Jackson glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure Tara was still following his car. The donut shop was only a few blocks away, but she’d insisted on driving herself, which was fine with him. But considering the area, he wanted to keep a close eye on her and her vehicle until they arrived and he had her safely inside the place.
Which was ridiculous, considering Tara seemed street smart and perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She gave him the distinct impression that she could handle all sorts of trouble without the help of a man, but he was quickly discovering that she roused protective instincts in him that he was finding hard to shake. In a short time, she’d gotten under his skin, and it was even more shocking that he’d allowed his fascination with her to evolve into something close to an obsession. And now here he was, taking Tara on a date, of all things, when it was nearly midnight on a work night.
He grinned and shook his head at the insane situation. He was going to be exhausted tomorrow at the office, but he didn’t really care. For the first time since his divorce three years ago, he actually wanted to get to know a woman better, instead of bypassing any kind of getting-to-know-you conversation and getting down to the basics of sex and physical release.
His infatuation with Tara was out of character for him, but he wasn’t going to question such a strong, instantaneous connection to this woman when so much in his life had been clouded with uncertainty and that vague sense that something was missing. With the discovery of his adoption and having a twin brother, he now understood where that void stemmed from and why he’d always struggled with a disconnect from his own family.
There was something about Tara and her lack of judgment about who he was that made him feel as though he finally fit in somewhere, that maybe, possibly, he’d found someone who truly understood him.
The illuminated sign for Angelo’s Donuts came into view, and Jackson turned into the small corner lot and parked his car behind the brick building. Tara’s older-model Toyota took the space next to his Porsche, and they both got out of their vehicles at the same time and met up behind his.
“Nice ride,” she said, nodding her head toward his shiny gray Carrera. “Aren’t you afraid your car might get jacked in this neighborhood?”
The thought had crossed his mind, but he wasn’t about to admit it and come off as an egotistical jerk who had an issue being in her part of the city. “That’s what LoJack and insurance are for, right?” he said of the tracking and recovery system he’d purchased with the car.
She laughed lightly. “I guess so. Hopefully you won’t have to put it to the test.”
They walked toward the front of the building, where two police cars were parked. The uniformed officers were standing by the trunks of one of their vehicles, drinking coffee and eating a donut while shooting the shit with each other. He glanced at the men, expecting one of them to be Levi—because of course that would be just his luck—but neither of their faces was familiar.
Jackson placed a hand on the small of Tara’s back as an excuse to touch her as he guided her toward the front entrance, nodding toward the show of law enforcement. “I don’t think I have to worry too much about my car,” he said in a low voice. “The place looks pretty well protected.”
“Yeah, the cops around here love Angelo’s.” As they passed the officers, Tara gave them a friendly nod, then said in a low voice only Jackson could hear, “Then again, what decent cop doesn’t like a good donut?”
He chuckled as he opened the glass door for her. “That’s so cliché.”
“I know, but it made you laugh.”
She gave him a cheeky grin as she brushed past him with a bounce in her step, and he had to resist the urge to smack her ass for being so impudent. The fact that he was that comfortable with her, this quickly, should have had him throwing up his walls to keep his emotional distance, but instead he let himself embrace the relaxed, easygoing sensation coursing through him. Tonight was all about enjoying himself with Tara, without second-guessing or over-examining whatever this was developing between them.
Surprisingly, for as late as it was, there were a few people in the shop, testimony to just how good the treats in this place were. As they walked up to the glass display housing an array of different donuts, a young man who looked to be in his early twenties grinned at Tara.
“Hey, Tara, it’s good to see you,” the dark-haired man with a slight Italian accent said. His gaze shifted to Jackson, the same friendly smile on his face. “And what are you doing here so late? Don’t you have a wife at home waiting for you? Or are you here because she’s got a late-night craving?”
“Dante, this isn’t Clay,” Tara explained quickly, because clearly the guy was referring to Clay’s wife, Samantha. “It’s his twin brother, Jackson. And this is Dante, Angelo’s son,” she said.
Dante’s brows shot up to his forehead. “Oh, wow . . . ”
Jackson braced himself for that adverse reaction he was getting used to, like the one he’d just been dealt back at the bar with Hank. But Dante clearly didn’t know the dynamics of the situation that made Jackson an outsider to the Kincaid clan, because he didn’t hesitate to thrust his hand across the counter for Jackson to shake.
“Nice to meet you, man,” Dante said without an ounce of awkwardness between them, his tone completely sincere. “What can I get for you two?”
“I’ll take a large black coffee and an apple fritter,” Jackson said, going with Tara’s recommendation.
Tara bit her bottom lip, an indecisive frown creasing her brows as she looked into the display case. “Now that I’m here, I can’t decide. Do I want the donut with the sprinkles on it, the chocolate French cruller, or the apple fritter?”
