.
In her white bikini as she floats on her back. The pool lights let me catch a glimpse of her face, and her eyes are closed, so I know that she can’t see me.
Her body is relaxed, and my eyes roam her body. From her long legs to the bikini bottom that she’s wearing, which is a little tight and up her toned stomach that I would love to kiss every inch of to her tits that are pushed against each other because the top is so tight.
I want to go swimming with her, but the last thing I want her to is that I’m turned on. There’s no way that I can get into my speedo, and she does not see how hard I am for her.
“Fuck.” I mutter under my breath and take a deep breath.
I walk out onto the patio, and I guess the only thing that I can offer her for a truce is a towel that’s sitting on the lounge chair.
“I didn’t think that anyone was out here other than me.” She states when she opens her eyes and sees me standing at the edge of the pool with a towel in my hand.
“Helen told me where you were.” I threw Helen under the bus quickly for scaring me the way she had in the hallway.
“Damn it.” She groans.
“She didn’t mean to throw you under the bus. I didn’t know that you were trying to hide from me.” I grin at her, watching her swim towards the edge.
I reach out my hand, afraid that she’s not going to take it.
She does, and I pull her up out of the water, watching her tits jiggle just a little and seeing the hardness of her nipples through the bikini.
As she glares at me, she yanks the towel from my hand and quickly covers herself with it, hiding her body behind the towel, and all I can do is grin at her like an idiot.
Chapter 15
Giving Into Him
Jessica’s POV:
I didn’t think that he would come looking for me. How dumb could I be? I hurry to sit on the lounge chair, and he sits down on the edge of it.
“I know that you’ve been avoiding me, I’m sorry for last night. Everything was going well until then. Sometimes all I do is think about myself, other times…well, I think about myself. I should’ve left it alone, and I couldn’t.” He tells me in a rushed voice as if I’m going to up and disappear again.
I wasn’t expecting an apology. I didn’t think that he was capable of saying he’s sorry because he made me confess something that I’ve never confessed to anyone before. All because no boy had ever cared about asking me why I didn’t want to do something that made me feel uncomfortable.
“I do need your help. We will figure it out.” He tells me, and his voice is so serious, yet so soft.
“Why me?” I dare to ask him, wanting to know why he won’t let up on this.
“My mother will love the fire you have, the stubbornness, how you might be able to keep me in my place.” He grins at me, ready for the line of questioning that I had in the back of my mind all day knowing that this was going to happen, and yet all my questions are stuck, and I don’t even barely know my name.
“Besides, would you like to see another woman coming into my room at night even though it’s fake?” He challenges me with that seductive voice of his, his deep, low voice, and I don’t realize that his hand is on my arm until I whip my head to look at him.
I glare at him.
How dare he ask me such a question when all my body does is scream silently for him? How dare he get so close to me, so close to where I can feel his hot breath on me.
“I didn’t think so.” He whispers to me, and I feel his soft lips on mine.
I want to push him away, I want to tell him to go to hell, bu
t the way he kisses me so softly, so slowly, his tongue entering my mouth as if he owns it I feel my tongue touching his slowly, I don’t even know what to do, but it seems my tongue does as he holds me tighter to him and I moan against his lips as he holds me as if he’s protecting me without any words.
My head is spinning, my heart racing, and my handshake as I bring it to the side of his neck, feeling my body relax against him, my body giving up the fight.
I hear a moaning noise, and I think that it’s coming from him until I listen closer and realizing that it’s coming from me.
“Will you help me, Jessica?” He whispers against his mouth.
He could’ve asked me to jump in the pool naked, and I would’ve just off the kiss alone, his mouth telling me that there’s more to come if I would just trust him if I would let myself go.
“Yes.” I whimper against his lips and feel his tongue entering my mouth again as he kisses me with more passion.
A new life that I’m completely not ready for, but his touch, his mouth, it sets my soul on fire, and I’m afraid that maybe I’m falling for Jared Collins and I need to remind myself that this is a show, a show to put on for his mother.
“If we kiss like this, my mother will be convinced that we are meant for each other.” He pulls away from me and looks at him.
“Maybe if we kiss like this, I can convince you that we are meant for each other.” Jared continues to speak when I have no words.
I can’t be sure that I’ve heard him right, that last sentence that he’s gotten out of his mouth. I don’t dare call him out on it, not now, not while it feels like the earth is quaking around me from a single kiss!
What have I gotten myself into?
“We shall see,” I whisper to him, biting down on my lip.
We shall see.
The End
OTHER BOOKS
Check out the next story in this series!
The Millionaire Fantasy (Book 2): Fake Love Preview
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Moreno is a bestselling author of breathtaking action-adventure romance. She is filled with the love of her husband and two amazing kids. She does her best writing in a remote cottage tucked away in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Mary loves to entrance readers in a place where the heroes have chronic pitfalls, the setting is exciting and foreign, and the women are as robust as they are unique.