Текст книги "Before We Fall"

Автор книги: Courtney Cole

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Chapter Two

When I open my eyes, almost two hours have passed. I know this by the fuzzy green light of the clock. I’m a little disoriented as I sit up and look around at furnishings that aren’t mine, until I remember that I’m not home. I’m at my brother’s house for the weekend.

“Morning, sunshine.” A soft voice startles me.

Snapping my head around, I find the gorgeous blonde with the strange name from the pool.

Jacey

She’s sitting in the darkness now, scrolling through her phone. Has she been watching me sleep? Or was she just too polite to wake me up?

Either way, I fight back a growl that my privacy has been invaded.

“What are you doing in here?”

She’s perched on the side of the bed, watching me. She’s even hotter than I remember her being: long legs, full tits, tiny waist. I usually prefer taller women, but this girl is perfectly proportioned… and there’s something excruciatingly sexy about her. Something about her just screams fuck me.

She shrugs now, unconcerned with my agitation, her long blond hair falling over the side of her shoulder.

“Your brother sent me up. My friend Kaylie is going to be staying the night here, apparently. With him.”

“And?” I raise an eyebrow.

Is this supposed to shock me? This shit happens all the time with Sin. He doesn’t give a shit about sloppy seconds. He says that’s what condoms were made for. Fucking rock stars. They’ll fuck anything that isn’t nailed down.

Jacey stares at me, unabashed and definitely not intimidated, her eyes flashing in the dark.

“And she was my ride. Your brother said you’d be happy to drive me home.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” Annoyance wells up in me and I glance at the clock. Two fucking A.M.

She nods. “Yeah. He said that he lets you take up garage space here to store your car, so the least you could do is drive it for him once or twice.”

“He told you to say that, right?”

She nods again. “Yeah. He said he would rather you take me than call me a cab. He doesn’t want some random cabbie tweeting about the party.”

As much as I hate to admit it, that’s pretty smart. Everyone around here loves to hear news about Sin Kinkaide, and he tries hard to keep his parties secret. Or, at least, the nature of his parties. I sigh. Fuck.

“Okay,” I tell her tiredly. “I’ll take you. Give me a minute.”

“Take your time,” she tells me graciously, leaning back against the silk bed cushions. I can’t help but appreciate her tiny uniform. It’s barely more than a swimsuit, and her tits peek out of the top. I look away, not letting her see that I appreciate her tight body.

Girls like her… they can sense the slightest bit of interest and they latch on like piranhas. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. Never mind the fact that she’s trying to act uninterested now, unimpressed with who I am. She’s just pissed that I shut her down earlier.

I walk into the bathroom, splashing my face with cold water before I head back out and grab my keys from the nightstand.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

She follows me down through the thumping music and the people, the ones dancing and the ones fucking in dark corners. Seriously. Sin’s parties get out of control. I’m eternally glad that I don’t live his life, with people flooding my house day and night.

The entire world might know my face, but I’m actually a very private person. Every time I come here, I’m always ready to go home by the end of the weekend. It might be entertaining, but trying to avoid all the people who want to interact with me is exhausting.

I lead her past the seven stalls in his garage, to where my charcoal-gray 911 takes up one of the slots. It’s my Chicago car. I keep it here so that I have something to drive whenever I come home, something I can take out on the track and race when I get bored. I have one just like it at my house in California, because what’s better than one Porsche? Two.

Jacey takes in the car, her dark eyes widening in appreciation, but she doesn’t say a word. She simply slides inside, and as she does, I notice that she’s definitely wearing panties. I see a glimpse of red satin through the cuff of her short shorts as she crosses her legs. I smirk, because she doesn’t know it, but I fucking love red satin on a woman.

She fastens her seatbelt, curling up in the seat like she was born there, oblivious to my approval of her underwear choice.

“Where do you live?” I ask instead as the boxer engine roars to life in the way only a Porsche’s can.

“Down by Eighty-Seventh Street,” she answers, staring out the window as we roll down my brother’s driveway past the manicured lawns.

“Calumet Heights?” I ask, picturing the older Chicago neighborhood in my head. She nods.

“Wow, you still remember your hometown. Impressive.”

I roll my eyes, not sure if she’s being sarcastic or not. “I’ll never forget where I came from.”

The car’s engine purrs as we make our way toward the gates, and casually I glance to the side, expecting to see the green lawns, trees, and shadows of my brother’s estate. But something else is there, and I freeze, my hands tightening on the wheel as I slam on the brakes.

