Surreptitious (London) (10 page)

Chapter seventeen

Jackson

She needed to read that letter. I knew it, Harper knew it and not that I’d told anyone else but I was certain they would know it too. I was positive that once that was out of the way, she could let go of the demons in her head but I didn’t know how to convince her of it. Scratch that, I had no fuckin’ clue how to convince her to do it.

It had been two weeks since that night at Harper’s and for the first time in the six weeks since I’d known her, it was good. Not easy, but good.

Did she trust me? No.

Was she trying? I thought so.

I took her out for dinner three days after that night and pulled out all the stops. I picked her up at seven and we drove to ‘Lucky’s’, which, don’t get me wrong, wasn’t the most expensive or flash restaurant, but she’s not a flashy kind of girl. I found this slightly odd seeing as I’d discovered she has a shit load of money.
A shit load.
But still, I liked it. I liked that she could easily do nothing if she wanted to, live the whole of her life off the money she already had, but she didn’t want to.

She didn’t seem to ask many questions about me, my money or my past and if anything, it was of my favourite things about her. My past is off-limits, untouchable, never going there...
not happening.

Hypocritical? Of course, but there are things no one, especially Taylor, should ever know.

Anyway, when she walked out of her building I swear my eyes nearly fell out of my head. I had to clench my hands into fists to stop myself from grabbing her, throwing her on the hood of the car, running my hands over her skin and screwing the fuck out of her right there in the car-park.

Fuck...me, so god damn beautiful, she dressed in a rich a purple wrap around dress that fit like a glove, flaunted her curves whilst showing enough cleavage to be off the charts
hot
but still classy. I loved it...and I fucking hated it!! I loved it...well because of everything I just said, but I hated it because I swear, my dick thought I was a fourteen year old boy all over again.

It’s not cool to get hard because a chick looks hot in a dress!!

She walked straight over to me and kissed me lightly on the cheek, not exactly what I was looking for but it’ll do, before sliding into the car. We chatted lightly on the way to the restaurant, I think we were both trying, possibly a bit too hard, to sway conversation away from anything heavy seeing as pretty much everything we’d done together so far had been intense...to say the least!

During dinner, and I’ll just say, damn that girl can eat! She made jokes, she giggled, she full-out laughed when I missed my mouth and dropped chicken chasseur down the front of my grey shirt.

Way to go dickhead! Smooth. Real smooth.

Her laughing though...whoa, I’d make a twat out of myself all over again to hear that all the time. Can’t say I’d ever thought of a girl’s laugh as sexy before but this was, quiet, husky and effortless. She’s beautiful anyway, but when she laughed, her skin glowed, her cheeks were flushed and I wanted to ravage her before we’d even got to the desert!

We’d been out a few times following that and I had a great time.
Every
time. There were two things still bothering me though, firstly she still wouldn’t do anything else but kiss me. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d never push her as such, but I’m twenty eight! I felt like I really was fourteen again, and it really didn’t help that every fucking thing she did got me hard.

And secondly, I knew she was still holding back, she said she was trying to trust me, and yeah I believed her, but I’d never given her a reason to doubt me and it grated on me that even through a seriously loose connection (being male) I was still being associated, in her mind, with that motherfucker who killed her parents.

So I was on my way to Harper’s for drinks with everyone again, I had Ruben in the car with me because Mase said he was already there. I had no idea what the hell was going on with those two, they said they weren’t together, but Mase is not a casual-sex sort of guy so I needed to get to the bottom of that. Harp had phoned earlier to say she had a solution to my issues with Tay and to turn up earlier than her so she could explain and to say I was intrigued was an understatement.

I swung my legs out of the car, bleeped the locks and jogged up the stairs. Ruben followed at his own pace so I left him be. I didn’t even have to knock before Jase swung the door open, pointed at me and stated...

“Just for the record, I do NOT like this.” Turned on his heel and flounced...yes...he
flounced
back inside.