“How about all three?” Jackson suggested.
She gave him a sexy sidelong glance. “Are you trying to seduce me with donuts?”
“I might be.” He winked at her.
A small, beguiling smile curved up the corner of her mouth. She certainly didn’t appear opposed to the idea, and he had to shove his hands into the front pockets of his jeans so he didn’t drag her out of here and make good on that promise.
Tara glanced back at Dante. “I’ll have a coffee and an apple fritter, too,” she told him.
The kid bagged their donuts and set their items on the counter. Jackson paid for their order, and while Tara stopped to put cream and sugar into her coffee, he carried their late-night snack to a vacant table away from the front area so they’d have some privacy. She joined him a few minutes later and took a seat across from him.
Once they each had one of the deep-fried donuts set out on a napkin in front of them—still warm from being freshly made—he watched as she pulled off a corner and popped it into her mouth. She chewed and a soft moan rumbled up from her throat as she closed her eyes as if to savor the taste. But all Jackson could think about was her making that same arousing sigh of pleasure while he was buried deep inside her body. Another bite, and she made the same sound again, and this time his cock hardened with lust.
Fuck. “Please don’t do that.” His voice sounded strangled. He felt strangled.
Her guileless gaze met his, and she looked genuinely confused. “Do what?”
He swallowed his own bite of fritter, and damn, it was that good. “Moan like that.”
It took her a moment to catch his understanding, but when she did, the wicked light that glimmered in her gorgeous blue eyes tempted and enticed him, as did the sparkle of the diamond above her lip. “Like what?” she dared.
Did she really think he wouldn’t accept that challenge? He leaned across the table, his voice low and direct. “Like you’re in the throes of an orgasm.”
“I can’t help myself.” Her perfectly straight teeth grazed her bottom lip, scraping off a smudge of sugary glaze that he wanted to lick off for himself. “These fritters are crispy and buttery and sweet and all the bad things I shouldn’t have.”
He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes meeting hers from over the rim of the paper cup for a moment before he set it back down. “Am I one of those bad things?” he teased.
“Probably.” An emotion he couldn’t name crossed her features, bringing with it a vulnerability that changed the undertone of their flirty exchange and made her expression turn more serious than he’d intended. “But there’s something about you I find hard to say no to.”
He felt the same compelling attraction. “Then don’t,” he said, meaning it.
A wry smile tipped up the corner of her mouth. “There’s so many reasons I should say no.”
“Clay, Mason, and Levi?” he guessed.
She shook her head as she ate another bite of her donut, much more demurely this time and without the sound effects that had led them down this path of conversation in the first place. “Believe it or not, they aren’t at the top of the list.”
Surprise flickered through him. “Care to tell me what is?”
She wrapped her slender fingers around her paper cup, seemingly considering his question, but something ultimately held her back from confiding in him. “No. I’d rather not.”
“Fair enough.” Was he disappointed not to discover why she believed she shouldn’t be here with him? Absolutely, but he wasn’t one to push or pry, and what he wanted more than anything was to get them back to that place where they were both comfortable with one another. “Then how about you tell me how long you’ve been working for Clay?”
She latched onto the safer topic and smiled. “It’s been about six years. I started at Kincaid’s as a cocktail waitress, and he eventually trained me as a bartender while I went to school part-time for a business degree.”
Jackson recalled their conversation from last week, when she’d told him that she’d been one of those employees Clay had hired because she’d been down on her luck. More questions rose to the surface, but he decided to let her reveal what she wanted, in her own time. Now that they’d established more than just a casual acquaintance, he didn’t want to give her an opportunity to pull away, which would be too easy for her to do since she’d just expressed doubts about him.
“Now that I’ve finally graduated and have my business degree, Clay promoted me to manager of Kincaid’s,” she went on, picking another piece of fried dough off her fritter. “With me in charge and handling the main operation of the bar, it allows him to be home with Samantha a lot more, especially now that she’s pregnant.”
An unexpected pang of envy struck Jackson, and he resisted the urge to rub at the slice of pain in his chest. “He’s a lucky man.” It seemed his brother had the kind of perfect life Jackson himself once believed he’d had, as well. Getting married, having a devoted wife, envisioning a future with a family of his own. Yeah, Jackson had once thought he’d had everything he’d wanted since he was a young boy—unconditional love, a sense of security, and someone to create a solid life with—until he’d been blindsided by yet another betrayal by the one person he should have been able to trust the most. Unfortunately, his wife had been more interested in fucking one of his colleagues than being faithful to him and had ultimately chosen that same guy to marry once the ink was barely dry on their divorce papers. She’d gone on to have a kid with him, further twisting that knife she’d stabbed into Jackson’s heart, since he’d thought they’d been trying to conceive at the time.