“What the fuck?” Jacey sputters in confusion as her body jerks forward. But I’m already out of the car and striding toward the two people sitting on the bench to our left.

My sister Fiona and my one-time best friend, Cris fucking Evans, look up at me in surprise from the dark. Her arms are wrapped around his neck. His tongue was down her throat thirty seconds ago.

“What the—” Cris manages to say before I yank him off the bench and throw him to the ground. “What the fuck, Dominic?” he barks out, scrambling to get to his feet and balance on his lanky-ass legs, poised to lunge at me if he has to.

I smile grimly and glance at Fiona. “What the hell is going on, Fi? Tell me it’s not what it looks like.”

My sister sighs and calmly stands up, approaching me carefully.

“It’s probably what it looks like. Cris and I are dating, Dom. I wanted to tell you, but with things the way they are between you… well, I was scared about how you would react.”

I ignore the ice water that seems to pump through my heart.

“Naturally,” I answer calmly. “Of course you are. Because obviously you wanted to find the biggest douche on the planet and date him. If that’s the case, you did a stellar job.”

“Dom.” Fiona sighs again. “I don’t know what he did to you, but six years is a long fucking time to carry a grudge. You need to get over it and move on. I love him, and you’re going to have to live with that.”

“You… what?” The words feel like wood on my tongue, dry and heavy. I can’t even believe what I just heard.

Fiona stares at me, her green eyes assessing me carefully. “I love him.”

I hear Cris breathing in front of me and see Jacey standing on the perimeter, but everything fades instantly away but this: Cris and Fiona. Together.

The idea that my baby sister would stab me in the heart like this is unfathomable.

“How could you do this?” I demand of her. “You know how I feel about him, Fiona. Does the phrase ‘blood is thicker than water’ mean anything to you? You’re way better than he is, and he doesn’t deserve you. He’s too fucking old for you anyway. Jesus.”

There’s a brief pause while Fiona slides her hands to her hips, then she erupts.

“Jesus Christ,” my baby sister snaps. “You’ve got to get over yourself. He was your best friend, Dom. Someone who I grew up with too. And for all these years, you’ve expected all of us to just take your word for it that he’s some sort of monster without telling us why. If you want us to have your back, you have to trust us with a good reason. If what he did to you was so fucking bad, then you need to tell me what the fuck he did.”

I swallow hard, because the only way I can effectively warn her away from Cris is to tell her the truth. And I can’t do that. The wound is that fucking deep, open, and raw. It’s years old and it still stings as much as it ever did. I can barely even think about it, much less talk about it.

I take a deep breath, then another. As I do, I notice that Jacey has walked up and is hovering in the shadows, watching us uncertainly. I look away from her and back to my sister.

“Can’t you just trust me?” I finally ask slowly. “As your big brother, can’t you just fucking trust me?”

Cris starts to say something, but I snarl at him. My sister holds out a hand toward him in caution before she looks back to me. She knows me well enough to know that talking to Cris is only going to set me off.

“Dominic, I love you even though you’re bullheaded. I do trust you. But we grew up with Cris, and I trust him too. I know this somehow must involve Emma. But Dom, she’s gone. Whatever happened, it’s not relevant anymore.”

Fuck. The mere mention of Emma’s name is a sucker punch to my gut and I want to bend over so that I can breathe. I also want to toss my sister over my shoulder and carry her away… far, far away from Cris.

Not relevant? Untrue. It will be relevant until the day I die.

Fiona stares at me, waiting for me to say something. But the words won’t come.

I can’t tell her all of the things that she ought to know. I can’t force the ugly words out of my chest where they’ve been hidden for so long. It’s best to leave them buried. That’s definitely one thing I’ve learned in life.

“Why don’t you ask Cris what he did?” I ask bluntly, staring a hole into my ex-best friend’s fucking forehead. “Just ask. See if he’ll tell you the truth.”

Cris opens his mouth, but Fiona shakes her head.

“We’re not doing this here, Dominic. We’ll discuss it when we’re calmer. And don’t you think I’ve asked before? He said if you want to talk about it, you will.”

What a fucker.

Cris clears his throat and I stare at him, looking at him closely. He’s been gone for years, away at college and then building up a business. But he looks the same as he ever did. Longish blond hair, blue eyes, lanky form. The years haven’t hardened him like they’ve hardened me, something else that pisses me off about him. He speaks now, hesitantly.

