by Maria Luis
Jade flinched.
It was her gut reaction.
She wanted to tell him how she and John Thomas had never been engaged, not really, but the words stuck in her throat.
Hard gray eyes lowered from her face to her feet, then inched their way back up again. “Guess I wasn’t supposed to know about him,” Nathan drawled, “because I was never going to be more to you than a hookup. Am I right?”
Past the growing lump, she whispered, “It wasn’t like I purposely hid my relationship with him from you.”
He scoffed, a harsh sound that was nothing like the Nathan she knew. “But you weren’t exactly forthcoming with the information, were you? Were you laughing at me this entire time? Listening to me wax on about my past and my fears, asking me to trust you, and all the while you just—” He twisted away and roughly shoved his hands through his hair.
“I told you things about me,” she said, reaching forward to place a hand on his arm. “More than I’ve told anyone else in my life.”
Her words, intending to sooth his ruffled feathers, didn’t do the trick.
He let out a humorless laugh. “Jade, you told me what you wanted me to hear. But even right now you won’t say his name. Either you care for him more than you realize or—”
“No,” she snapped, turning her comforting hand into a rough palm to his bicep that didn’t budge him an inch. “You don’t get to play that game and twist my words around. I don’t mention him because I don’t care, Nathan, that’s why. Because I spent four years in a relationship I didn’t want, and New Orleans was a fresh start.”
“A fresh start, maybe, but you can’t possibly spend four years with someone and not miss them.”
“Are you asking me if I miss John Thomas? The answer to that is no, I don’t. You tell me how I should miss a man who barely had time for me, and even when he did we sat in silence.”
Annoyance flashed across his features, but whether it was annoyance with her or annoyance with himself, Jade didn’t know.
“Y’all were practically engaged,” he said flatly, “and according to your dad, you moved to N’Orleans because you didn’t want to deal with men.”
Jade threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “So sue me!” she exclaimed, wanting to wrap her hands around his big shoulders and shake him. “I was stuck in a long-term relationship, which I ended by the way, and when I moved I wanted a break from dating. Is that so wrong of me?”
She didn’t give him a chance to speak, and even if he’d tried she would have barreled right over him anyway. She was sick and tired of playing games. “Why is it that men can say that they want to be single and no one thinks twice? But when a woman says she needs a break, when she wants to focus on herself for once, she’s deemed broken.”
He cut in with a swift and firm, “I didn’t say you were broken.”
She barely heard him over the thundering in her ears. “The implication was still there. Why would I want to be alone?” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “That’s pretty much what you’re asking me. That because I’m single it must be because I’m brokenhearted. Why aren’t I allowed to just have a fling with a guy, if that’s what I want?”
Because that’s not what you want, not with him.
Jade slammed the door on those thoughts. Yes, she loved Nathan, but she also cared about his perception of her. She was an independent woman—a woman who didn’t need a man’s reassurance to let her know that she was doing a good job. More importantly, she didn’t need a man, period.
She fixed her gaze on Nathan’s big body, noting the closed-off expression on his face. “This isn’t the problem here and you know it.”
In response, he arched a brow and turned to her with folded arms. “No?” he asked softly, and she could have sworn she saw a flash of regret in his gaze. “What’s the problem, then?”
You.
Jade threw her shoulders back, spine snapping straight. “I admit that I should have mentioned John Thomas to you. He was a big part of my life, though probably not as big of a part of it as he should have been, considering that we dated for years.”
He answered with a short nod. “I’m assuming there’s a ‘but’ coming soon.”
She ignored the sarcastic bite to his words. “The problem, Nathan, is that you were expecting something to go wrong this entire time. Maybe not consciously, but you’ve been waiting for me to screw up and ruin what we have.”
“According to you,” he said bitterly, “we don’t have anything but sex.”
Jade’s eyes narrowed. “You’re doing it again. I don’t know why I didn’t see this before.”
“See what before?” he pushed back, proving once and for all that men only saw what they wanted to see. And he certainly wasn’t seeing what she was struggling to tell him. “I haven’t been just sitting around, waiting for you to fuck up, Jade.”
“You have been.” She jabbed a pointed finger at his chest. “Instead of coming over or giving me a call to ask about John Thomas like a mature adult, you struck out and spun this entire thing around by making it seem like I intentionally left you in the dark.”
“You did leave me in the dark!” he exploded, the force of his words sending her back against the counter in shock. “Call me an idiot, Jade, call me a goddamn romantic, but I thought we had something special. Unique, whatever the fuck you want to call it. I told you shit that no one else knows—aspects of myself that my own mother doesn’t know about.”
Fingers curling into a fist, she brought her hand to her aching chest. Desperately she wanted to rewind this conversation, but what was the point? He clearly only saw the worst in her. He seemed determined to prove that she’d screwed him over. Would he continue to do so if they got together permanently? “Nathan, what do you even want me to say right now? That I’m sorry? I said that already. That I should have told you about John Thomas earlier? I’ve said that, too. But I refuse to apologize for wanting to live my life, for once, a certain way.”
