Irreplaceable (Underneath it All Series: Book Three) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

They were hard questions, ones I still struggled to answer. Baggage that I carried deep inside. All I knew, all I cared about, were the two women in front of me. The McLeod sisters, who deserved so much better. So much more. I couldn’t stand Sadie carrying guilt and responsibility to a mother who didn’t deserve it.

“I know a little something about mothers who-” I didn’t finish because Rose was striding back towards us. Her eyes were still puffy from crying but she had the same, ‘Don’t mess with me’ look that was all over Sadie’s face.

She handed Sadie her phone and flicked her eyes in my direction. “Our Mom’s in the hospital. Thank you for inviting us over, but we have to go.” Rose’s words were so crisp, so matter-of-fact that I expected her to summarily turn on her heels and shepherd Sadie back to the elevator.

Instead, Rose flipped her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder and walked right past me. Sadie and I exchanged a look and my jaw literally hit the floor when Rose knelt down and grabbed the box of chicken, heading back into the main loft.

“Do you have any Tupperware? I’m starving.”

Sadie’s concern deepened and she held my gaze, eyes softening. “She’s worried about our mother. I am too.” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry I went off on you after you invited us here. I’ve ruined the evening-”

This time, when I interrupted her, it was with my lips. I cradled her face in my hands and pressed my mouth against hers. When I tasted her tears, her sadness, her relief that I hadn’t really fucked off like she’d told me too, I knew that a word I hadn’t been looking for was now impossible to run from.

I was falling in love with her.

I caressed her cheek. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

She sniffed and when those emerald eyes gleamed up at me, I saw that word in her gaze. When I answered her with silence, a smile spreading across my face, those same eyes bulged like she’d been caught.

She took a tiny step backward, blushing as deep as her red strands. “Let me go get Rose before she eats you out of house and home.”

“She’s alright,” I chuckled, reaching for Sadie’s hand. I slowly interlaced our fingers and gave her hand a squeeze. “Let me take you two to the hospital.”

Sadie looked genuinely surprised. “You’d do that?”

For you, I’d do anything
. The thought was too damn sappy, even in my head, so I answered, “Let me put my horsepower to good use.”

Sadie’s eyes glittered with fresh tears but she just cleared her throat and gave me a playful half grin. “You mean, you wanna show off your fancy sports car.”

“You know me all too well,” I winked.

Rose reappeared, armed with the chicken, a roll of paper towels, and three bottles of sparkling water. “I was gonna grab the champagne, but I figured the last thing we need tonight is to be arrested.”

For a few moments while we were headed towards the parking garage, our final destination draining the laughter and conversation, there was another word that flitted through my heart: Family.

~

“I
’m sorry.”

Sadie mouthed the words in the rearview mirror, her volume lost amidst the crooning of Justin Bieber or whatever pop star Rose was singing along to. At the top of her lungs.

I smiled at Sadie, hoping the slight gesture reassured her. She still had that pinched, irritated look on her face. It was a look I’d seen on the faces of other older siblings when they were confronted with impossible younger ones.

The music paused when I got an incoming call. I glanced at the screen and saw Joe’s grinning mug flashing up at me.

“What happened to the music?” Rose whined, peering at the console. Her sparkling eyes bulged with interest when she saw my friend. “And who is
that
?”

“Rose, you’re acting like you have zero manners,” Sadie groaned.

I didn’t have to look back at Sadie to know she had that same cringing, apologetic expression. It seemed glued to her beautiful face since we left the parking garage.

Sadie’s apologies were unnecessary. The first had come when Rose shouted, ‘Shotgun!’ as soon as I clicked the unlock button. The second one came without the heavy sigh and eye roll, but the tone was filled with a plea for me to put her out of her misery. Thanks to Rose, I got a crash course in the current Top 40 hits, complete with all the celebrity shenanigans...and who I should follow on Instagram.

Classic rock was more my scene, but I wasn’t crazy enough to touch the dial. To be honest, I found Rose’s off key singing (and Sadie’s annoyance at said singing) kinda adorable.

Rose salivating when she saw Joe? Not so much.