“Dom, we’ve got to stop this. It’s been years, years of blaming me for something that wasn’t my fault. It’s time to let it go.” He drops his big, lanky-ass hands and stares at me, waiting for a reaction, and all I can do is stare at him incredulously.

For a minute, I don’t see the man in front of me, I don’t even see the boy I grew up with… the boy I played little league with, made forts with, caught frogs with. I see a name.

His name.

Spoken from my dying girlfriend’s lips. I wince as I remember how pale she was, how she was shaking and cold, how she could barely speak, but she still managed to say his name.

I glare at him, trying like hell to not wrap my hands around his pathetic neck and squeeze.

“Not your fault? Really? Because the last thing she said was your name. Your. Name. Not mine. Not her mom’s or her dad’s. Yours. We both know why your name was the last thing on her lips. And you honestly have the balls to stand there and tell me that I have no right to be mad at you?”

Cris looks at me, his expression pained, his eyes guarded. I hear Fiona gasp, but her hand clamps over her mouth and she doesn’t make another sound. I’m sure this is the first she’s heard of any of this… of Emma’s last words.

Cris steps toward me.

“That’s not what I said. I said it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t say you didn’t have a right to be mad. You do. You have the right to be pissed at the whole fucking situation. But it was a long time ago. And you don’t know everything that happened. You wouldn’t talk to me before I left and you’ve never picked up the phone, so I can explain—”

“And I’m not going to start now,” I interrupt. “I don’t give a shit about anything you have to say. And I don’t give a fuck that it was a long time ago. It happened and I’ll never forget it.”

“I’m dating Fiona,” Cris says bluntly. “So you’ve got to try.”

I shake my head. “Fuck you. That’s Fiona’s choice, not mine. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t do anything that I don’t want to do.”

I turn to leave, and he says, “And you wonder why Emma did what she did?”

That’s when I see red.

It billows in from the corners of my eyes like red fog filling my vision, and I lunge at Cris with a roar. I can’t hear, I can’t think. All I can do is move. Everything is just a blur of fists, swearing, and grunts.

I feel his hair in my fist and then my knuckles connect with his face, over and over; his jaw, his cheekbone, his eye. The next thing I’m aware of is Jacey thrusting herself in the middle of us, catching me mid-punch. The side of my fist grazes her cheek and her hand flies to her face, cupping it. But she still struggles to get us apart.

Fiona rushes up to Cris, her fingers dabbing at his bleeding lip, her arms hugging him close.

“What the fuck, Dom?” she shrieks, her arm wrapped around Cris’s shoulder as if she’s shielding him from me. “You’re a fucking lunatic. Get the fuck out of here.”

I try to ignore the pain of the… the idea that not only would my sister date my worst enemy, but that she had the balls to bring him here, where she had to know I’d be.

It’s definitely a betrayal and it’s something I would never do to her. I take a breath, ragged and raw, and stare at her, not wanting to say anything that I’ll regret.

“I’m staying here while I’m in town, Fiona. You get the fuck out of here. And take that waste of space with you.”

Fiona stares at me in hurt and rage and disbelief as she leads Cris away. Before we can get back to our car, red and blue lights burst to life around us. They flash against our faces, lighting us up against the night.

“Holy shit, someone called the cops.”

Jacey inhales sharply and stares at me, one hand limp on my arm, the other holding her cheek. She’s covered in blood now, and I’m not sure if it’s mine or Cris’s. Or maybe even her own. But I don’t have time to find out.

Two cops are approaching us, and what comes next happens in a blur, both because of all the whiskey I’ve been drinking and the fact that Cris clocked me hard in the temple.

How much have you been drinking?

Who started this fight?

Can I search your car?

Son, are these your drugs?

I glance up blearily now, to see one of them holding up a bag of weed. He blurs into three cops, then back into one as my vision comes in and out of focus.

“I’m not your son,” I mumble. Jacey gasps and I hear her swearing that the drugs aren’t hers, either, and that I’m probably not thinking clearly right now, that I’m not myself. I want to glare at her for making excuses for me, but I can’t seem to control my facial muscles. I see her swat at a policeman when he grabs at her wrists, but it’s the last thing I see. My chin drops to my chest and my gaze fixes on the ground.

Dew is forming on the grass. That’s something I notice as they handcuff me and stuff me into the back of a cop car. I hear my sister’s voice, frantic and pissed, but I can’t understand her words. It’s a bit too hard to stay conscious now, and I let my head fall back onto the seat of the cop car.