His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “That’s the most backhanded apology I’ve ever heard.”
Jade lifted her chin. “I don’t see you offering an apology.”
His mouth twisted in a sneer. “And I’d be apologizing for what? For wanting more than just sex with you? That I pictured more than just fucking you in the dark? How do you suppose that apology should go?”
Her closed fist moved down to her belly. She thought she might throw up, her stomach felt so topsy-turvy. This wasn’t what she wanted. When she’d seen him standing outside of her apartment, this wasn’t what she’d envisioned happening. She wanted his arms wrapped around her waist, his mouth claiming hers in sensual abandon.
But she also wanted a partner who listened to what she had to say and supported her. Who took her word for the truth, and didn’t let jealousy and past hurt color the present.
Jade wanted a love that didn’t question but that supported and encouraged.
And if she didn’t have that, then she might as well still be with John Thomas, who had never once looked at her and actually saw her for who Jade Lucia Harper actually was.
A strong, independent woman with a fierce sense of loyalty and family, who wanted to be offered the respect she deserved.
“If you don’t think you owe me an apology, that’s fine,” she said, evenly and clearly, “but be honest with yourself at least. You may have asked me for help with the Zeker case, but don’t pretend you ever thought this thing with us would last. If you had, you wouldn’t have leapt to the conclusion that I was using you for a fling. You would have asked a much more important question.”
In a voice met with gravel, he rasped, “Which is?”
Lowering her fist to her side, Jade forced herself to meet his gaze. “If I loved you.”
She saw his shoulders visibly jerk at her words, and he twisted away to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Jade,” he rasped, that smoky voice of his calling to her to give in. But she wouldn’t. She deserved more.
“You’re right. I should have—”
“It’s fine,” she said stiffly, “but I think you should go.”
“It’s not fine—wait.” He turned back to her, his gray eyes wide with an emotion she couldn’t name. “You want me to leave? Honey, you’re right. I said that already.”
Jade shook her head, refusing to let him tempt her into changing her mind. It hurt. God, it hurt to say this. But wouldn’t it hurt more a few years down the line when she realized that he still couldn’t find it in himself to trust her?
“I’m sorry, Nathan.” Devastation pierced his gaze and she had to turn away. “I’m sorry, but I need to do this for me. I need someone . . . ” She bit down on her knuckle, anything to keep the tears from spilling forth. “I spent years with someone who couldn’t be bothered with me at all. I accepted it because I didn’t know better, and also because he didn’t inspire anything in me to care. I don’t feel that way about you. I care. I want better. But I’m realizing that even though I love you, I don’t think you’ll ever fully let down your walls. I can’t risk that, knowing how I feel about you now . . . ”
Something shuttered in his expression, like he’d expected her reaction all along. “So you won’t take a chance on me. On us.”
“I—” Jade lowered her gaze to the floor. “I can’t.”
His laugh was all hard edges and jagged lines. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he muttered, “because God knows I found everything I’ve ever wanted in you.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond.
He swept out of her apartment, leaving her alone. Just like how she’d arrived in New Orleans a month ago. But unlike when she’d moved here, so full of hope and excitement, he’d taken all of that with him too.
She covered her mouth to keep the sobs quiet. Because she had to face the truth—she had no one to blame for her current situation but herself.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
NEW ORLEANS
“You look like you need a shot. Maybe one of those fruity ones you like so much with the matching umbrella.”
Blinking blearily up from his desk of horrors, Nathan watched his best friend collapse in the spare chair opposite him. “Coffee,” he grunted, gesturing for the cup of hot java in Brady’s hand.
Brady glanced down at the steaming mug. “You sure about that?”
Nathan had never been more certain of something in his entire life. He stuck out his hand, gratification sluicing through him when Brady offered the mug with a shrug.
He should have known better than to trust him.
The moment the liquid hit Nathan’s tongue he nearly spat it everywhere. He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at the coffee and then at the man sitting with an evil smirk.
“This tastes like shit,” he grumbled, setting the coffee on the desk, far, far away from his reach.
Brady only shrugged. “It’s office coffee, Danvers. What the hell were you expecting? Starbucks? PJ’s?”
“Decent coffee that doesn’t taste like the burnt underside of a tire,” he said testily, but hell, he’d been at the office for two hours already this morning. Sleep hadn’t come to him last night, not after the way he and Jade had argued over what seemed to be a whole lot of nothing.
He’d overreacted, letting past insecurities swallow him up—and now look at him. Instead of being snuggled up with Jade in bed, he was sitting in headquarters at five-thirty in the goddamn morning, drinking crappy coffee, and knee-deep in paperwork for the Zeker case.
In less than twenty-four hours his life had caved down on him, and Nathan had no one else to blame but himself.
Brady snagged back the coffee mug and drew in a deep swallow. “You done with the pity party yet?”
Nathan picked up the coffee mug and debated the likelihood of getting away with clobbering Brady over the head with it—without getting caught.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Brady said, tipping the chair onto its back legs and crossing his arms behind his head.
