In Too Deep (12 page)
That night, I sat violently shaking in the hot bath Jake had drawn for me in his soaking tub. It had taken some coaxing but I’d finally gotten Sawyer to finish what he had begun telling me at Broome Street Kitchen. He said it all quickly before Jake or Sloane could return, and what he revealed made me so instantly sick that my knees buckled. His arms had caught me before I hit the floor but a part of me wished that he’d just let go. I wanted to fall. I wanted to crash and shatter into a million pieces.
It had been a suspicion of mine but now I knew – everything I ever had with Jackson had been a lie. I had no idea who he was. All I knew was that he was a master manipulator – someone who knew exactly how to get his way, no matter how much money or many connections it took. Some way, somehow, he found a way to bend life in is favor.
And when it came to keeping me, he’d do just about anything.
“Say the word, Lara, and I’ll kick Dane’s fuckin’ ass,” Jake said, leaning against the basin sink. I hadn’t told him what Sawyer had revealed about Jackson. I was afraid of his reaction. After all, I needed to confront my fiancé. I couldn’t risk Jake beating him to death, so I went ahead and let him believe that it was Dane who had rattled me.
“Don’t kick his ass, he’s not worth it,” I murmured.
“If you’re worried about Jackson thinking that you’ve been having an affair with Sawyer, he has no reason to believe Dane.”
“I’m not worried about Jackson,” I muttered.
“Why not?”
I lifted my blank gaze at Jake. “Because I’m leaving him tomorrow.”
Jake stared with surprise. “What?”
“I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t take the lies. He has all these skeletons in the closet and I’m finding them one by one and I’m not even close to finished, I know it. And it makes me realize that he’s not the person I fell in love with anymore. Maybe he never was. You said yourself that he keeps changing more and more into someone like Dane. Someone with no morals or conscience or regard for anything but his image and his pleasure. I don’t even know if he loves me. All he loves is the fact that everyone else loves me – that I make him someone to be jealous of. I mean he’s told you about me over the years. What did he ever say? Did he ever tell you stories about me? About the things I believed in, the things that I loved? You didn’t know any details about me. Where I came from. About my parents and how I had a sister who ran away. Because I’m sure all Jackson ever told you about was how good I looked in a dress, or how Sawyer couldn’t take his eyes off of me one night, or how I charmed his investors at a dinner and won him new business. I’m not the love of his life – I’m just a prize that he refuses to let go of because he knows other people might want me. So I’m done.” Taking in a deep, shaky breath, I gathered my composure. “I’m telling him tomorrow when he gets back from Boston. I already took the ring off,” I said, nodding at the floor where I’d tossed the massive diamond. As Jake looked in disbelief, I unplugged the drain with my foot and watched the water in the tub sink away, gurgling and choking on its way down.
“Where are you going to go?” Jake finally asked.
“Anywhere but there.”
“You can always stay here,” he said. I looked up at him, hugging my legs to my chest, my hair only wet at the ends. He gazed at me with a kindness so pure I felt my lip trembling. “Or we can keep you in Manhattan,” he offered lightly. “I have a warehouse apartment in the Lower East Side. It’s not furnished yet but if you want to stay in the city, we can decorate it for you. Customize it, make it your haven.”
I blinked back the tears I felt coming. “No. I don’t want that.”
Jake nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll give you what you want, Lara. Once you know what it is, just tell me and I’ll make it happen.”
“I know what it is,” I said. Rising to my feet, I stepped out of the tub and went to Jake, feeling his shallow breath as I slid my hands up his abs. “I want to be wherever you are,” I murmured, looking at my hands on his chest. “I know you’re not going to stay here for long. Not with how it’s been with Jackson. Once the hotel opens, you’re going to leave. And I know you always go somewhere far away and make a life there, so when you do that, I want to go too,” I exhaled, my growing excitement snatching my breath. “And I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to me. I want us to do what we’re doing now for however long it lasts for. All I want is to do that wherever you go. So you can show me how to start over.”
Once I was done, I looked up at Jake, fearing his reaction. He wasn’t quite smiling but I saw something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen from him yet. Relief. I breathed easy as he took my hands and brought them to his lips, kissing my fingertips before leaning down to kiss me.
“I’ll make that happen for you,” he said softly. “For us. I need to feel you somewhere besides here. Somewhere where it’s just us so I don’t have to worry or even think about anything besides you.”
I closed my eyes, a wave of happiness crashing through me, washing me anew. “Thank you,” I whispered, kissing Jake deeply as his strong hands formed around my naked waist. I could already feel it – his touch bringing me somewhere else. To a place where the chaos didn’t exist.