Flashes and bits of what just happened run through my head. Jacey’s startled eyes, the way she jumped into the fray and tried to help… the way I clocked her in the face and she didn’t back away.

He’s not himself, she told the cop. I almost smile. Is that what she thinks?

I feel the blood from my knuckles drip onto the handcuffs and down my back and I think about Cris’s words.

And you wonder why Emma did what she did?

Jesus. My stomach balls up into a knot, and I will my throat to stay open and my fucking lungs to keep working.

Emma.

The mere thought of her brings a million emotions—that I can’t name and can’t process—to the surface of my skin, where they crawl along, and then dig their claws into my heart. They stab it over and over until I can’t feel anything at all.

This is what happened to me. This is why I’m so empty.

So unable to feel jack shit.

Emma.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to picture her, trying not to see her lips smiling at me back then or imagine what she must look like now… buried in the ground, rotting away into nothing.

Fuuuck. I can feel my airway close, tighter and tighter, and I lean my head back, taking slow breaths.

I don’t wonder why Emma did what she did. I know why. It involves a whole lot of fucked-up ugliness that I can’t think about without breaking out in a cold sweat. It’s fucked up, but it’s just the way I am.

Whether I like it or not, I am the way I am because of her. Because I loved her and because she did what she did.

Chapter Three

Jacey

Oh. My. God.

I close my eyes against the catcalls and lewd comments, although what the hell did I expect? I’m sitting in a freaking jail cell dressed in nothing but a bowtie, a bustier, and boy-shorts. My ass cheeks are hanging out, for god’s sake. And I’m sitting right smack in the middle of a group of prostitutes.

Fun fact: they’re all wearing more clothing than me.

Another fun fact: I’m the only one here whose face is swollen and whose clothes are covered in blood. To them, I probably look like my dealer (or my pimp!) beat the shit out of me.

Resting my head against the cool wall behind me, I pretend that I’m anywhere but here. I’m at the beach, I’m shopping on Michigan Avenue, I’m getting a manicure.

But I’m not. The cold concrete bench pressing into my thighs and the musty smell of this cell remind me of exactly where I am.

“Jacey Vincent! Time for your phone call!”

Thank god.

A cop unlocks the door and I rush for it, thankful for a chance to get out of this cell.

He leads me back to the booking desk, where I’d been fingerprinted earlier, back when the phone had been in use by someone else.

“You’ve got two minutes,” he tells me brusquely. His eyes skim over me and I can see what he thinks… that I’m just another used-up whore like the girls in the cell.

It makes me want to throw up in my mouth. But I don’t. Instead, with shaking fingers, I dial the only number I can think of. The first name that comes to mind when I need help nowadays.

Brand.

My childhood friend. My brother’s best friend and business partner.

Since my brother Gabe married my best friend Maddy and they moved to Connecticut a couple of months ago, I don’t have anyone else to call. But that’s for the best. Both Gabe and Maddy would kick my ass for this anyway, although I’m not a hundred percent sure that Brand won’t either.

Regardless, he’s the only one I can trust to come get me out of this godforsaken shit-hole. Just like he was the only one I could trust to come pick me up off the freeway when I’d had a flat tire a couple of weeks ago.

He answers groggily on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“Brand?” my voice quavers. I steel myself and swallow hard. “I need your help.”

“Jace?” Brand’s at attention now, his voice sharp. “Are you okay?”

I glance around at the police station, at the yellowed walls, the stern cops, the criminals waiting to be booked. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Yeah. No. Maybe. I was arrested. Can you come get me?”

There’s a brief, loaded pause.

“You’re at the police station?” Brand finally asks, and I have to give him credit. His voice is calm and even. “What were you arrested for?”

“Possession of marijuana and assaulting a police officer.”

Brand’s not calm now. He erupts into a storm of profanity.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he finally demands. But before I can answer, the cop next to me taps my shoulder.

“You’ve got twenty seconds.”

My heart speeds up. What if Brand won’t come?

“Brand, I’ve only got twenty seconds. Can you please come get me? I don’t have anyone else to call. They weren’t my drugs. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Time,” the cop says firmly, taking the phone from me and replacing it in the cradle. I stare at it, aghast.

“But I don’t know if he’s coming,” I tell the cop limply.

“Sounds like a personal problem,” he answers, gripping my elbow and guiding me back to the cell. Every fiber in my being fights against stepping back through the bars, but I’ve got no choice.

The cop shoves me in and locks the door behind me.

