Where are you Jaxson?
It’s after five and I haven’t heard a word from him all day. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth.
My paranoia has already had me calling hospitals, the police, and there’s been no sign of him. I even tried calling Liam, but I didn’t get an answer. I move to his bedroom, and my anxiety that’s currently working overtime has me checking his closets wanting to make sure his clothes are still in order.
It's silly because why would he leave? But my panic doesn’t have a rational button.
Opening the double doors, I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding when I see his suits hanging up, along with his shirts. I close the doors and plop down on the bed.
We haven’t uttered the words I love you yet. Simple three words that make your heart skip beats and make you feel all floaty. The thing is I have actions. Actions everywhere when it comes to Jaxson. For one, in my hand, I have a key to his apartment. Two, his ring is around my neck. Three, it’s just in the way he holds me, and the way he kisses me. Hell, I could say it’s in his possessiveness. But at this moment, I'm dying to hear the words. It would make everything about this suck ass day a million times better.
I grab a pillow from Jaxson’s side and place it to my nose, inhaling his musky scent of sandalwood. I need him. After the day I’ve had, I crave his closeness and his affection.
Today has sucked. Tomorrow won’t be any better. Nor will the next, and I just need him. I need to know what’s going on with him. I need us to be okay.
I need us to breathe together as one.
I need us.
After hours of walking back and forth over every inch of Jaxson’s apartment, trying to clean it, and even trying to watch TV, the front door finally flies open with a loud bang. Jaxson saunters in looking like death warmed over, with his hair standing in all directions, his shirt an untucked mess and dirty, and his face pale with dark circles under his eyes.
He looks as if he went through a war, but I’m so relieved to see him I ignore his wild appearance.
"Jax." I swing my arms around his neck, about to kiss his cheek, when the wretched smell of what I can only define as decomposition hits my nose. I quickly take a step back. "Babe, what happened to you? You stink."
His eyes turn black, and he pushes away from me. "That's what happens when you’re thrown into a jail cell in county for nine hours."
"Jail?" I gasp. "What? How?"
I called the police station. I covered my bases, I thought.
"Why the fuck do you care?" he snaps and throws his bag onto the floor.
"Of course, I fucking care," I snap back. Why would he ever think I wouldn’t? I push the question aside, trying not to take offense to it, but also not to be mowed down by the viciousness that’s shooting out of his eyes and the anger vibrating off his aura. "What happened?"
"I'm surprised you're not asking what I did."
Wow. Okay.
"Jax, I get you've had a long day…"
"Long day? Long day? Oh no, this wasn't a long day, sweetheart. This was finding out your wife abandons you again."
Abandons? What the hell?
"I'm right fucking here,” I yell, not going to let him use me as a punching bag just because he had a shit day. He’s not the only one. “I’m right here!”
"But where were you when I was calling for you to bail me out? Or when I had to get my car out of a fucking car lot after it was towed?"
Calls? I’m forging through my brain for a missed call on my cell. I had that motherfucker in my hand almost all day, but when my dad was with me. I would have known if he called me.
"I didn't get any calls, and I spent my day wondering where you were."
"You’re full of shit," he spits as he undoes the buttons on his button-up. But he’s shaking so bad I’m sure he’s going to end up ripping them off.
"How? How am I full of shit?"
“When they finally let me call you, after being processed and seen by some dick ass judge, I called you about twenty times. You don’t miss twenty calls, River. But I guess you were too busy with your newly bumped up engagement with Harry. How nice of you to have mentioned that to me, by the way.”
“I didn’t get any calls! You can look at my phone.” I slide my phone from my back pocket and go to hand it to him. He glares at it and moves to the kitchen, opening up the cupboards and pulling out a glass.
"And the engagement. That wasn't my idea. I—”
“I don’t fucking care. You should have told me before it went out," he yells and sends the glass to the floor, where it shatters. My mind flashes back to this morning with my dad, at his anger, and when he shattered my mom’s picture. For the first time with Jaxson, I don’t feel comfortable. Or safe. I hate it. I wrap my arms around myself and step back from him, ready to vacate if I have to.
“I didn’t know he was…” I whisper, my voice shaking. I’m desperate for this whole day to end now.
"I don't care, River. Right now, I don’t fucking care. I just want to take a shower and go to bed."
"Don't shut me out, Jax.
"Why? Only you can do that?"
The words hit me like a slap in the face. though, my whole-body stings from the after effect.
"Will you ever be able to forgive me?"
My question throws him off balance. His eyes widen like he can’t believe I even asked the question. But what does he expect? He thinks I abandoned him. The word is still circling around in my head. My heart is still skipping thumps because he thinks I would just let him rot if I had known he was sitting in a cell, for what, the sheer joy of it?
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I get for some reason you spent the day in jail, but you’re trying to find a reason to blame it on me. Like thinking I purposely didn’t answer my phone tells me you’re looking for a reason for me to fuck up. You told me you were trying…trying to trust me, but every time something goes wrong you retreat.”
His mouth opens and his right hand clenches, displaying the tattooed word love to me. But the last thing I’m feeling in this room is love. It’s hostility. “I am trying, but you didn’t answer your phone. I needed you. I wanted you. Not Liam.”
