Barely Breathing (Keep Breathing Book 1)

by Erica Marselas

  Inside I’m screaming I’m a liar and you know it, Jax, just play along and come find me.

  But as he stares back at the ring I gave him, I think I played my role too well.

  I stabbed the knife into my own damn heart after swallowing the vial of poison.

  I beg the man upstairs that Jax finds happiness.

  He’s golden. He doesn't deserve this.

  Don’t let him hurt.

  I beg for forgiveness for ripping another person’s heart out to please the devil.

  “I'll file for divorce in the morning. You should get the papers soon, I don't want anything from you, but please sign them.”

  “No problem,” he says dryly. The light in him has shut off. I put the final nail in our love story.

  With that, I grab my bags and bolt out the door and into my new hell, coming face to face with my father.

  “Good job, princess. You’ve made me proud.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  RIVER

  I spent the night feeling like the weight of the world was suffocating me. In fact, I’ve spent way too much time feeling this way. I wonder if this is how my mother felt before she decided she couldn’t take it anymore. All her demons piled on her chest like a heavy weight, and no matter how hard she tried to push them off they only got heavier until they cut off her windpipe and blinded the rest of her hope.

  Jaxson being back in my life is just one more pile on my chest that I can’t seem to lift. I knew I hurt him, but now looking into his eyes every day, seeing what I did, because I couldn’t find a way to tell him why I did it, will be the thing that sends me over.

  I was hoping he would move on by now and be happy without me.

  Now I’m seeing the only way he can do that is by knowing what happened that day.

  I knock on his door early Saturday morning, after not being able to sleep all night. I had asked Sam for where Jax is living now, and she gave up the address without any hesitation. I’m still in a pair of blue sweats, and my hair is a hot mess in a tangled ponytail. I figured I didn’t need to dress to impress to confess my sins.

  The locks rattle and Jaxson opens the door in only a pair of tight gray boxer shorts.

  Fucking hell.

  Can I add another pile of weight to my chest that I was forced to leave this perfectly sculpted man? When he was mine he would wrap those arms, covered in sleeve tattoos, tightly around me as I slept. I never felt safer than being locked in those strong arms. Or how I would run my tongue along that lickable tattoo across his chest that says 'One Life to Live.'

  God, I've missed him. All of him.

  “River? What the fuck? It’s six am.”

  “I know. We need to talk.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus,” he growls and steps out of the way for me to come in. “What’s up? You look like shit by the way.”

  "Thanks, and you still look like an asshole," I snap and he chuckles heartily, giving me a peek at the dimples in his cheeks. "Listen, I didn't come here to go rounds with you. There's stuff I need to tell you. You have a right to know now."

  "Alright.”

  "Are you alone?"

  "Are you trying to ask if I took my date home?"

  Yes.

  "No. It’s just this information is for your ears only." Nobody can hear this but him. I don’t trust anyone else not to go running off with this information. Hell, I'm not even sure I trust Jax.

  "There's nobody here, Rivs. What I said last night—"

  I throw my hand up, cutting him off. He doesn't have to apologize.

  “It doesn’t matter, and it’s not about that.”

  “Am I going to need coffee for this?” he asks, running his hands through his messy hair. As he does so, his muscles flex in his chest, and I find myself drawn to every inch of him, all the way down to the impressive bulge that's sadly hidden in those gray boxers.

  All this staring is only adding to my torture. It's been way, way too long since I've seen this perfect man in all his glory.

  I chew on my lip and try to divert my eyes from his chest and package. "Yes, and a shirt."

  He smirks, and my eyes drop back to his chest wanting to get one last glance. I might be torturing myself, but he’s still technically my husband; I can look if I want. But there's no way I can get out what I need to say while looking at that.

  "Are you done?"

  My eyes fly up, and I try to look innocent, but I know I'm failing. Instead, I nod, words lost for a moment.

  “Alright. Can you start the coffee while I get dressed then?”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “This better be good for waking me up this early.”

  “You were already getting up,” I muse, remembering he was always up early so he could go run or go to the gym in the morning.

  He doesn’t reply, but I catch the tiny proud grin on his face before he makes his exit.

  I pad my way to his kitchen and there's a sense of familiarity that wraps around me with his apartment. As if I walked into my own home, like I belong here. I felt it the second I walked over the threshold, but I thought it was Jaxson's presence. The déjà vu gets worse as I pull out some of our old coffee mugs, and the sweet scent of coffee fills the room.

  As the coffee brews, I head to his living room to explore, and that's when I spot the brown leather couch. The same one that was in our apartment when we lived together. In fact, most of the furniture is the same. The end tables, the coffee table, and even tucked in the corner is my small white desk.

  I can't believe he kept it.

  I am home.

  My eyes close, and I’m taken back to our little apartment outside of Tallahassee, and I can remember him making love to me right on this couch. I can practically feel his hot breath on my skin and his fingers dancing along my arms.

  “What are you doing, Rivs?” Jaxson whispers, his warm breath tickling my neck, and his hands resting on my shoulders, making me realize the daydream is a reality.

