Walking to meet him didn’t scare me anymore. Walking away from her that day did.
She retreated. She stepped down and waved a white flag in a way I’d never seen her do before.
The battlefield was where we thrived. We smelled the gunpowder, felt the heat of an explosion on our face, and ran forward toward the enemy.
We fought.
It was our dance.
But she saw something that was too big to lose and backed away from the fight. She didn’t charge forward for something she’d wanted for so long. Without her facing this, we wouldn’t have anything.
I was a fool to think I could have kept her from him and have our relationship not be tainted. Now, more than anything, I wanted her to come to him with me. For us to face him together. For her to conquer this fear, and for me to conquer him so we could move the fuck on.
His smile was big and so genuine when he saw me alone that I almost turned back around. He didn’t deserve any happiness. We both knew that. He’d admitted it to me time and time again. Yet, here he stood, like he’d won the damn lottery.
“Someone tipped me off that I might see my daughter with you today.” He tilted his head with that same smile on his face as I sat down opposite him across the metal table.
“She’s not here. So, your tip was wrong.”
“Was it? Or did I just see you open the door for someone who didn’t get out?”
I didn’t take the bait. “You want to talk business, Frank? Or you want to talk about your daughter who you have no communication with?”
“Maybe I should be in communication with her.”
“Making empty threats about something you don’t care about only hurts you, Frank. Not me.” His smile dropped off.
“My company’s stock is floundering because of that other damn candy company.”
I nodded. “The board is doing what it can.”
He slammed his hand on the table, eyes wild. “Do something more. You wanted to go fucking public with my company, and I took your advice.”
Frank always blamed a bad deal or idea on someone else. Normally, that person was me, and normally, he was right to blame me. He just didn’t know it.
“You’re a richer man because you went public, Frank.” My tone was neutral. This was all something I’d listened to before. It was routine.
“You should be apologizing for your misstep.”
I stared at him. He knew I wouldn’t.
He waved me off. “Fine. What can we do to pull back up? I want to propose the casino idea on the reservation. We could fund most of it. The profits would be huge.”
That was the problem with Frank. He always tried to have power over his family. That used to be his wife and now it was his daughter. He’d somehow found out about her trips to the reservation, knew he could taint her love for something and tried to constantly move in on it.
Whether he did it consciously or not, I saw his pattern. He’d used his business to cover up the dirt he threw at his wife first. He’d bought her nice clothes, put her in a nice home, made it look like he gave her everything. His business allowed him to cover up the pain and abuse underneath. He would do the same thing with Aubrey’s haven at that reservation. He’d ruin it. I’d been working toward making sure that business was never there to cover up his dirt again.
“I can propose it at the next meeting.”
“Don’t just propose it. Make it happen. Then, you need to be back here soon. I need an update.”
I let a small smile slip as I stood. “Sure, Frank. I’ll make sure you get that update by next week.”
With that, I walked out.
I was ready.
No one else was.
On my way back from visiting Frank, speculation rose in the media about who had been in the SUV with me. Most of them were guessing right. They referred to her as Frank’s daughter or the victim of the “Whitfield Downfall.” She was moving to the forefront of the media frenzy.
I’d hired a PR team to take Isabel’s place, but none of them could stop the snowball from growing. I knew that, and so did they. We’d have to let time pass and wait for another story to catch their eye.
I called Aubrey over and over. I texted her. I even left voice mails which I wasn’t inclined to do most of the time.
She didn’t answer and didn’t return my calls.
I called my brother but couldn’t persuade him into getting involved, and then I even called Roman. That man answered his phone enough that I knew he was purposely ignoring me, too.
The idea of him consoling her or even being there when she was upset with me had me fidgeting like a jealous fucking lunatic as my driver sped toward home.
I couldn’t shake the itch to see her. I needed this shit ironed out.
The infuriating woman wanted me to come there too. She had to. If she didn’t, she would have picked up or called me back or even texted me.
So, I rerouted and headed in that direction, knowing the time I spent on her cut into the preparation I had to do for my launch this weekend. My stock had to skyrocket with this launch for everything else to work. Yet, my mind couldn’t work through preparing for anything if she kept fucking ignoring me.
When I got to her place, I noticed Roman’s truck in the parking lot. I also noticed a couple of media outlets camped out, ready to catch a glimpse of us.
I slammed the door after telling my driver I’d call when I needed him.
As the cameramen swarmed me, I met them all with glowering eyes. “You’re on private property. I promise my team will disassemble your career if you don’t get the fuck out of here.’
Half of them dispersed and the other half I plowed through to get into Aubrey’s apartment.