On his bed, he took his time trailing his lips over every inch of my body. Between kisses to my stomach, my breasts, he shed his shirt and his jeans. Naked against me, I felt his warmth, moaning at every touch of his skin on mine. I arched my back into him as his hot mouth teased my breasts. They were sensitive, heavy with arousal and every last stroke of his tongue and fingertips was like pure bliss. He felt like a drug. The exact remedy that I needed.
“I want to make you feel nothing but good, Lara,” he murmured.
“Yes. Please,” I panted, delirious. I raised my hips for him when I felt his breath between my legs. “
Oh God
.” My fists pulsed around his sheets as his tongue drew hot, wet circles over my clit. The cries that spilled my lips were an emotional release. I needed this. I needed Jake. I felt nothing but good when his body was pressed against mine and in this moment, I needed that feeling more than anything in the world.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned deep against me as he felt my muscles tighten. Sliding his hands under my ass, he lifted me higher for his mouth, spiraling me into ecstasy as he slid his tongue inside my pussy. I cried toward the ceiling, my walls tightening around him as he tunneled deeper than I ever thought possible.
“Jake, I’m going to come,” I gasped, my stomach was taut, my body trembling as he brought every inch of me to a screaming orgasm.
That night, while we lay in bed, we talked about all the places in the world that I dreamt of seeing. Before finally drifting off to sleep, we did what I always hated – his flesh pulsing inside me, we made love. It was the only way to describe it.
The next morning, I returned to Jackson’s apartment to find him sitting in silence on the stairs.
He was hunched forward, already staring at me with a wolf-like expression. Frozen, I briefly considered walking back out. But then I remembered that I was there for a reason. I was there to return my ring and to tell him that it would be my last time stepping foot in his duplex.
But the rage in his blazing eyes and rigid torso told me he had something to say as well. And after my run-in with Dane yesterday, I sensed that I knew what it was. I watched a sneer form on his lips as he began to speak. “I take it you’re coming from Sawyer’s?” Jackson said, his calm voice contradicting everything about the way he looked.
I tossed my purse on the floor. “No,” I answered, walking in neat steps to the kitchen counter, dropping my ring on the metal surface with a hard
clack
.
The sound brought Jackson flying to his feet. His sheer speed made me stumble backward in shock. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, snatching the ring off the table. “You think you’re going to cheat on me with fucking Sawyer and then fucking leave me? After everything, you want to humiliate me like that?”
“After everything?” I had to laugh in his face. “Oh, you mean how you hid the fact that you
fucked
your stepsister, cheated on me with Gabrielle and then hired a criminal to
attack
me in our own home?” My eyes were wild as I watched Jackson back down for a second. “Yes, I know about that,” the words seeped from my throat with revulsion. “I know that the son of a bitch who came in here and acted like he was going to fucking
rape
me was someone you fucking
hired
off of Dane McNulty. I mean do you actually feel good about that, Jackson? You manipulated me into loving you again by having a strange man put his hands on me and toss me around and put me through the worst trauma of my life!”
Jackson’s jaw was so tight I could hear his teeth gnashing against each other. “It wasn’t supposed to get that far. If you hadn’t seen his face, he wouldn’t have – ”
“I don’t care, Jackson! You hired a dangerous man to not only scare me but
hurt
me. I couldn’t sleep for a month after that. I still wake up with nightmares about that night and you know what, it’d probably happen every night if it weren’t for the fact that you’re constantly giving me new things to fucking wake up crying over.”
Jackson walked into me, a snarl on his face. “I love you, Lara.”
“You have a twisted way of showing it, then,” I hissed. But no matter how much I pushed him away, he came back.
“I told you the deal. I told you not to sleep with anyone I knew,” he muttered. “And the fact that it was Sawyer? I’ve watched you two flirt for years and I never said a word because I thought it was stupid. Harmless. But the second you get the chance, you go to house and suck his dick and let him fuck you however he – ”
“Oh my God, are you hearing yourself?” I gasped. “Surprise, Jackson, it wasn’t Sawyer. I know you go to Dane McNulty for a lot of shady shit but his word on who I fucked is completely wrong.”
“Funny, you sure believed him when he said that I slept with Gabrielle two years ago.”
“Sawyer saw you too so don’t even try to compare that,” I laughed bitterly, pushing past Jackson and storming up the stairs. I’d thought that when I left, there’d be nothing for me to pack as everything would remind me of Jackson, but there was in fact one thing left that I desperately needed. Ignoring Jackson’s footsteps, I paced into the bedroom and into my closet. When I emerged, he stood there, his frosty eyes locked on my passport.