“What number did you dial? Let’s start there?”
“Your cell. 555-89—'
“Wrong.” I cut him off, shouting.
“What the fuck are you talking about? That’s your number.” There’s a large range of emotions that fly through his hazel eyes as he starts to mutter my old cell phone number again, furious, confusion, realization and last of all, shame. “Fuck.”
“I’m glad you remember my old cell though. But you’re so quick to jump on me like you’re set out to want to hurt me before I can hurt you, is that it?”
“I left my cell in my car when they fucking took me in and it’s the only number I remembered. Listen, I’ve had a long day. If Liam didn't come to bail me out I’d still be there.”
“Why didn’t you call the office? Sam? There's other ways to get in touch with me.”
“I called your office too. Took forever to get connected, but Luna said you left hours ago. Sam wasn’t in. I figured you were out celebrating when you didn’t answer your fucking cell. What did you do? Just sit here all day, thinking nothing was wrong?”
“No, and fuck you for thinking that. Hell, I called the police station and they told me they didn’t have you. I called the hospital. There’s not much I can do, Jax, after that.” I pause, taking in the destruction playing out in front of me. “I don’t know why we’re trying.”
“Rivs,” he says softly. Finally, a hint of guilt flits through his voice, but the thing is, right now, I’m emotionally done. My chest, my heart, my soul hurt all over.
“Just go take your shower and go to bed.”
He reaches out and grabs my hand. "Why can't you understand I've had a shit day? I don't want to deal with anything else right now?”
I roll my eyes and shake his hand off me
. It would have been better with an I’m sorry.
"You’re not the only one who had a shit day, Jaxson. You might have spent the day in a prison cell, well I spend every day in one. I thought we were finally setting each other free. I refuse to go from one hell to another, always worried about what’s going to happen next or worried about getting blamed. I'm not that strong."
“River.”
“What’s going to happen next time something happens? I won’t have you break me because you had a shit day and you’re looking for someone to blame." I grab my bag off the couch and bolt to the door. My breathing is ragged and my legs are like jello.
“That’s right, princess, run. It’s what you were going to do anyway after you married him right? Leave me again.”
My head falls to my arm, and I’m coming to the crux of some of his anger, but it doesn’t fix the venom of the words or the ones that will keep coming if I stay right now. “I’m not running.” I choke out, unable to look at him. “But if I stay, it’s only going to wreck us more and our rocky ground at this second can’t take another hit before it crumbles.” I fling the door open and despite his protest, I slam it shut behind me.
Like him, all I want to do is put this shitty day behind me. If it were possible I would burn this day to the ground. Though I still have a feeling deep in my bones, that this is only the beginning of the storm.
I make it to my car, my breathing labored and I'm seeing spots in front of my face. I grab my wedding band I have hooked to my bra strap and rub it with my thumb.
If I want true forgiveness and to restore the broken trust, there's only one thing left to do.
Take down the man once and for all that helped destroy Jaxson’s trust in me and finally get peace. For both of us.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RIVER
My heels click on the marble floors of Morgan Securities. This lobby is drab gray, clinical, and in desperate need of an update. I guess the Morgan twins haven't thought of redesigning since they took over. Honestly, I don't know why my mind is drifting to interior design when my mind needs to be focused on how I'm going to put an end to my father once and for all. But the thought of painting this lobby with a light airy blue is keeping me from thinking of him and my twisted mangled heart.
A security guard leads me up to the third floor where I'm meeting Sam. I'm still confused as to why she asked to meet her here when I called, but I wasn't up for talking at that point to ask her. The guard opens a door to a small office and a wave of red hair comes bouncing towards me as I pass the threshold.
"River, holy shit. Are you okay?" Sam grabs my face. "When you left me, you didn't look like this."
"Is that your polite way of telling me I look like a train wreck?" I sniff and wipe away the leftover dried tears from my face.
"A little. What happened?"
"Let's just say I've had better days, and I'm waiting for this one to be over. Now, what are we doing at Liam’s building?”
“This is our back up. You see, after you left this afternoon, Harry came storming into my office and fired me, along with Jaxson. Liam is allowing us to use his building as a little command center."
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" I scream, and my heartache has turned into primal anger.
Motherfuckers.
“Yeah, the dickhead came flying into my office and told me to pack my shit. If I wasn’t out of the building in an hour he would have security throw me out.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit." My teeth grind, and I'm so tempted to pick up the closest thing next to me and toss it across the room.
I knew my dad was up to something more than just wanting to bump up the wedding. He knew about Jaxson. He had to. There were so many signs and now I'm waiting for Dad to hit me with his next game.
“What about everything we have. Everything we've collected on them?”
“It’s fine. Everything is safe. Especially your accounts. Jaxson did a great job padding those and everything we were looking into should be fine. As luck would have it, Harry isn’t as smart as he looks, and he hasn’t closed out my access yet, and I can still log into everything. As you know, we had our information saved on our own servers along with external hard drives. Though I'm sure they assumed Jaxson was digging for shit because his access has been shut down, but we can work around that.”
