One Day His (The Someday Series Book 2) (10 page)

My mother was sulking after I had “ruined” her sham family-therapy session. I was quiet because I was afraid that, if I started talking, I would set off something less appealing to deal with than her sulking. The doctor sat at her side, apparently not wanting to stir the pot any more than I did. Jace sat beside me, quiet as a church mouse. Thankfully, not trying to make small talk or any talk at all. But as much as I appreciated his picking up on my silent film impersonation and his strong presence beside me, it was driving me crazy not being able to communicate with him normally.

This was definitely one of the longest meals of my life.

Making the situation worse was the fact that, when my mother was home, we had a formal dinner, which consisted of all the proper courses. That meant that we didn’t just get to suffer silently through one plate of food. Oh, no—we had to painfully plow our way through appetizer, soup, entrée, salad, dessert, and coffee courses’ worth of strained silence.

When the meal was finally,
blessedly
finished, my mother stood and left the dining room without a single backward glance. The doctor’s bumbled movements sent a fork crashing to the hardwood floor as he pushed back his chair, wiping his mouth with a frantic energy and following behind Angelica like a lovesick teenager. I heard a rush of air and realized that it was my own breath—I had been holding it, without even realizing it.

“Wow.” Jace turned to me, his eyes wide. “That was just about the single tensest hour and a half I have ever sat through. I mean, that was almost physically painful.”

I nodded. “Believe me. Awkward is better than what it could have been. She’s in a mood, but she’ll get over it sooner or later. At least no plates were thrown, no one was fired, and insults weren’t pouring out of her like water over Niagara Falls.”

Something dark flashed in Jace’s eyes and he pulled me into his arms, I went willingly—of course—but I had no idea why he seemed so…intense.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered against the crown of my head.

“For what?” I drew back and asked in confusion. Hadn’t I just explained that the dinner had gone fairly well.

“For not being here to protect you.” Jace shook his head disbelievingly. “Damn, Cat. How do you live like this?”

Oh. That.

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? It was the one that I had never dared ask myself, but now, I was being faced with it. I was going to have to do some serious thinking on that topic—but not tonight. Tonight, I needed to escape. I needed to get away from here.

“Come on, Jace. I need to get out of here.”

He stood up, probably just as ready as I was, if not more, to break free from the stifling atmosphere of the house, if only for a little while. “Where do you want to go?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. As long as it’s away from here, I’m good.”

Jace nodded. “Sounds good to me. I just need to run upstairs to your room and grab the keys.”

Jace

W
e were already
in the car and pulling out of the driveway before it hit me that I had no clue where we were going. When I asked Cat, she merely shrugged and instructed, “Just drive!”

I nodded and randomly decided to take a right. Hell, whichever way we drove along the magnificent Pacific Coast Highway was bound to be amazing. There was nothing but beauty all around us.

When we got to a stoplight, Cat indicated that I should turn left, and we began climbing up the steep and winding streets that crisscrossed the hills above Los Angeles. We continued higher and higher until I felt like we were driving in the sky. The sense of freedom was amazing after being in that mansion.

After about an hour of driving around aimlessly I saw a turnoff for a scenic view and pulled into it. Cat and I sat silent for a moment, just taking in the stunning view of city lights laid out below us like a sparkling blanket of multicolored stars.

“Gorgeous,” Cat breathed finally.

I agreed. “You must have seen this so many times before though,” I said as I leaned back against the seat and rested my hand on her knee, my thumb making lazy circles on her inner thigh, “but, I bet it never gets old.”

“Actually, I’ve never seen this view.” A sigh escaped her mouth as she snuggled closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder before continuing. “I mean, when I said I pretty much lived in my bedroom and the kitchen of my house with occasional sojourns out to the beach in the back, I wasn’t kidding.”

My heart ached for her. After spending just a day in that house, I knew how confining and claustrophobic the walls were. At a loss of what else say, I kissed the crown of her head and said, “I’m so sorry, Cat. I didn’t realize that.”

Cat lifted her head from my shoulder and her big brown eyes lifted to meet mine. “It’s fine. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t some kind of Flowers in the Attic situation or something. I wasn’t being held prisoner. I could’ve left. I had a car. Don taught me to drive. I had a credit card, and I could have had cash anytime I thought to ask for it. It was just that I knew if I did, my mother would not like it. Keeping her happy and balanced was basically my only goal from the moment my eyes opened in the morning until I closed them at night. Even when she was away filming, I knew that, if I went out, it would get back to her. Not from Rachel and Don—they were constantly encouraging me to get involved in things, venture out. But my mother’s voice was always louder in my head.

“Honestly, until I met you and the girls, I never really thought that I was capable of interacting in normal society. I would just hear over and over the things my mother had said to me and I was convinced that I actually was too socially awkward and too shy to be able to meet new people much less engage in conversations. It was kind of paralyzing.”

As I sat beside this beautiful, amazing, incredible girl who was like an angel—
my angel
—I had no idea what to say to that. My chest hurt in the way that it only did when I saw that look in Cat’s eyes. The look that told me she had no idea how special she was. How sexy. How smart. How sweet.

I knew that just saying those words to her would not have the effect I wanted. She wouldn’t feel them down to depths of her soul. I wished I could express to her how deep my feelings were and how amazing I thought she was in a way that would really get at the heart of it, that would make her feel it, that would break down all the barriers and honestly transmit what was in my heart to hers. The problem was that I wasn’t as good with words as Cat was. She might have been stuttering and awkward when she was stressed, but when she was relaxed and had space to be thoughtful, she phrased things in the most beautiful ways I’d ever heard. Many times, with just a few words, she perfectly expressed a feeling I had not known how to explain—one I could have talked for days about and not been able to really nail down. With just one sentence, she would be able to capture it exactly.

