The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1) (17 page)

Her fingers were turning colors.
He hadn’t seen Jessie strung as tightly as this in a while. He knew she cut. He didn’t always know when or why. He did, however, know she was going there now in her head.

“What is it? Come on, you can tell me.”

“Your wife probably wanted that baby. She probably planned for it, named it, and dreamed of how she’d decorate the nursery, didn’t she?”

“Yes. She did.”

“I hate it.”

“You hate what?” he asked gently. She turned, about to walk past him, but he stopped her. “What do you hate?”

“This baby! Okay? I hate this baby. I feel like a foreign parasite has crawled into my belly, and is sucking the life out of me. Everyday I feel sick, I feel tired, I puke, and I just want to push it out of me.
It’s them, Will
. It’s part of those men I’m growing inside of me, that will eventually climb out of me. Evil. It’s all the evil there is in the world. Go ahead, look at me with disdain. Hate me. Now you see how right my father was about me. I’m just as selfish and evil as those men were.”

She pushed past him and he let her go. Then he asked quietly, “Now are you going to take a razor to your skin? Will that help things? Make it all go away?”

“Fuck you. What do you know about pain?”

“Your pain? A lot. You’re not going there. Not tonight.”

“What are you going to do? Stop me?”

“Yeah,” he said gently. “I am. Come on. Let’s go to a movie.”

“After what I just told you, you want to go to a movie? As in a theater? Like sixteen-year-old kids? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No. I’m not kidding. Get your coat.”

She stared at him with all her young contempt and belligerence. Finally, she whipped around, but came back with her coat. When she put it on, he noticed she was right, her stomach was finally starting to round out.

“This won’t help,” she said with a huff as she flopped into his truck.

“It won’t hurt either. That’s what you
’ve got to start noticing. It doesn’t have to be big things. Little things won’t solve it, but they might get you through an evening.”

He
started his truck. She scowled and huddled against his window. He let her decompress. The theater was close and uncrowded. They saw a new thriller. She watched it and ate popcorn, without pushing her fingers into her skin.

In the dark of the truck’s cab, on the way back to their apartment, she finally spoke. “Why don’t you tell me what anyone else would? That I can’t hate this baby? It didn’t ask to be conceived anymore than I asked for it.”

He smiled in the dark. She was getting somewhere. “Because it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what you think. And maybe you need to hate things for awhile before you get to where you might like them again.”

After about five minutes of silence, she said softly
, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Will dreaded being cornered by General Bains. He rarely told Jessie about it, but it was happening more and more often. The man wanted to know everything about Jessie. He presented himself as if he were her loving father, but Will knew it was something different. It was some sick control game General Bains had over Jessie. Will did his best to jump through the hoops without betraying Jessie, but it was becoming harder for him to maintain.

Then dear, old Dad decided Will and Jessie should come over for a family dinner. Lindsey would be there. Will wanted to tell the man to “Fuck off!” but instead, nodded, and said
, “Yes, sir, what time and day?” before saluting the asshole. He worried all day about how he could ask Jessie to go there.

Will had to get in touch with Lindsey because he needed her assistance with Jessie. Any day, he’d be deployed again, and this time, he wanted Jessie to have some help, if she needed it. He hadn’t seen Lindsey since the wedding. He could hardly look her in the eye that day, knowing how she knew what a fraud he was.

That night, he told Jessie the news. She nodded, and said
, “Fine.” He was more shaken by her calm response than even her normal extreme ones. He wondered how much skin she’d slice in order to prepare for dinner with her father.

Jessie stood ramrod still next
to Will on her father’s doorstep, as they waited for someone to open the door. Will put a hand on her back and she jumped, he so rarely touched her. His hand felt warm, heavy, and wonderful. Her resolve shored up. No matter what Will withheld from her, or if he really didn’t want to be to her, he was nonetheless always supportive. He managed to change the dynamics of her entire relationship with her family by simply freeing her from her father’s abuse.

“If you need anything, tell me.”

She glanced up and nodded. In that instant, the door opened.