“That’s great because that's the reason I wanted to come to talk to you. I think it’s time to take my dad down. Whatever we have it's going to have to be good enough.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Liam says as he steps into the office, biting into an apple.
"Liam. It’s good to see you."
He gives me a toothy grin. "Same to you. I can tell by looking at you Jaxson still had that stick up his ass when he saw you."
I wipe my face again with my hand, trying to brush away what’s left of my tears and makeup residue. I wish I had a mirror, but I didn't think I looked so bad that everyone thought I looked like a horror story. "What was your first guess?"
He chuckles. "Because it's Jaxson. Tends to only see in black and white when shit isn't going his way."
"Don’t I know it." I sigh and run my hands through my hair. "What was he charged with? He didn’t tell me."
"Some BS warrant. He was pulled over after his car was allegedly reported stolen. They made him sit around as they sorted out details and determined a ridiculous bail he couldn’t shell out. When I picked him up, I paid it for him.” I open my mouth to tell him I can repay him when he puts his hand up stopping me. “Don’t you dare worry about the money. I have my lawyers working on it now. If it’s a bunch of crap, like we know it is, they'll figure it out."
“A warrant,” I mumble to myself and then it all clicks. I should have figured it out when Jax said he was in jail, but my head was too scrambled dealing with Jax’s attitude. "Jesus…" I scream and kick an empty office chair, which effectively glides across the room to where Sam catches it.
"What?" Sam asks, eyeing me curiously after my little outburst.
"That has my father written all over it. He did the same thing once before to an investor trying to show his hand. I should've known. Wanting the wedding pushed up. I was just hoping it was more about this deal he wanted and not that he knew about Jaxson."
"He knows it's your father too, or that’s the vibe he felt when I picked him up."
So, he was already in a shit mood looking for a fight. Ready to blame me? Instead of my father?
"Then why did he snap at me?" I sigh, aggravated, even if I already know my answer.
"I can’t answer that, but he seemed caught up wondering where you were. Who you were with." I roll my eyes. He really did think I was just gonna up and leave again.
"Right."
“I know you might not want to talk about what happened, but if you’re saying you want to bring your dad down, shouldn’t Jax be here with you?” Sam runs her hand down my arm, and I exhale deeply and release my hurt to maybe the only two people who care.
"He doesn’t know I’m taking him down. We had a fight. I left. But I only did because I was afraid of what would happen if I stayed. Sometimes you can't take back things you say, even when you’re mad. I'm not sure it’s something we can make it past."
Though I really want it to.
"What? Why?" Sam gasps out and clutches my hand.
"Because I don't think he'll ever forgive me for leaving last time. I’m scared that if I make one mistake, that’ll be the end. Today was proof of that because he’s waiting for me to hurt him again, and that’s the last thing I ever want to do."
Sometimes the cracks in a broken heart can’t be mended, though there’s nothing more that I want than to glue ours back together and start over. We need to start over. He's my prince, my last chance at a happily ever after. He makes my heart whole.
Sure, I can go on living without him. I'll wake up every day, do what I need to get done to make it till the end of the day, but that's just…living, and it wouldn't be full. It
would be incomplete because I'll always know a piece of my heart is missing.
And I’ll spend my days wondering, what if.
“He's struggling,” Liam says, leaning up against the desk. “Listen, I’m not much for these girly emotional talks, but I do know this. He's still trying to come to terms with everything that happened before and what he’s learned. He loves you, but I think it’s the risk of losing you again that is playing some crazy war in his head.”
“He's not going to lose me. The thing is I need him right now.”
“I think seeing your engagement set him off. Did you two ever talk about your leaving? That was his biggest hang up when I last saw him.”
“Yeah. I mentioned you leaving last week and he flew off the handle,” Sam adds and I throw my head back.
“No. There was supposed to be more time.”
We haven’t even said we love each other yet. We didn’t need to. I knew how he felt. Though today, right now, I could use the reassurance.
Liam grabs my hand. “Listen, I know you two have had some rocky ground, but I don’t think he’s going to give up on you this time. He just needs to get that stick that’s planted in his ass out. I mean, the idiot stayed with me while I was going through withdrawals...and I wasn’t fucking pleasant. My own twin couldn’t deal with it. At all.” He chuckles deeply. “He might have said he came back to want to get even with you, but he really came back to get you. Me and Sam just helped give him that little push.”
“What are you saying?”
“I hired Jaxson knowing exactly who he was,” Sam pipes in and gives me a small, mischievous smile.
“I had known Liam from this convention.”
“Was it Comic-Con?” I giggle for the first time today. God, did I need it. Sam always goes to those conventions dressed as Black Widow.
“Maybe. If you must know, Liam makes one convincing Thor.” I turn to him, and he looks away embarrassed. “Anyway, I went to Liam’s company one day, looking for someone that could help me when I came across Jaxson. I knew who he was, even with the wrong last name. I asked Liam about it, and well, he told me that Jax was still hung up on you. I figured two birds, one stone, yada yada. He could use his hate and his talent to help us catch your father and, well, catch you."
Barely Breathing (Keep Breathing Book 1) Page 15