Harp stood in the centre of the room behind the coffee table and was biting her bottom lip looking at me but she kept glancing at an envelope on the table in front of her. I strode over and picked it up and cringed internally at what I saw. In my hand was a letter addressed to Taylor but on the back it had a return address from Her Majesty’s Prison Service.

OH SHIT!

“What...um...how...where did you find this?” I asked and Harp took a deep breath and let it out slowly...too fuckin’ slowly before explaining.

“Well, I kept wondering where she would keep something like this because she doesn’t really have shit lying around ya know? Then I remembered her memory box, it’s a metal lock-box that she keeps at the top of her wardrobe. She never goes in it, but it’s got little things in it, crap she’s kept from over the years and a few things of her mums that she’ll never wear...or use, that she doesn’t want to throw away.” Although I already got the picture, she continued...

“So I went over to hers yesterday and I figured...ya know what? If it’s not there, then I’m not meant to find it and I was gonna leave it be, but...well...it was.” I clenched my teeth and spoke in an annoyed tone...

“Harp, you fuckin’ promised me that you’d keep this between us. She trusted me and I trusted you. So instead of keeping it between us and helping me figure out what to do, you decided to do this when everyone was here so now everyone knows?”

“Um, I still don’t know what the hell is going on?” This came from Ruben and instead of answering him, I just rolled my eyes and then returned my glare to Harper. I heard Mase whisper to Ruben behind me saying “Just shut up and I’ll fill you in, in a minute!”

“I...ah...well I was thinking, if it was sort of like, an intervention of sorts...maybe she’d feel like we had her back with this, so she could just get it over with?” I frowned as I thought it over because, damn, that actually didn’t seem like a bad plan, but then Jase piped up with...

“Or...we can think about the fact that this is TAYLOR we’re talking about. Taylor ‘Ice’ Corsi...girl who doesn’t understand, emotions, support, togetherness...none of that shit. She’ll just think we’re ganging up on her! She won’t see this as a gesture of support, she’ll see it as everyone putting pressure on her to do something she doesn’t wanna do!” He paused and pointed at Harper then continued “and frankly, you should know better than this, chick. You pushed her into this thing with Jax, which fine...kind of...worked out, but if you keep pushing different things on her then eventually she WILL push back, and I for one, would NOT want to be on the end of that.”

When he finished, he flung an arm in the air and bounced back down onto the sofa.

Drama queen...but...he’s a drama queen with a point.

Then IT happened. We were all staring at the envelope like it held the answers to all our questions when I heard the front door open and we all turned to see Taylor saunter through, run a hand through her hair, dropped her bag on the floor and stop dead. She frowned and then exclaimed...

“Jeez, the atmosphere is shocking in here! What’s going on?” No one spoke, no one breathed and everyone braced for the moment she spotted the envelope.

Taylor

Everyone was staring at me like I was gonna erupt and I couldn’t help but frown at their faces because I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I stepped towards Jax as my safety net but I noticed him tense so I automatically followed suit. I stole a glimpse at Jase and immediately tensed even more considering he was scowling at Harp and I’d never seen him look at her like that in a serious situation before. I followed his eyes to hers but she was gaping at me as if she couldn’t even believe I was even standing there.

My eyes started darting around the room and as soon as I focused on the table, my vision blurred, my hands clenched into fists and I swayed on my feet. Jax reached out to steady me but I shoved his arm away from me and noticed him flinch but I didn’t care. I heard him whisper something to one of his brothers that vaguely sounded like ‘brace’ before he looked me and spoke in an attempted placating tone.

“Baby girl, listen yeah? I did this to help you. I love you...” I blanched at his admission but he powered through “I love you and you need this. I’d never hurt you, you know that but you’ve gotta fight this head on. We’re all here for you and we thought, well...me and Harp thought, that maybe if we showed you that we’ve got your back with this, then it would be like ripping a plaster off. Sort of...well...quick and painless?”

Painless?!...fucking PAINLESS?!