Collette was yet another person who’d not only deceived him but made him feel as though he wasn’t good enough. Was it any wonder he had issues when it came to trusting people with his emotional well-being? His entire life had been a farce and filled with rejection, and his marriage had been a complete sham. His track record sucked.
He pushed thoughts of his ex-wife from his mind, far more interested in Tara’s story. “Now that you have a degree, are you going to find another job, in a different field?”
“No.” She hesitated, fiddling with the corner of her napkin, then seemingly decided to explain why. “I wanted a degree because . . . well, it helped me focus on something positive at a time in my life when I desperately needed a direction. I’m perfectly content where I am, and Clay is incredibly generous when it comes to my salary. Not only do I enjoy working at Kincaid’s, a part of me owes Clay for . . .” She shook her head and glanced away. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
She pretended interest in drinking her coffee, and he was beginning to realize that this woman was full of deep, difficult secrets. He wanted to know what she’d been about to say, because the pain he’d momentarily glimpsed in her eyes did matter to him. But again, he traded in one topic for another.
“Does your family live around here?” he asked, hoping that was an easier subject for her to talk about.
Another strained smile told him he’d missed the mark. “No. My father is an army sergeant at Camp Butler in Springfield, which is about two hundred miles away from here. My parents have lived there for about ten years now and I don’t see them much. My brother is also career military and is currently stationed in Germany.”
He tipped his head, curious to know why she’d live so far away from her family. “So what brought you to Chicago?”
“I needed a change.” She shrugged, her reply just as vague as the rest of their exchange. “What about you? What is your family like?”
Now that he was in the hot seat, he understood Tara’s reluctance to delve into parts of her life that were less than perfect or ideal. He finished his coffee, debating where to best start to describe the people who’d raised him.
“I’ll admit I’m curious to hear how you were adopted,” she went on when he remained quiet for too long, more relaxed now that she wasn’t the focus of their discussion. “Clay said his mother sold you to the woman who raised you for three grand . . .” Her voice trailed off, a sudden apologetic look passing across her expression. “I’m sorry. If you’d rather not talk about it, I completely understand.”
“No, it’s okay,” he assured her.
Since learning the truth from his aunt, the only three people he’d told about the illegal adoption were Clay, Mason, and Levi. Up until this point, he’d kept everything to himself because the situation was so fucked up, and honestly, he was still trying to come to terms with his true identity—as a Kincaid and not a Stone as he’d believed his entire life.
“It’s true,” he confirmed of his birth mother’s actions, and told the story as he’d heard it from his Aunt Becca a few weeks ago. “My mother, Leila, didn’t think she could have kids. My father and she tried for years, and when she couldn’t get pregnant, they went to a specialist who confirmed she had endometriosis, and even though she underwent surgery, the doctor told her that, without fertility treatments, the likelihood of her conceiving were slim to none. At the time, my father was just getting his construction business started, and they couldn’t afford the cost of in vitro fertilization, but my mother was desperate for a baby.”
Tara sat back in her chair, her eyes soft and compassionate as she listened intently. He had to admit that it felt good to really talk about what had happened with someone who was sincerely interested in hearing the details, unlike his brothers, who’d only heard the bare facts and had barely believed those as it was.
He exhaled and continued on. “Someone at the diner where my mother worked told her they knew a way she could get a newborn. They set her up with a guy who was a go-between for my birth mom, who was a junkie looking to sell one of her twins for money to buy more drugs. Three thousand dollars in cash later, my mother had the baby she thought she’d never have.”
“She must have wanted you very badly to go to such extremes.”
“I’m sure she did,” he agreed, though he couldn’t stop the bitterness that rose to the surface. “My father, though? Not so much. From the moment Leila brought me home and he found out she’d bought me from a crack whore and prostitute, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But he also realized that they were stuck with a baby she’d essentially bought on the black market, along with the lies my mother told people about how they’d adopted me through legal channels. I felt his resentment every day of my life.”
He hadn’t realized he’d clenched his fist on the table until she reached a hand across the space separating them and placed her cool fingers on his tense arm. He looked into her deep blue eyes, and the kindness and caring radiating from them made the tight feeling in his chest start to ease.
“Who you were born to wasn’t your fault,” she said emphatically.
He heard the trace of anger in her voice, all on his behalf, and it made him feel lighter somehow, knowing finally someone cared about what had been done to him.
He pressed his fingers against the table before answering. “That would be a logical person’s thought process, but according to my Aunt Becca, my father couldn’t get over where I’d come from. When I was little, I remember wanting my father’s attention so badly, and I couldn’t understand why he ignored me and treated me like I was a leper. And when my mother got pregnant five years later and had my brother, Oliver, the fact that he was that miracle baby they never thought they’d have—and now I realize their legitimate child—made that separation between me and my father even worse.”