“And where do you think you’re going?” he asked with an eerie calm.
“Away. You can sleep with whoever the hell you want now.”
Jackson’s strides quickened as he trailed me down the hall. “What, you need to run off with Sloane again?”
“No, I need to leave New York and never come back.”
My sentence barely finished before Jackson was in front of me, eyes wild. “You’re not leaving me, Lara. The world already knows that we’re getting married.”
“So what? This isn’t about your ego, Jackson, or your friends finding out that I left you. It’s about the fact that you’re as good as a fucking criminal and I’ll never for a second want to spend the rest of my life with you again,” I hissed. But when I stepped to pass him, he blocked me.
“I want you, Lara. I don’t want anyone else. I gave you that ring, I announced to the world that you were mine. We’re going to get married, and that’s that.”
I’d never laughed with fury before but this moment was as good as any for that first. “No. No, Jackson. We’re not getting married and we never will. So on top of being a despicable monster, I guess you’re fucking insane if you really think you can tell me what to do.”
With that, I pushed past him and down the stairs, traveling faster than I ever had in a pair of heels. Shoving my passport into my purse, I made a beeline for the door. But as I waited for the elevator, I could hear Jackson returning calmly from upstairs. My back turned, I heard his footsteps – one by one, slow and ominous as they returned to me in no rush at all.
“Here,” he said, a sneer in his voice.
I heard the
whoosh
of something flying through the air. Following that came the sound of something hard and something soft dropping onto the floor. I told myself not to turn around but with dread pitting in my stomach, I spun on my heel.
When I saw it, my knees gave out. My nails scratched hardwood as my stomach lurched forward, my heartbeat thumping harder and harder till my insides rattled.
It was my shirt spattered in Gabrielle’s dried blood. Beside it was a little jump drive.
“It has her voicemail in it,” Jackson said casually, hands in his pockets as he looked down at the shirt, the jump drive, and me. “I had it in a safe.”
The room spun as I looked up at him. “You kept all this? Why – why would you do this?”
“I could ask you the same,” he said. “You think I’m the one with secrets but since the night that you saw me watching my little video with Gabrielle, you’ve been rash. Unpredictable. You have any idea how much you scared me when you came back covered in her blood? You told me you’d never been in a fight in your life but now you’re the kind of girl who comes home wearing some other girl’s blood? The fact that she was missing the next day was just… unreal to me. I mean how was I supposed to know what you were going to do next? Attack Audra, maybe? Or any other woman you saw me talk to?”
I crawled to my feet and backed up two steps. “You know I didn’t kill Gabrielle.”
“I don’t want to know, Lara. I’ve spent this summer wrestling back any thought that makes me wonder if my fiancée is a murderer.”
“
Liar
, you know I didn’t do it, I know you do!”
“I don’t, Lara,” Jackson shrugged casually. “But what I do know is that I have this shirt and that voicemail. And if I want, I can get security footage from our building. They’ll just dial is back to the night Gabby went missing and they’ll see you coming in a bloody mess.” His eyes flicked to my passport. “The fact that you want to flee the country right now is just the cherry on top of all this. Unless you want to live running from authorities for the rest of your life, I’d suggest you stay right fucking here where you belong.” Ambling over, Jackson tilted his head and cupped my chin, his ice blue eyes studying mine with amusement. “So what do you think now, babe? Do you still want to leave?”
Burning tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared up at him. I hated myself. I hated myself for Gabby and for the fact that Jackson had rendered me speechless, useless. Essentially his hostage.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jackson murmured, leaning in to kiss me. When I shrunk away, he pressed me against the door. “Come on. Don’t be upset, baby,” he said gently, running his thumb over my cheek to wipe a tear. “Everything will be fine again soon. I’ll put all those things back in the safe where they belong and no one will ever find them. Unless you want them to. Do you?”
I was shaking so hard my jaw rattled in my skull. “No,” I finally managed my choked reply.
“I didn’t think so,” Jackson took my hand, slipping my engagement ring back onto my finger. He plucked the passport from my hands. “Now let’s just forget about this and talk about what I did with Audra and what you did with Sawyer, so we can go back to being normal again.” Holding my jaw, he pressed a rough kiss on my lips. “’Cause we’re going to go back to normal, babe. We’re always going to be us, baby. Everyone’s favorite couple, Jackson and Lara.”
To Be Continued…