“I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, I did have those thoughts about you when I saw the way you acted and then went into rehab, and that was wrong of me. It was wrong for anyone to judge you when they didn’t know what you were going through. I’m sorry for being a judgmental bitch before I met you, but now that I’ve gotten to know you, I see you in a totally different light. Now I want the rest of the world to see you as I see you. To make them forget about your past and only see the strong person who sits before me now.”
His sad eyes scanned my face for several minutes. With each passing second, I wanted to cry at the hurt little boy I saw reflected at me in his eyes.
“I wish I could change my past. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I have to live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life. I only hope to redeem myself in your eyes and the eyes of my friends.”
“You’ve already redeemed yourself in my eyes, and if I read Alex correctly, you never had anything to worry about with her. You need to heal yourself in here,” I patted his firm chest where his heart raced behind my hand. “You need to forgive yourself and start living in the now. Look forward to your future and stop looking back at the turn in the road where you nearly crashed and burned.”
“Fuck, you’re amazing.” Jenner’s large calloused hands cupped the sides of my face, and his brown eyes blazed with untold emotion. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
That was all the warning I got before his mouth crashed into mine.
Chapter Sixteen
Jenner
I felt her shock before she gave in to the kiss. Her soft lips moved against mine. My teeth scraped against the soft flesh of her bottom lip, and when my tongue licked along the seam of her pouty mouth, begging to be let in, she opened for me. The moan that escaped her as I dove inside changed something inside of me. I couldn’t hold back. No one had ever said words like that to me before or believed in me that way. I pulled her flush against me, needing her close. The feel of her plump breasts as they pressed against my chest made my cock ache to be inside her, but I knew it was too soon.
Abbi wasted no time as her fingers threaded through my hair and tugged as she angled her face to kiss me deeper. Was this how our wedding night had been? If she kissed me before I asked her to marry me, I now knew why I’d proposed to her after only knowing her for a few short hours.
A loud knock sounded on the door, breaking us apart. We stared at each other, panting as someone from the crew spoke. “Mr. Jenner, it’s time.”
“I guess . . . wow. I guess you should go.” Her eyes scanned every inch of my face.
Was she looking to see if I regretted our kiss? The only thing I would change was for it to have happened at home and for us to not be interrupted.
“Are you not coming with me?” I hoped I hid the disappointment from my voice at the thought of her not watching me, even if it was only for a short time before she had to get to work.
She looked down at her hands that were twisting the hem of her oversized shirt. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted me to come or not since I don’t know about your show.”
“I’m sorry I acted like an asshole, but it does sting that you know nothing about my work.” It more than stung, but I was trying to prevent another fight. I needed to swallow my pride and accept that Abbi and who knows how many more people in the world had stopped watching anything I was in because of my actions. Hopefully, with Abbi’s influence, I would eventually change their minds.
“I’m really sorry, but I wanted to be honest with you, and I hope you’ll always be honest with me. All my life, I’ve always been truthful, but after Greg . . . ” I must have given her a quizzical look since she hadn’t explained who this twat waffle Greg was. “Greg was my boyfriend who cheated on me with pretty much anything that moved. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, or I would have dumped his sorry ass. Even though he cheated on me for the duration of our relationship, he wanted me to move to Boston with him.” Her brows pinched together as she continued. “I don’t know why he wanted me to go with him when he obviously didn’t care about me, but that’s of no consequence here. The point is, after all his BS, I can’t stand liars. Lying and cheating are my hard limits.” Abbi sat back on the floor and stared up at me.
“While you don’t know everything about what went down with Poppy, we’ve been through similar circumstances in our relationships, and I feel the same way you do. I won’t tolerate people who lie to me, and I can’t stay in a relationship if I find out they’ve cheated.” It felt good to know we were on the same page. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Abbi would never cheat on me. She was a breath of fresh air compared to my ex. I only hoped she felt the same way about me.
“Mr. Jenner, you’re needed on set. Now,” the voice demanded.
I was sure I’d pissed off everyone once again, but I didn’t care because I’d just had the most amazing kiss with Abbi and a breakthrough. Standing, I pulled Abbi up with me. Dipping down, I gave her a peck on her parted lips. I wanted more. So much more. But it would have to wait until we got home.
I was floating on cloud nine as I stepped from my trailer with my wife’s hand in mine. It still felt weird to think of Abbi as my wife. It was strange to do everything in reverse, but I kind of liked it. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure if Abbi was still planning to leave once our year was up. It was still too early to tell, and I felt like a pussy ass girl thinking about getting my feelings hurt down the line. Who knew if we’d even work out?
Abbi lifted up on her toes as we walked and whispered in my ear. “I’ll take the blame if they’re mad at you.”
“Don’t do that. I want them to like you, and they already hate me.”
Abbi wrapped her hand around my bicep and leaned into me as we made our way inside Warehouse One.
“Wow,” she said excitedly by my side. “I never imagined it looking anything like this. There’s a police precinct and a house in one building.”
“Wait until I’m on a movie set, and you see the scale of everything then. This is small in comparison. This is a baby set, and there’s more for the show, but for my scenes today, I’ll be in here. Being sick.” Until now, I had forgotten my makeup when we were in the trailer, but now I remembered how sickly Clara made me look. “Did you like kissing a dying man?” I could only pray my character was sick enough I’d die and be let go from the show. Today wasn’t my finest look.
Abbi scoffed. “You’re still handsome, even sick.”
“You might not think that if I was sweaty with a fever and lying around all day.” I laughed. Playing sick and being sick were two different things. I rarely got sick, but when I was, I could admit I was a horrible patient; maybe it had something to do with the people who’d taken care of me—rather who hadn’t taken care of me.
“Jenner, stop fucking around and get into position. We need to make up for yesterday!” Rick, the director, yelled from across the set at me. He hated me; I swore, he tried to make each day here as miserable as possible.
“I’ll introduce you to everyone later. You can sit in my seat,” I pointed toward the row of director chairs as I made my way into the bedroom setup.