I banged on her door. ‘It’s too late for this shit, Whitfield. Open the damn door.’
This felt like déjà vu, and if I met Roman in the hall, I’d probably lose it.
The locks clicked quick enough, and she appeared in her small shorts and tank top.
“That’s not an outfit to wear when you answer your door.”
“You were screaming through it, genius. I knew it was you. Who’s to say your outfit is one to wear when you’re banging on someone’s door?”
I stepped forward and she opened the door to let me pass. I caught how quickly she sidestepped me though. I saw the distrust and distance that was there again.
I sighed. At least we weren’t going to have this conversation in the hallway.
“You’re ignoring my calls, Whitfield.”
“I figured you didn’t want to talk since you sent me on my way this afternoon.”
Shaking her wouldn’t do me any good but the woman made me want to. “I told him I would be there.”
Her green eyes widened. “I don’t care what you told him!”
I tried to step toward her again but she retreated around the island and into the kitchen. “We can’t keep having this fight.”
“And you can’t keep visiting him without telling me what the fuck is going on,” she practically screamed.
“I tried to start that conversation today!” My mouth snapped shut as I realized I’d raised my voice too.
“I don’t want to have that conversation with you. You know who I want it from? I want it from him. I want him to explain everything. Then, I want to tell him his explanation isn’t good enough. Then, I’ll come home and you can do the same damn thing he did. Try to explain yourself.”
I saw hints of red tunneling my vision as I listened to her, I felt the damn hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and my jaw clenched tighter than it ever had as I responded, “We go at this together, you hear me? I don’t want you going there alone.”
She smoothed back her hair and stood taller like she could take on the world.
“You don’t get to go there without me, Whitfield,” I repeated.
“Don’t I? He’s my father, Jax.” The fight in her was back. I wondered why I wished for it and how I could want to engage in it.
“He’s nothing but a man who gave you life, then took the life that was most important to you.”
She stared deep down into the dark depths of me as she said, “Are you talking about my mother or are you talking about you? Because I lost both of you to him.”
Her words knocked the wind out of me, and she didn’t seem phased at all as I gasped for a breath. When I rushed to her that time and threaded my fingers through her loose hair, she didn’t resist. She met me halfway as I crushed my lips to hers.
When I moved to lift her legs, walking us back to her room, I told her the truth, “You never lost me. I’ve been with you every fucking step of the way.”
She didn’t respond except to bite my lower lip and wrap her legs more tightly around me.
We got to her bedroom and I fell onto her bed with her. She belonged under me and my body always, always, always longed for that, knew that, and fought for that. I slid my hand down her shorts, and she arched into me as she spread her legs.
Her body always knew where it belonged too.
When she gasped against my lips, I pulled away to bite at her collarbone, and moved her panties out of the way. Then, I was sliding my fingers in her and rolling my thumb over her clit just the way I knew she liked.
She barely moaned before I saw the color in her eyes deepen, her pupils dilate, and her teeth bite her lower lip.
“Don’t bother holding back, baby. We both know you want this.”
She groaned, “Please just shut up, Jax.”
I smiled and whispered in her ear as I started to pump three fingers in her. “Listen to me when I tell you we do things my way, Peaches.” My words had double meaning and she knew it as she narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s easier my way. Even if it’s not, my way is our only way.”
She started to respond but I curled my fingers to just the spot I knew she couldn’t handle. She writhed under me and screamed my name like I owned her and she knew it.
After that, I milked the aftershocks out of her until she was so damn pliable, she didn’t even try to help me move her when I flipped her over and took both her ass cheeks in my hands to massage them. “Glorious, Whitfield, fucking glorious.”
She mumbled something but I didn’t hear it. My mind was ruled by my dick at that point. I pulled her hips up and entered her from behind. I slid my hand down her back and wrapped it around her neck, feeling her at her most vulnerable spots. I pounded into her, claiming her over and over.
She took it. She wanted it. She loved it.
Just like I loved her.
We came down from our high and as we lay in the bed, I whispered, “I don’t do music anymore because of this.”
She looked at me with question in her eyes.
“It’s too raw for everyone to hear.”
“Music is your gift. People love that you shared it with them.”
“I never wanted to share it with anyone. I wanted to share it with you and you weren’t there. So, I shared it with the world, hoping you’d hear it.”
“Some days I wished you would have just stayed and shared it with only me. It’s completely selfish.”
I shook my head. “I’m singing for the launch tomorrow and that’ll be it.”
“Why?”
“I love being in the background of it but nothing else. What I feel for you, I can’t share that with anyone else anymore.”
She snuggled closer to me and I held her tightly, hoping to hold on to her just that way forever.