I stand alone and dejected, and the women all erupt into howls and catcalls, and for a confused moment I think it’s because of me, because I got thrown right back in here and they think that’s funny.

But then I notice that they’re all rushing to the bars, pressing their faces against the metal to get a good look at something.

I take the opportunity to grab a seat on one of the empty benches, but I do strain my neck to see what the hell has them crowing like banshees.

I quickly see that it’s a who, not a what.

Specifically, it’s Dominic fucking Kinkaide.

Dominic will do. I tend to drop the “fucking.” Unless of course, I’m actually fucking.

The memory of his husky voice causes my breath to speed up a little as I watch him being escorted down the hall through the cells.

Even with his face scraped up, he’s sexy. His hands dangle freely at his sides, no handcuffs, so he’s been bailed out. He pauses in front of my cell, standing in front of the bars, ignoring the frenzied women who are reaching out to him.

Dominic, will you sign my arm?

Dominic, can I kiss you?

Dominic, touch me, touch me.

“Just a second,” Dominic tells the cops. One nods and the other barks at the women, “Get back!”

Dominic steps to the bars, staring at me. Unbidden and unconsciously, I get to my feet.

His gaze is locked with mine, the arrogant green gaze that he’s famous for.

He’s going to help me. He’s going to tell them that it’s all a big misunderstanding, that the drugs were his after all, and he’s going to get me out of here.

I smile in relief as I approach him.

But he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at my face, at the bruise that is forming on my cheek. He reaches through the bars and touches it lightly, his thumb just barely touching my skin.

“Uh-uh,” one of the cops says. “No touching.”

Dominic pulls his hand back, letting it fall limply to the side.

The look on his face turns my stomach into knots… so vulnerable. So tired. So weary. World-weary.

Everything about him is striking, though. Those cut fucking cheekbones… god, in spite of everything, I want to reach out my finger and trace the edges of them. His chiseled jaw covered with the sexiest of stubble, the dark hair tousled in an I-don’t-give-a-shit way. Unlike other wannabes, it actually seems like Dominic doesn’t give a shit. About anything.

But most striking of all are those fucking green eyes, dark, dark, dark, but still somehow rimmed in golden hazel with interesting gold flecks in them. As his gaze stays locked with mine, it’s like he’s burning me, like I’m on fire. And he’s the only thing that can put me out.

I know it’s stupid to say. But his gaze is that intense. It’s like he can see inside of me, deep into my most private thoughts, into where my secrets lie. But then his shoulders drop and his face turns expressionless.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply.

He looks away, like a camera lens shuttering closed. Like I don’t even exist to him, like I’m beneath him and not worth a second glance. The fire has been extinguished.

He nods at his escorts and they continue on, walking toward freedom while I’m still stuck in here.

Because of him.

“Wait,” I call out after them. “Just a second. I don’t belong here!” But they ignore me and keep walking, and I shut the hell up because I’m not going to beg.

Dominic fucking Kinkaide got us both arrested and then he gets bailed out within half an hour, just because he’s a freaking celebrity. And he left me here to fucking rot.

I roll my eyes at his arrogance, at this situation, at my horrible luck. Life sucks so hard sometimes, and it gets suckier by the minute.

As I slump against the cement wall again, I ponder my rotten luck. And my poor decisions which lead to my rotten luck. That, of course, brings me to thoughts of something else, my poorest decision of them all.

My ex-boyfriend. Jared.

He’d killed someone because of me and is currently in prison for vehicular manslaughter. I can’t help but marvel at the irony that we’re both cooped up in jail cells at this very moment.

I swallow hard at the thought. I’m seriously in the same position as that little psychotic fuck. Oh. My. God.

After everything I’ve done throughout the last couple of months to put him behind me… I’ve gotten counseling, I make conscious decisions every day to not be reckless or wild (both things are fundamental building blocks of my nature), and yet here I am… in the same situation as he is.

Locked away.

I gulp. Maybe it’s poetic justice. After all the trouble that he wreaked on my family and friends, maybe I deserve this. Maybe I’ll never get away from it no matter how hard I try. I sigh and watch the clock on the wall outside of the bars ticking down the minutes.

Sixty worst-of-my-life minutes later, I finally hear the words I’ve been waiting for, called loudly through the cells.

“Jacey Vincent. Your ride’s here.”

I breathe a sigh of relief, and I realize that I’d honestly been worried that for the first time ever, maybe Brand wasn’t going to come to my rescue. That maybe he’d called Gabriel, and my brother had told him to let me stew for a while, to think about what I’d done or some bullshit.