Jessie entered the house the general had transformed into a shrine of his greatness. After not being here for two months, Jessie realized she hadn’t missed it for one second. The minute she stepped into the perfect,
but oppressively decorated living room, she was back to being Jessie Bains. It seemed to suck her right back into her terrible, former self.

Lindsey stood up slowly, her long legs lifting her slim body into a graceful stand. She wore pastel slacks and her blond hair fell in soft ringlets over her shoulder, cascading down her back in an innocent, yet sensuous appeal that only she possessed. Subtle. Soft. Pure. Everything Jessie wasn’t. Jessie’s looks were purely sexual: pouting lips, ample,
round boobs, and hair she kept just messy enough to suggest what might’ve done that.

Will’s gaze lingered
on Lindsey. She saw the glint in his eye, the way their eyes met and something, like a current, passing between them. They were saying something to each other, talking through their looks, something she and Will never did. Will was looking with regret at Lindsey. For what? Was he sorry to be entering their living room beside Jessie? She hated Lindsey in that moment.

Jessie flinched when she recognized the two couples who were sitting past her sister, rapt in conversation with her father. They were Senator
Johnstone and his wife, and Senator Sans and his wife. Jessie wanted to die right then and there.
Oh God
.
No.
She couldn’t be forced to sit down to dinner with both of them. Not with Will there. Not with Lindsey. She’d never make it. She had to get out. Get away now. But she couldn’t. She was trapped.

Jessie decided she’d behaved herself long enough. What was the point? She’d never get a look from Will like Lindsey got. She only received Will’s sympathy, and pity, because of what he knew about her. She was not
offered Will’s friendship.

She shrugged off the oversized, black, knitted wrap that covered her. Underneath was a tight, red tank top that hung low over her bigger than usual breasts. They were swollen to porn star measurements now. Their cleavage was deep and suggestive. The tank stopped short over her expanding stomach. Her low-cut black pants gapped two inches of skin. The tank top read,
How do you like mama’s milk?
Lindsey noticed it first, and her eyes got big, the look of disgust settling over her features. She turned to shun Jessie. The couples across the room quit talking and silence descended over the previously chatty room. Will glanced down and shifted his feet as he sighed.

“Put the wrap back on,” he said calmly and quietly into her ear.

“It’s too hot.” She stuck her tongue out for effect.

Will glanced at Lindsey, then back at her. He didn’t smile, but nodded at her. He’d already seen Senator
Johnstone, but he didn’t know about Sans. “I’m well aware of the temperature. Now put it back on.”

“No. What are you going to do? Spank me?”

“Put the wrap back on. Please.”

She heard the edge in his tone, and the disappointment. Even worse, the embarrassment on his face when he looked Lindsey’s way, as if to… what? Ensure that Lindsey’s genteel sensibilities weren’t corrupted? Jessie reluctantly picked the wrap back up and put it over her. The room’s silence made her want to crawl into a hole. She couldn’t make eye contact with Will.

Will looked every inch the handsome, res
ponsible, up-and-coming officer. He seemed much older than she, and respected, where she was cheap and trashy. Surely, he’d hate her now, and leave her, to wander back to his heart’s real desire: her beautiful, classy, smart, innocent sister.

Instead, he put a hand on her back. Warm and broad, his five fingers rested on her shoulder, then slipped down to her waist. He enveloped her, surrounding her. She was pretty sure Will had never fully put his arm around her, but he pulled her next to him. He was fully erect. His eyes were riveted on Senator
Johnstone.

Then they were directly opposite the couples and her father. Will politely said the required greetings, removing his arm from Jessie to shake hands, kiss the wives’ hands, and
engage in meaningless chit-chat. In between it all, he easily spoke with her father, remaining as courteous, diplomatic, wonderful, and charming as any man she’d ever known. She stared at the carpet, her shame reddening her face, but her tongue was mute. How could she have embarrassed herself this way?