It was understandable. Most women turned into blushing, stammering schoolgirls when Joe turned his pearly whites on them—but Rose was a literal school girl.

I declined the call and felt genuine relief when some high pitched woman’s voice came pouring through the speakers, singing that her name, sign, and number, were ‘No’. It seemed appropriate. “He’s a friend.”

“Maybe he could be my friend too,” Rose said suggestively, flipping down the visor to peer at her reflection.

“That’s a no-fly zone,” I answered, flexing my knuckles on the steering wheel.

“But I’ll be eighteen in like...” She snapped her fingers.

Luckily, there was a red light, so I could safely glance over at Rose and shake my head, effectively ending the conversation.

Rose predictably rolled her eyes. Her eye roll was almost identical to her sister’s, with a scoff tacked to the end. “Ugh, you’re about as bad as the Fun Police back there,” she huffed, crooking her thumb over her shoulder.

I glanced at the mirror. From the grin on Sadie’s lips, she was glad she didn’t have to shut Rose down personally.

“Somebody’s gotta keep my barely legal sister out of trouble.”

Rose crossed her arms and defiantly turned her full attention to her phone. Before I could turn my attention back to the road, Sadie mouthed two new words:
Thank you
.

When was the last time someone had thanked me for anything? When was the last time they meant it? When was the last time I got this tingling sensation in my chest and couldn’t stop smiling?

“The light is green and you two are officially so cute it’s gross,” Rose snapped, just in time for the impatient driver behind me to lay on his horn.

Not even thinking, more habit than anything, I flipped the driver off and snapped my car back to life. I remembered I wasn’t alone and started apologizing.

“I’m not one of those psycho assholes.” I cleared my throat and pointedly ignored the two sets of eyes that were gawking at me.

“I hate to break it to you,” Sadie’s voice was solemn, with just enough dread that I felt nervous. “But you’re as fucked up as the rest of us.”

“That was freaking AWESOME!” Rose followed up, holding up her hand for a high-five.

I high-fived her, grinning like a dummy, quickly reclaiming the steering wheel. My smile faltered when Sadie gently reminded me that our exit was coming up soon. The city would be behind us in a few minutes and it would be impossible to keep pretending that we were on some road trip to some warm, beautiful place. Falcon wasn’t hell on Earth, but from what I’d gleaned from Sadie and Rose, it was close enough. And the reason we were going to Falcon, formerly a bitter, heavy whisper that buzzed beneath the auto tune, was now a screech from a megaphone, endless, repeating, and impossible to ignore.

“You think Mom is gonna die?”

Rose asked the question as nonchalantly as someone asking if we wanted Chinese or Italian for dinner. Like our destination, and their mother ending up in the hospital, was inevitable.

I stole a look at Sadie. The urge to pull over, take her in my arms, and lie to her again; tell her it would all be okay, overwhelmed me. That fierce beauty, the softness and strength, like a rose with thorns, was replaced by something else. I knew that she dialed up the strength to hide her vulnerability. It was a skill I’d mastered as well.

Now, there was no strength anywhere to be found.

The absence of that forced reality to sink in. The look on her face ripped my heart from my chest and crushed it. My fighter, the woman that had to have been an Amazonian warrior in a past life, drinking from the skulls of her enemies, was hidden. This Sadie looked weary, right down to her bones. All fight, all spark, all will to lie to her sister, to keep going, had been drained right out of her.

She locked eyes with me, hers made of glass. Her chin trembled and she parted her lips, her expression turning into something unacceptable.

Agony.

She didn’t want to answer that question, because if she gave her sister hope and we ended up in that hospital and the worst had come to fruition, she’d never forgive herself.

So I spoke up.

I went to my own place of agony.

I talked about the woman I spent most of my life trying to forget.

“I was too young to ask that question when my mother was taken to the hospital, but I remember the feeling of dread that filled my stomach. I wanted to run. To hide. To throw up.” A chill rushed over me and I could see it all playing out on the windshield. A horror movie that I had to watch whether I wanted to or not.

“I’d just turned six.” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. All the luxury in the world couldn’t massage away the urge to keep the past under lock and key. What the hell was I thinking, bringing her up? I didn’t want to make their pain about me.