  “Preparing myself to tell you all this.” I spin to look at him, and he drops his hands to his sides.

  He's slipped into a t-shirt that sports the logo "Rebels Tattoos" the tattoo parlor he used to work at, and black basketball shorts. Though it would have been a distraction I would have preferred he stayed in those gray boxer shorts.

  "What is it you need to tell me, River?" Jaxson says roughly, and his tone reminds me I didn't come here to gawk at this man; I came here to lay my demons to rest.

  “Why I left.”

  He scratches his nose and huffs. “Why now?”

  “You told me last night to keep breathing, well, the only way to do that is to finally tell you. You deserve to know, and it’s killing me to keep it to myself. Especially with you being here. I planned to tell you, but not till I was long gone.”

  “What do you mean long gone?”

  “You saw those Cayman Island accounts, right?”

  He nods.

  “After I marry Harry, my plan is to vanish. Use that money, make a new identity for myself and hopefully, start over. But not before taking my father and Harry down.”

  Jaxson falls back against the couch and stares at me. “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t leave you because I wanted to leave you. It was the last thing I ever wanted to do. Those two days I wasn’t home is because my dad found out about us.” My stomach twists into knots remembering the sheer emotional abuse my father inflicted on me. I still have nightmares, and the words creep in, haunting me every once in a while. I would have much rather been beaten down because at least bruises heal.

  Being told I’ll end up with the same fate as my mother. That he’ll do whatever it takes to beat me down till there’s nothing left. That he’ll make sure my husband and his family blame me when they have nothing left, and Scarlet ends up dying because of me. No matter what I did, Jax was going to hate me. But at least if he hated me I had always hoped he could move on and be happy, yet here he is.
/>
  “He threatened me, you, and your family, especially your sister if I didn’t go.”

  “How?”

  “He threatened to take away the care for your sister’s cancer treatments. Dolson is still the insurance carrier because of my mom, but he could’ve stopped that, and he was also buddy’s with Dr. Rashid. He then showed me all the paperwork he would use to put your dad in jail and to frame you for some bogus cyber crimes. I didn’t know how much he could do or get away with, but then again, he’s known to do some shit, Jax.”

  “You should have fucking told me,” he grits out through his teeth.

  “I didn't know how. He was watching my every step and listening to my every word. I was fucking scared, and I thought no matter what I did, there was no right way.”

  “I don’t believe this.” He jolts up from the couch and begins to pace in front of me. His knuckles hit his forehead as he processes everything I’ve told him, but I know he has no reason to believe me.

  I sigh. “You don’t have to. I don’t blame you.”

  “All this time. All this time, you could have told me,” he mutters and stops in his place. He turns and glances down at me, his hazel eyes staring through me. He doesn’t say anything for what feels like an eternity, each passing second his gaze grows more intense, which doesn’t help the butterflies in my belly. One of his tatted fingers unravels from his fists, and he points it at me. “Okay, if all that’s true, then why the fuck did he give you the company?”

  “Trust me; he didn’t want to “give” me anything. Remember how he wasn’t talking to me? We thought maybe we were done with him?” He nods. “It turns out it’s because he was busy trying to overturn my grandfather’s will before I found out about it. My grandfather left me the company in his will. When I turned twenty-five my dad was no longer allowed to work at the company. He spent months and months trying to fight it, especially the forced early retirement. Since the company was still owned by my grandfather and my dad was only the CEO there wasn't much he could do. My grandfather wanted him out and this was the only way he could do it. His final fuck you." I chuckle. “The business never belonged to my father, no matter how much he told people otherwise. When my mother married my father, she was the CEO of the company, but she gave up the title to him when she got pregnant with me, and well, my father was, as you say, babysitting the position till I could take over.”

  “That’s why you suddenly reappeared after being a ghost for so long?”

  “Yes. Because you see there’s a loophole to the will. I can give all or part of the company to my husband or children. As long as my husband or kids holds a business degree and whoever that is allowed to rehire him. So, when my father found out we were married, he was pissed because he knew there was no way you were going to let him come back to claim his corporate chair, and no way could he keep doing the shit he was doing. That’s why he forced me to end things with you. He’d worked something out with Harry, that if I marry him, Harry and my father will rule the nest after I sign over the corporation papers when we're married. Which I have no problem doing.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I want nothing to do with it.”

  “You could sign the company over to me?” His eyebrows wiggle, and I can see a whole scheme of ideas running through his mind. Too bad none of them would work. “I am your husband, and that would really piss your father off.”

  “If I didn’t have bigger plans to destroy my father, I would do it in a heartbeat. But, Jaxson, this is more than making daddy mad and him stomping his feet because he didn’t get what he wanted. You know that. He has his dirty deals tied up in Dolson. If everything goes the way I want, Dolson is going down along with it. There will be no way to recover the business. At least I don’t think there will be. You don’t need your name tied to this. Plus, you have a computer science degree. So, I don’t think it would work anyway.”

  “Fine. If you won’t let me take over, I still want back in on those files you won’t let me look at anymore. I want nothing more than to take down your father as well.”