Flicking his gaze from the mug to his sergeant’s head, Nathan murmured dryly, “I doubt it.”
“You’re wondering how our roles have reversed.”
Nathan lifted the mug. “I’d be up for a pep talk this morning if you hadn’t given me shit for coffee.”
“You’re thinking about the time you kidnapped me in order to make me see reason,” Brady went on, as if Nathan hadn’t spoken. “Too bad Luke is out of the state or maybe I could pull the same stunt on you.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking at all, but for the record, you don’t have nearly the same finesse that I do.”
“Where’s the finesse when you look like hell?” Brady reached out and snagged the coffee from Nathan’s grasp, before setting it on the empty desk to his right. “Stop playing coy—what the hell happened?”
Nathan dropped his head back to stare at the ceiling. If he just played stupid . . . “Is the heart-to-heart necessary?”
“How do you feel about cleaning the toilets for the next month?”
He lowered his head to deliver a hard glare at his boss. “That’s a low blow.”
“I’ll give you your very own toothbrush,” Brady said, a shit-eating grin curving his mouth. “Pink, so it can match that sissy shit you drink.”
“Why the hell does Shaelyn put up with you?”
The grin on Brady’s face morphed into something that made Nathan’s gag reflex kick into gear. “Do you really want me to go into detail?”
“Hell no. In fact, how about you go do whatever it is sergeants do all day to keep themselves busy. Ride a horse; save a cowboy. Harass your own other employees, and leave me out of this.”
“First, pretty sure that’s not how that song goes. Second, kinda hard to do that, wouldn’t you say, when I have Cartwell riding my ass about this Zeker case at work, and my girl telling me that your girl cried to her and Lizzie over the phone last night.”
Nathan’s heart squeezed at the thought of his Jade in tears. He scrubbed his hands over his face and blew out a deep breath. Everything was fucked up, professionally and personally, and he had no one to blame for that but himself.
In a low voice, he muttered, “All right, first things first, tell my step-dad to calm down. I’m on a lead. We talked about this already, so I’m not sure why he’s bringing you into it—”
Brady’s hand came up. “Whoa, hold on.” He dropped his palms to Nathan’s desk and leaned forward. “Did you just say your step-dad?”
Ah, shit.
Double shit.
Triple, mother-load of all—
He stuck out a finger at his friend, then pointed at his own face. “That doesn’t go beyond us, Taylor. Do you hear me?”
Brady leaned back in his chair, and lifted a brow. “I already knew.”
Nathan felt his mouth flat-line. “You already knew what?”
“About you and Cartwell,” Brady said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Lizzie let it slip months ago, a little bit after you first introduced her to us.”
Lizzie . . . Nathan’s jaw clenched. Of course Lizzie would say something. It wasn’t in her DNA to keep anything a secret. He scraped his fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Honestly?”
Nathan nodded.
Brady shrugged. “I figured you wanted to keep it under wraps. I mean, with the way y’all were always sniping at each other, I knew something was up anyhow. It seemed weird to me that you two hated each other’s guts for no reason at all.”
“Who else knows?”
Another shrug, this time as Brady went for his coffee again. “I don’t know. I’m sure some of the guys pieced it together on their own. It’s not like we sit around gossiping about you—I don’t think anyone cares one way or the other.” He drained the coffee and set it aside. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, the only one making a big deal out of this is you. By the way, it’s not unheard of for family members to work in the same departm
ent.”
Nathan sank back into his chair, digging his knuckles into his eye sockets. The hope that it might relieve the pressure in his head died when he still felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his forehead, whack-a-mole style.
How did he explain to the department’s golden child that sometimes you just wanted to be rewarded for your own merits, and not because of who your family was? Nathan raked a hand through his hair again, pulling on the ends, as he debated the best way to go the situation. In the end, he went for broke. “Cartwell got me this job.”
His friend’s chin kicked up like Nathan had shocked him. “Cartwell didn’t get you shit.”
Trust Brady Taylor to not cut around corners. “Listen, man,” Nathan murmured, folding his hands over his chest because, quite frankly, he was feeling incredibly awkward, “I appreciate you wanting to stick up for me. I really do. But I’m not an idiot. I practically begged Josh to put in a good word for me, and he did.”
Shifting forward, Brady’s hands came down on the desk, his face a mask of impatience. “Danvers, what I’m trying to say is that Cartwell didn’t say squat about you. He briefly mentioned that you’d done well as a patrolman, but shit, dude, you killed it in the interview. You were the best candidate out of the bunch of applicants. Cartwell didn’t make the decision—the rest of us did. We wanted you on our team.”
“I—” Nathan clamped his mouth shut. His head pounded like the goddamn devil, and he didn’t . . . hell, he didn’t know what to say. Because for a year now, he’d suspected that it was Josh who had secured him a spot within homicide department. Even after their talk from the other day, the man still hadn’t come flat out to say that Nathan had earned the position without any extra help. Which made sense, because Cartwell was the sort of guy who preferred to let people figure their own shit out.
Rubbing a hand over his chest, he muttered, “I don’t know what to say.”