And it was ruined.
“I will not cry. I will not cry. He is done getting your tears.” I pressed my index fingers under my eyes and blinked up at the lights. Jaxon Steel was a man I cried too many nights over, wrote too many letters to that I never sent, and filled me with so much torment; I made sure I had convinced myself he was nothing but a mistake.
Now he was back, almost from the damn grave, and it proved he wasn’t a ghost haunting me anymore. He was a villain coming to collect his dues.
I would scream if I thought it would matter, but if I knew one thing about Jaxon, I knew my screams wouldn’t matter. He worked on his own time. Always had. I was better off sitting down and waiting patiently and doing my best not to freak out.
My insides were a tangled, knotted mess. I was more than freaked out, I was scared out of my mind, but I couldn’t let him think that. He already had the upper hand, and my fear would be the last time thing he would get from me since he already has had everything else.
“Brian, please be okay,” I whispered into the empty room, and my voice bounced back at me, reminding me that I was all alone. I wasn’t in love with the man, but I didn’t want to see him get hurt. It took him so long to get over Tracy’s death, and my friendship and comfort somehow turned into a relationship with him. I cared about him, and I realized I probably wouldn’t be any happier with anyone else than I was with him.
So when he asked me to marry him, I said yes, because why not?
A low buzz of something turning had me whipping my head around. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary until my eyes landed on a small black camera nestled in the corner. “Oh, you fucker! Why don’t you come in here and face me yourself! You think keeping me trapped in a room gives you the advantage? I’m not scared of you Jaxon. I haven’t been for a really long time.” I didn’t even know if he could hear me, but I hoped he could. I wanted him to know that his tactics wouldn’t work on me.
They were working.
I wouldn’t let him shake me. Not this time. For all I knew, he would throw me out of this plane thirty-thousand feet in the air and let me fall to my death.
At least I’d finally get to sky-dive.
Oh, that was some sick shit, Quinn. Stop thinking like that.
The camera stayed right on me, not moving left or right. I smirked when I got an idea. I grabbed the blanket off the bed and sauntered over to the built-in bar that took up the right side of the room. I still felt sick from whatever he made me breathe in, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. I climbed on top of the bar, careful not to fall, and grinned in the camera. “You want to talk to me? You want to look at me? Then come knock on the door, damn it,” I nearly growled with the hate I have had building up inside me for far too long and tossed the soft cashmere throw over the camera to block the view.
The camera tried to move, but the weight of the blanket was too much.
Take that.
I wiped my hands as if I just got them dirty and snooped around the room to see if there was anything good in here, I could use as a weapon. I was going to get the hell out of here, and if that meant taking Jaxon down in my attempt, then so be it.
While I waited for him to come to the room to see if he’d give in since he couldn’t spy on me anymore, I hated that I appreciated the rich taste he had. Everything was light-colored with masculine detail. There was an onyx bowl filled with fresh fruit in the middle of the coffee table. Everything looked line with gold, every edge of every hard surface in the room. How the hell did a felon like Jaxon make so much money?
I already knew.
No surprise here. It had to be criminal activity. Jaxon always had his hands in something he wasn’t supposed to, including my pants when we were sixteen. Not that I stopped him from taking off my pants because I was a lovestruck teenage girl, but if I knew what I knew now, no way in hell would I have gotten within five feet of him.
I knew he would never hurt me physically, but he has already done his damage mentally and emotionally. I had no idea what else he wanted from me, but I knew I wasn’t capable of giving it to him.
My strides were slow, dragging from the memories weighing me down. I flipped the light on to the bathroom, and my eyes widened when a walk-in shower greeted me with a white sink and large vanity mirror. Who the hell needed rooms like this on a plane? He could live here.
Maybe he did, and I was stuck looking at damn clouds out of a small window of a plane for the rest of my life.
I remembered a time when life wasn’t so complicated when I wasn’t a prize, and Jaxon wasn’t the cold-blooded killer he was now. Being kids was so much easier. We had no worries, and the worst thing he had ever done was sell weed in back alleyways.
My fingers touched my lips when a faint memory had my senses reeling, remembering his lips on mine. They were softer than they looked, gentle and experienced, commanding and refined. I almost felt his lips on me again, like a phantom limb pain, but what I missed was his mouth on mine. He was my first kiss.
My first love.
My first everything.
Remembering Jaxon that way was remembering another man because the man I loved would have never killed his sister. He was different now. Cold. Calculated. Selfish. Domineering.
And so damn handsome, he should be considered unholy.
He was always that way; the kind of man that mothers warned about, but the kind that brought the memories women talked about until their golden years. Yeah, even thinking about all the times we could have gotten caught and been in massive trouble made my cheeks warm. God, that man had my heart caught in a wild snare.
Only it wasn’t him that was left bleeding, it was me.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since throwing the blanket over the camera, and there wasn’t a clock in sight. I lost track of time the moment he stood up and objected at my wedding. He had balls of steel. Pun intended.
I was almost free of him, but freedom always came with a price, and Jaxon never failed to name his. If I remembered correctly, he said I was his for the next ten years? Yeah, he could go jump out of this plane without a parachute for all I cared. He wasn’t taking ten years of my life because he got ten years taken from him for killing his sister.
That wasn’t fair. I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be caught in whatever problem Brian and Jaxon had.
I sat down on the bed and startled when I felt something under me. My brows drew together, and I stood up again to see what I could possibly be sitting on. Fresh clothes that were neatly folded in a perfect square. Straight legged grey joggers and an over-sized t-shirt that made my breath catch.
He remembered?
Impossible that he still knew I loved my pajama shirts to swallow me. It was my favorite thing about staying over with him when we were younger. I’d always steal a t-shirt. This one looked new, just plain black, but I felt how soft and expensive the material was. A normal forty-dollar outfit was probably two or three hundred because that was Jaxon. He always had to have the best of the best of everything.
I was grateful the shirt wasn’t his. It hurt enough to know he remembered a detail like that about me, and it hurt even more when I realized a part of me was sad that it wasn’t his shirt. I could almost smell his cologne if I thought hard enough, another ghost of him no doubt that still lingered.
Those damn tears brushed against my eyes, but again, I reminded myself that he had enough of my tears. He didn’t deserve them. He didn’t deserve any part of me. Jaxon might have me here, against my will, but my presence would be the only damn thing he’d have.