  “You shouldn’t be getting mixed up in this, Jax.”

  “Like hell I shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t want to get into that now. Please,” I plead with him. I don’t want to fight with him right now, and there’s no way he’s not going to fight me on this. He wants his revenge, no matter how much I don’t want him mixed up in all this.

  “Fine,” he huffs and settles back on the couch next to me. His hand reaches out and runs down my cheek. “This whole thing is insane. What stops them from just killing you or…”

  “If I happen to pass away the company is to be dismantled. My grandfather blamed my dad for my mom's death but never had enough proof. This would have been a final way to stick it to my dad. It just sadly backfired.”

  “But you went to London to start over and study.”

  “I never went to London. I’ve never even been there.” Though I wish I’d spent the years there rather than spending it living the nightmare that I’ve had to endure.

  “I went looking for you at your dads house after I got the unsigned divorce papers. I figured that’s where you would be. Your dad’s housekeeper or whoever she was even said you went off to London. Then there were pictures on the company website of you studying over there.”

  “Housekeeper?” I snort. “A busty, ditzy blonde lady?” He nods. “Yeah, that would be my dad’s new bride. The pictures were taken on some cheap backdrop. He wanted to make sure I was keeping up with my act if anyone, namely you, came looking for me. As for London, trust me, I would have rather been there than where he dropped me off.”

  I rub my forehead, and Jaxson moves in closer to me. The scent of his Old Spice bodywash hugs me like a soothing blanket. It’s the comfort I need to push through to get the rest of this out.

  “I went to stay with an aunt in South Dakota. Basically, she treated me like Cinderella, and I was under house arrest, except when I was taking some business courses.” The classes were my godsend, my escape. Though there was always someone watching me at the door and the professors were in my father’s pockets. “Aunt Judy was as wicked as my father. She hated me and had no problem doing what my father wanted. Till he forced me back and made me get engaged to a jackass. He sent me there so you couldn’t find me if you decided to fight for me. I signed those divorce documents in front of my father to make sure he would leave you and your family alone. To also try to get him to trust me that it was really over between us and I wasn’t going back. Also, my lawyer had told me and my father that the divorce was finalized a few months later.” I remember the phone call and the glee on my father’s face to know that the deed was done and he would be able to move on with his plan.

  I might never know what great intervention happened to have those papers never be sent to Jaxson unsigned or for my dad to take my lawyer’s word.

  “I just wish you had told me. Given me some sign. God, damnit, River! If I had known, I would have taken you away. I would have protected you.”

  “I know. I know. I was scared. If it were only you, I would have, but I was worried about Scar; she was so sick then. He was listening to me break your heart. He might as well have had a gun to my head, and like I said, I didn’t think whatever I did would have been the right thing. I’m sorry. At that point, I wanted you to hate me because then you could at least move on to be happy. Forget about me.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “I'm seeing that.”

  “I came back wanting to hurt you like you did me.”

  “I kinda figured that.” I snort, and he smirks.

  “Then why would you let me stay?”

  “I wanted to fire you, but I don't know...I couldn't. What did I have to lose with you being there? Look at my life, Jax. It’s already ruined. If you want money, take it. I wasn't worried about that. If you want to hurt me, well there isn’t much more you can do that I haven’t done to myself. This nightmare is worse than a
nything you could do. I just ask for you to let me go when it’s over. I know you know about the funds being stored away. Those are for me. That’s the money he stole from me that my mom and grandfather left me.”

  In a way, I might be no better than my father, but the bastard stole my inheritances from my mom and then from my grandfather when he passed. His greed for money is never satisfied. The only way to get my freedom is to get it back and to do so I have to play his game. Hopefully, at the end, I'll be on a beach, and he'll be rotting in a jail cell.

  “Let me at least have some off that so I can just hide and never come back.”

  “You fucking think after what you told me I’m going to let you fucking run off again. Hell no.”

  What?

  “I didn't tell you all of this to ask for your forgiveness. You needed to know so you don't get caught up in all this again. I’ll transfer you money. Take it. Hopefully, it will help your family too.”

  He grabs me around the waist and pulls me into his chest. “I don’t want your fucking money River. Damn it. I want you.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RIVER

  His declaration throws me off kilter, making my head spin and my heart flutter. It's not what I ever expected when I came here this morning. The atmosphere between us has shifted. The chill that was wrapped around us has melted away and now we’re cocooned in a heat of passion and desire.

  The truth really does set you free.

  “How can you want me?”

  “How can I not? I spent years trying to hate you, and no matter what I do, I can’t fucking forget or get over you."

  “I’ve never forgotten you. I never wanted too.”

  His fingers braid into my hair, and he pulls me to his lips. I'm millimeters from kissing him again and tasting him after years of being deprived, when I'm struck with the memory of last night and his lips on that other girl.

  The one he wanted me to so desperately be jealous of.

  I pull away, and he raises his eyebrow at me. "What?"

  "So, who was the girl you were with yesterday?"

  He chuckles. "You were jealous."