He paused and drew a deep breath. “It was like I didn’t even exist for him, and when he did acknowledge me, it was usually to point out some kind of failure or to put me down. But it was never that way with my brother. As Oliver got older, he’d take him fishing and leave me at home. He coached Oliver’s soccer team and never bothered to come to any of my baseball games, and because my brother watched the disdainful way my father acted toward me, he did the same thing.”
Tara winced but Jackson was more lost in his own thoughts. Now that everything was out in the open, he couldn’t seem to stop the flood of memories from escaping. It was like a vein had burst open and all the toxic poison he’d been carrying around was finally spilling out, purging him of all the pain he’d kept buried for so long.
And Tara was there, listening, comforting him with her understanding silence.
“My mother died of breast cancer when I was ten, and after that, I swear I never felt so abandoned and alone and confused. I couldn’t understand why my father treated me the way he did, and I spent years trying to be a good kid, doing everything I could to please him, to earn even an ounce of the attention he gave to Oliver, but it never made a difference.” Looking back, Jackson could only imagine how pathetic his father thought he’d been in his attempts to gain his approval. His affection.
“Jackson . . . ” Tara’s husky voice was filled with heartache for him. “I’m so sorry.”
A sharp exhale escaped him as he scrubbed a hand along his jaw. He forced an indifferent smile, trying to eliminate the oppressive mood that hung in the air now that he’d tainted it with his depressing backstory. “It is what it is, right?”
She nodded, but the warmth and caring never left her gaze. “Now that you know about where you came from, have you tried talking to your father?”
“No.” The word came out harsh and unyielding. “We’ve been estranged for years. That relationship is irreparable.” Initially, he’d thought about confronting his father about the past, but Jackson knew there was nothing Paul Stone could say or do that would allow Jackson to forgive him for the emotional and mental abuse his father had put him through. There was no remorse on his father’s end, so what would it resolve?
“I get it,” she said, her reply giving him the impression that she’d had challenging relationships of her own that hadn’t ended well, either. He hoped that someday she’d trust him enough to confide in him as he’d done with her.
“Some things . . . some people, won’t ever change,” she murmured. “Sometimes, it’s for the best to just move on.”
Jackson would like to believe he had moved on from his father’s narrow-minded ignorance. And now he was more than ready to move on from this dismal conversation.
He crumpled his napkin and stuffed it into the empty paper bag. “Jesus, for a first date, that was way too depressing,” he joked.
“No, it wasn’t.” She smiled at him as she added her napkin to the trash, too. “I’m glad you told me. Your brothers should know how you grew up, that it wasn’t as easy or perfect as they might think.”
He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t think they want to hear the truth.”
“Maybe they’re not ready to hear it yet,” she qualified. “They’re not going to ignore you forever, and I think they just need some time to come around.”
She sounded so optimistic that he decided to remain hopeful, as well. He had nothing left to lose. “I suppose time is the one thing I have plenty of.”
“Exactly,” she agreed with a bright smile as she stood, then looked down at her hands with a grimace. “I need to wash my sticky fingers before we go.”
He watched her walk down a short hallway, his gaze drawn to the sensual sway of her hips and that pert ass he knew would be a distinct part of his fantasies when he went to bed tonight. Once she disappeared into a side door, he collected their empty paper cups and threw all of their trash away, then waited for her to return.
As he stood there, he realized that over the course of their conversation, that constricting feeling in his chest that he’d been carrying around the past few weeks, since he’d learned of his illegal adoption, had decreased. It no longer felt like a crushing weight, and even some of his anger toward the situation had abated. He wasn’t a guy who was big on spilling his guts and airing dirty laundry, but then again, he’d never had someone who’d been so focused on him and genuinely interested in what he had to say that wasn’t work-related.
In an hour’s time in Tara’s company, he’d given her more insight into his past, had revealed insecurities he’d carried around with him for most of his life, and laid out the entire foundation of his not-so-great childhood. Trusting someone didn’t come quickly or easily for him, yet he’d let his barriers slip with her, had shared deeply emotional things with Tara that he’d never even told his ex-wife because she’d never asked. And he’d never offered because a part of him feared she’d find him lacking, just as his father had.
And fuck if that hadn’t happened anyway. In the end, he’d realized that Collette had her own agenda when it came to their marriage. She’d been enamored with his wealth, his success, and his social connections in Chicago. After two short years of marriage, everything had lost its luster, including him.
But there was something about Tara that got him, in a way that no one else ever had. Maybe it was her connection to the Kincaid brothers and being privy to their turbulent past that made it easy for her to understand all the pain and grief their birth mother had caused, for his siblings, and for him, each in different ways. Or maybe it was those secrets of her own that he’d glimpsed that allowed Tara to relate so well to his predicament.
Whatever the reason, he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.