I was burning. Pure, hot, uncontrollable rage shot through me and I turned, faced Jax head on, my arm reared back of its own accord, I threw my whole body weight forward and punched him straight across the jaw. I stayed long enough to watch his head snap back and his body rock sideways before I bolted straight back out the door.

I didn’t grab my bag, I didn’t slow down on the stairs, I didn’t apologise the guy I smashed into on the way out the main door. I just ran. I ran and I ran and I ran a little bit further until I stopped to take a breath and looked around, having no idea where the hell I was. I knew London...well...I knew London in the sense that I knew about a mile radius around my apartment and I knew campus. So yeah, I still didn’t know 99% of London.
Shit.

I bent over and put my hands on my knees, trying to get my breath back when I heard a voice behind me screaming, so I ran again.
Fast
.

“TAYLOR!!!”

I could hear his footsteps pounding the pavement getting closer but I didn’t stop, I didn’t turn around and I didn’t reply. I wouldn’t let him see that he’d broken me. I’m not weak...I’m not...I’M NOT.

“TAYLOR, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD WOULD YOU STOP...”

“NO JAX, I WONT, I HATE YOU...DO YOU HEAR ME. I FUCKING HATE YOU...I’M SO DONE WITH THIS BULLSHIT...YOUR BULLSHIT. I’M TIRED, I’M SO DAMN TIRED OF...YOU...OF EVERYTHING”

Next thing I knew, he placed a hand on my arm and grabbed me, not lightly, but it didn’t hurt, and I was spun around to face a furious, and frankly scary, Jax. His lip was split and he had a drop of blood on his shirt, but all I could think was that it made him look
hotter!
My heart rate kicked up and all the air in my lungs whooshed out. His eyes were almost pure black and in spite of what we were in the middle of, I found myself losing all sense of time and for a split second I was back there, in that coffee shop, coming face to face with all that was Jackson Brent.

Breathing heavily, he said “Please babe, listen to me, listen and FUCKING HEAR ME. I didn’t do this to hurt you; I’d never do anything to hurt you. Tell me you know that; stop hiding behind that god damn shield you’ve got and listen to your heart for once. You do not hate me! I’m it for you, and baby girl I know it deep down to my bones that you’re it for me too. Six weeks, that’s all it took for me!! You think all this time we’ve been playing this back and forth bullshit that I’d put up with that crap from anyone else??”

“y..you..you told them. Everything...everything you just did... You’ve fucked it all. Jax there is only so much you can take from me. You want it all? You...are...BREAKING ME. I’m not talking a few tears and screaming match in the bloody street. I’m talking full on, heart-shattering, world-altering, written-about-in-books-for-years-to-come fucking destruction. You said you’d never hurt me...well what exactly do you think you are doing right now? Every word you say, every touch, every whisper...it all hurts Jax. IT FUCKING HURTS!”

Ending my speech in near hysterics, I just couldn’t take any more, my legs gave out but before I hit the floor I was hauled into his hard chest. I gripped the front of his shirt and broke into gut-wrenching sobs, there was no air, no sounds other than those I was making and nothing else fucking mattered. I shoved him away and carried on walking in the darkness, I knew he was there with me but he’d done it. He’d won. There was nothing left of me to give.

“ DAMN IT, you’re still pushing me away, do you ever stop to think that you’re not the only one who hides? You are not the first person who has ever lost someone important to them Taylor and you won’t be the fucking last. Maybe for once in your screwed up, closed-off, small, stupid fucking mind you should think about someone else before yourself. You think I want to see you in pain? Baby girl your tears undo me and you fucking know it. But stop leading me around by the fucking dick and playing pathetic fucking games and FUCKING FIGHT FOR US.”

I couldn’t and wouldn’t answer him. They’ll never understand. No one does. So he doesn’t have parents either, but they were my world, he didn’t even give a shit about his, there is no comparison. He might have started knocking down the bricks holding up my wall, but the foundations were there long before he ever showed his beautiful fucking face in my world and he doesn’t know the half of it. He rode my silence for about ten seconds before he screamed...