But he didn’t.

Thank god.

Once I see his face, though, after I’ve walked past all the hookers and drunks, down the long tiled corridor flanked by jail cells, I’m not sure that I should be thanking god for Brand’s rescue. I should probably be praying for my soul, because Brand’s furious, and from the look on his face it’s a real possibility that he might kill me.

His enormous frame practically fills up the lobby where he’s waiting, and I’ve never seen him look quite as angry as he does right now. He’s got to be at least 6’5” and he’s built like a brick house, with not an ounce of fat on him, and that makes him a very intimidating presence, particularly when he’s pissed.

He served in the Army Rangers with my brother and he looks like he just stepped out of uniform, even though it’s been almost two years now. He’s let his blond hair grow, so now it’s fashionably shaggy and grazes his collar line. If he didn’t seem like a brother to me, I’d say he was hot. The women in the reception area seem to agree. Every female eye in the place is glued on him. But his are glued on me.

His blue eyes are hard and glittering as he watches me approach.

He’s pissed.

I gulp.

“It’s not what you think,” I tell him preemptively when I reach him. “They weren’t my drugs.”

His gaze is fixed on my cheek.

“Are you okay?” he asks harshly. I nod, my fingers brushing across my cheek self-consciously.

“I’m fine… I tried to break up a fight, but—”

Brand cuts me off by grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the door.

“It’s not what I think? So I didn’t just get called to the police station at four A.M. to bail your ass out? Then I get here and your face is swollen and you’re dressed like a fucking prostitute. At the moment, I almost don’t give a fuck what you did or didn’t do, Jacey. You were supposed to quit Saffron. Gabriel’s going to shit.”

“Don’t tell him,” I plead as he holds the door open. And even though Brand’s pissed, I can’t help but notice that he’s shielding my body with his, hiding me from the people in the lobby. As if that can somehow take away my shame for being here. Even still, it’s a sweet gesture, especially since he’s so mad.

Brand stares at me icily. “Your brother’s gonna know about this,” he tells me firmly. “Jesus, Jacey. After everything that happened with Jared, and the therapy that you’ve gone through already… We were starting to think that you were actually going to get your shit together. But now you’re assaulting police officers. Christ. If that Kinkaide kid hadn’t pulled some sort of strings, you’d still be rotting in jail. They don’t let people out who assault cops.”

This stops me in my tracks.

“Dominic got the charges dropped?” I ask in shock. Why didn’t he say anything when he stood there staring at me? All he said was… I’m sorry. And what the fuck was he sorry for? Smacking me in the face? Getting me arrested? Leaving me to rot in jail?

Brand leads me to his truck and opens the door, purposely looking away from my ass as I climb in.

“Yeah. I don’t know how he did it, all I know is what they told me when I arrived. You’re only facing possession of marijuana charges now. You’re lucky. Well, lucky until Gabe hears about this. He’s going to kick your ass. You’re dressed like a hooker, you make tips by flirting with Saffron customers… you might as well be a stripper, for god’s sake. Gabe’s done everything he can think of to help you, Jacey. We don’t even know what to do with you anymore.”

He slams my door and I do feel guilty.

After everything went down in flames with Jared, Gabe paid for therapy for me. He and Maddy let me cry on their shoulders for hours and hours. They held my hand as I was taking baby steps to stand on my own two feet.

And since I lost my job working for Maddy when she sold her restaurant, they put down the deposit for my apartment in Chicago, with the understanding that I would find another part-time job to pay my bills while I finished school. Saffron wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.

As Brand swings into the truck, I turn to him.

“It’s not my fault that I’m still at Saffron,” I snap defensively. “I tried to get a normal waitressing job. But I can’t make enough money to pay my bills doing that while I’m in school. Working at Saffron is no different than working at Hooters or someplace. All I have to do is flirt and serve champagne to rich people at private parties.”

“You mean, rich men at private parties.” Brand scowls as he jams his keys into the ignition. “You’re only one step above a stripper, Jacey, and you know it.”

“I’ve only got one class left,” I tell him quietly. “And I’m taking it online. I’ll have my business degree in just a few weeks. I’m working on it, Brand. I’m working on everything. I’m doing the best I can.” As I turn to face Brand even more squarely, the smell of his aftershave floods over me. That familiar scent, symbolizing something warm and safe, someone warm and safe, makes me realize that I’m okay. I’m no longer in a Chicago jail.