The senator’s lecherous, old eyes were fastened on her cleavage, which still peeked over the tie of the wrap. She had the fleeting urge to pull them both out and say, “Fine, have a good look!” Will left her side for a moment, admiring her father’s beloved medals. When he came back up behind her, he put his arms around her waist. She was startled to find his face near hers. He never held her like this before. Why was he now? Especially after the stunt she just embarrassed him with.

He entwined his fingers, which felt large and warm as they moved over her stomach. What was he doing?

“So has the general told you our good news?”

What good news? What was Will saying?

Lindsey watched them, her face going pale. The rest of the room looked on politely quiet, even though it was made quite obvious by her stunt, as well as the t-shirt, that she was knocked up.

“Jessie and I are expecting. We’re quite excited about it, aren’t we, honey?”

Honey?
Will avoided calling her by her first name. Why was he doing this?

He pulled her closer to his chest. She could feel his body along her back. A strange flutter went through her at his close proximity. Oh God, was he pretending they were a normal couple in announcing she was pregnant? As if he were happy about it?

Actually, what he was doing was protecting her from herself, as well as the stunt she just pulled, and the mistakes of her past, even from her sister. Why was he doing this for her? She didn’t know. But she knew she didn’t deserve it.

There were sweet little exclamations from the wives of the two men she’d slept with on multiple occasions. Then, her father, acting as if he were privy to their blessed news, came forward, shaking Will’s hand, and hugging her.
Her father hugged her
. She was so stupefied, she nearly tripped as he pulled her into his embrace.

Her father left the room, and returned with champagne, as if to spontaneously toast his upcoming grandchild. Jessie thought she might be sick again at his feet.

Will’s hands were again on her, and he pulled her closer to him. His eyes were on hers and he bent his head low, his lips touching the skin by her ear as he said, “It’s almost over. You’re okay. I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you.”

She bit her lip to hold back the tears that were steaming up her eyes. Why was he doing this for her? Why did he care so much? He didn’t even like her. Was he really such a good man? So honorable? Did he always have to do the right thing?

Them
. Will said he wouldn’t let them hurt her. She looked into his eyes and saw he knew. He knew there was more than one Senator Johnstone in her past.

When Jessie’s shoulders slouched, Will saw he pushed her too far. He should never have made her come here. The tank top was the least he expected from her. The tank top was her crazy way of saying
Fuck you!
to all the men in the room who stripped away her innocence, and took away every chance at a normal life for her, leaving Lindsey to inherit the best. He wasn’t disgusted, as he knew she expected, or embarrassed. He was heartsick for her. With her size double D breasts and siren red lipstick, Jessie strove to look like a nasty fantasy. But instead, to Will, she appeared as she truly was: a lost little girl, so victimized in her young life, she didn’t know how to heal.

He only married her to protect her. Then he kept her at arm’s length, because he was too embarrassed to
say he got her pregnant. He took pride in his sense of discipline and honor. And now, just two months into his marriage, his wife looked twice that in her gestation. Combined with the short duration that they’d known each other, it was easy to predict that people would be doing the math. He dreaded the pity, and knowing glances strangers would try to hide from him, as well as Jessie. Everybody would think she simply seduced him. He couldn’t stand or take the hypocrisy of it all.

How could anyone miss the desperate, pleading, calls for love and acceptance that Jessie sent out like flares on a sinking ship?

He only held her at arm’s length because he knew too much. He knew what an emotional, vulnerable, nearly broken girl she was or fast becoming. He also saw in that moment, while watching Jessie face two of the men who so easily took advantage of and raped her, per her father’s compliance, that his heart was breaking for Jessie with more than pity.

He put his arms around her to literally hold her up. As he touched her, and felt her small body against his, he knew why he was so careful not to touch her before.

He actually cared about her.

That would inevitably lead to touching, and to sex, which was something Jessie had no real feelings about. A gasp that nearly stopped his heart and felt more like a punch suddenly hit him. He was falling in love with her. Every heartbreaking, shattered inch of her.
Fuck
. It was not in the plans for him to fall in love with his pregnant wife.