Liar. You just want an out. To press the eject button so you can go back to being stone cold Jackson Colt, using humor and charm to hide the truth.

I knew myself well. I swallowed the fears and put my skeletons back in the closet, steering the conversation back to them. “But that’s enough about me-”

“Boo hoo, the billionaire had to watch his mommy be taken off to the hospital. Try living in perpetual fear that your mother would drink herself to death, burn the house down, or forget to buy groceries.”

Sadie’s vehemence was palpable. I could taste it in the air. It was almost as dizzying as the old aches and pangs that rushed back, pulling me to the past. The movie was still rolling, the scenes plucked from my childhood. I was wearing a dirty shirt and jeans because I didn’t know how to do laundry and I’d run out of clean clothes a week ago. Clean clothes weren’t the only thing we were out of. The cupboards had gone dry days ago. There was only my aluminum cans and the empty bottomlessness that had become my stomach.

“I know what it’s like to worry about food,” I answered tersely, my throat on fire with my confession. “I know what it’s like to have no food at all. I’ve always had a pretty good imagination, though. I convinced myself that a cup of room tap water tasted like a slice of pepperoni pizza.”

I was doing the thing again. Using humor to mask my pain. My truth. There wasn’t a damn thing funny about what I’d shared. What I’d lived.

“Oh my God.”

I pumped my brakes immediately. Some twisted, buried piece of me that felt unworthy of love, unworthy of telling my story, expected Sadie to be glaring at me, ready to demand I let them out. Walking was a better option than sharing air with me, she’d say.

Face to face with the woman I was falling in love with, I didn’t find condemnation. All the disgust that had been in her words was long gone and replaced by heart wrenching sorrow. “I didn’t—Oh, Jax.”

Some asshole laid on his horn, but I saved the middle finger for another time and turned my attention back to the road. The task at hand wiped away the ache and I steeled myself before I spoke. “It’s cool. This isn’t about me-”

“You’re taking us to our mom. You didn’t have to do that. Everything wise and sane says you should have wished us good luck and let us figure it out.” Sadie squeezed my shoulder supportively. “It isn’t about
me
. I shouldn’t have...I wish...what I said was-”

“Cruel?” Rose spoke up. The air wasn’t alive with the past anymore, it was rife with tension. “Like Mom?”

I half expected that I was going to have to take the next exit because Rose had thrown down the gauntlet—and I doubted Sadie would let that missile go unanswered.

"You're right," Sadie muttered.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Rose didn't let her off the hook. Even though the radio was practically silent, she reached over and fiddled with the touchscreen and made sure it was completely muted.

I acted like the drive was more scenic and compelling than it was, knowing that whatever button had been pushed was bigger than me.

"Rose, we're not gonna do this here-"

"Then when are we gonna do it, Sadie?!" Rose shrilled. "Jesus, you and Mom are one in the same. She refuses to talk about anything at all, and you refuse to talk about anything important. You both push away the people that care about you because you're terrified of being alone." Rose's voice, usually airy and upbeat, went dark and serious. Like a girl who was forced to grow up before her time. "Let me tell you something. When you don't open up, when you don't put yourself out there, when you choose safety instead of risk, when you lash out at someone who just wants to be there for you, the only way he knows how...you
are
alone. You're building an island and blasting anyone that gets close right out of the water."

At first glance, there was only anger and hurt. Loneliness. But that wasn't all there was. Beneath the red and the terse exchange was hope. Hope for the future. Hope that they could do things differently. That Sadie could let go of her bitterness towards their mother for long enough to see that her sister was right there, in need of someone to lean on, confide in. In need of her sister.

The silence that followed Rose’s words made me grateful I was strapped in and had driving to keep me occupied. I was content to fly under the radar since Rose was evoking images of war and death. Sadie let out a sigh of frustration and I battened down the hatches the best I could. I waited for Sadie to respond.

“What the hell do you know about being ‘blown out of the water’?”

Rose didn’t miss a beat. “I saw that
Battleship
movie with Rihanna.”

The car went silent again for a precious, confounding seconds before their laughter filled the air. My laughter. But that wasn’t what compelled me.