Just as I was about to give up on the idea that I could communicate to her the way I saw her, I remembered something that my battalion leader always had a habit of doing. I wasn’t sure if they were called metaphors or what, but he’d always prepared us for missions by comparing the situation to something we could relate to. I didn’t know about the other guys, but when he did that, I understood the point he was trying to make.

I figured that maybe I should give it a try.

“Do you know what opals are? Have you seen them?” I asked.

Her brow knitted, causing the adorable wrinkle just above her nose. Every time it made an appearance, I had the urge to kiss it. She nodded as her eyes narrowed and her head tilted. Her face said that she had no clue where that question had come from but was interested to see where I might go with it.

“Well, I saw these white opals in a jewelry store once, and I remembered being mesmerized by them. They’re pretty from a distance. Shiny, white, and smooth. But then you get closer, and when you really look at them, you see all of this fire and color inside. All of this depth. There’s so much more going on under the pretty surface than you ever could’ve guessed, but they don’t let just anybody see it. You have to get close.

“But when you do get close, you realize that they aren’t just pretty. They’re actually the most beautiful, unique thing in the entire store. You just didn’t know it when you first saw them.”

Cat nodded, but I could tell that she still wasn’t getting the connection.

“You’re like that,” I said emphatically. “The way that you’re shy and you don’t show everything to everyone right away, it can make people get the wrong idea about you. It can make people think that there’s not actually much more there to see than a pretty face. But that’s not the truth. The truth is that there are so many depths and colors, so many layers, so much fire, going on below the surface. It’s just… It’s actually even more special because only a few of us get to see it, you know? Not less.”

I watched her face go from confused to upset in under three seconds. Her bottom lip quivered and large tears filled her eyelids then began rolling down her cheeks.
Shit
. I hadn’t meant to make her cry, I had meant to make her feel better. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

“Damn, Cat. I’m sorry. I meant it as a good thing—”

She interrupted my apology by shaking her head as a huge smile spread on her beautiful face. “I know. These are happy tears!”

Relief crashed over me. I raked my hands through my hair and let out a breath. “Oh, thank God. I thought I had just royally fucked up.”

Reaching up she cupped my face in her hands and stared straight into my eyes. Her voice was thick with emotion when she said, “You didn’t. You didn’t eff it up at all. It was perfect. You’re perfect.”

Then she kissed me, and I put my arms around her, letting my hands roam over her beautiful, soft body. I reveled in the sensuous feel of her skin and the heat of her lips on mine. I wasn’t perfect, of course. Not even close. But I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her about that right now.

And pulling over to find spots to park with Cat was quickly becoming my favorite thing in the world to do.

Jace

“W
e’re late,” A
voice sounded like it was calling out from far away.

I tried to reason in my half-asleep state.
Whose voice was that? Is this a dream? That’s it. Must be a dream. Yeah. That must be it.

Rolling over I pulled Cat against me. A low, contented sound escaped my throat. God, there was nothing better in this world than being under the covers with this woman. Her smell, her body, the sensation of her silky-smooth hair brushing against my skin.
Mmmm
…

I felt myself growing hard, and I ran my hand up her side under the blanket, loving the silky heat of her skin under my fingertips.

Floating in half-awake-half-asleep limbo, I realized that, even semiconscious, I couldn’t get enough of Cat. Her power over me was intense. This gave a whole new dimension to the concept of morning wood and what could be done with it. There was nothing but extraordinary possibilities there, and we had nothing but endless mornings to explore them.

Damn, I could get used to this.

“Slow your roll, Romeo. Like I said, we’re late.”

What the fuck?

My eyes snapped open, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t asleep at all anymore. I was wide fucking awake, in fact.

Even though my eyes were now open, they were still a little fuzzy. I could make out the shape of a man standing in the middle of the room. I started to get out of bed and kick his ass when I felt Cat’s hands grab my arm and pull me towards her.

“It’s okay,” she yawned, shaking her head. “It’s just Jerry.”

I knew my brain was not firing on all cylinders yet, but no way in hell was it okay that any man, “
just Jerry,
” or not was in Cat’s room. As if reading my mind, or maybe it was the fact that my entire body was strung tight like a Cobra ready to strike, Cat squeezed her fingers around my arm, “Hey,” she said drawing my attention before she repeated, “It’s okay.”

“We’re late,” Jerry repeated in the same clipped tone of voice without ever glancing up. “Get ready. We’re out in twenty.”

My heart was still pounding furiously as I watched Just Jerry texting on his phone, paying absolutely zero attention to mine and Cat’s exchange. Or the fact that we were both practically naked under these covers.

“Get ready for what?” Cat asked.

Jerry continued typing as he explained, “Press. I had the stylist send over some options. Don’t deviate.”

Then he looked directly in Cat’s eyes as he delivered the last line. It was perhaps an indication of how much impact he wanted it to have that he took time out from his busy texting schedule to make eye contact as he spoke. “Follow my directions to the tee. Behave, smile and keep your mouth shut. If you do that you can get back to your life as quickly as possible, and we can get back to ours.”

Jerry’s beady eyes held Cat’s gaze for a moment, and the tension in the room mounted. I started to sit up and say something. I wasn’t sure what, but I did not like how this asshole was treating, talking to, or looking at her. But Cat’s fingers once again squeezed my arm and I knew that it was her way of telling me to stand down.

She nodded curtly, and he did the same, immediately spinning on his heel and exiting before shutting the door firmly behind him.

The second he was gone, I pulled Cat into my arms. Her world was so bizarre that I wasn’t sure I would ever understand the rules or the game, but I knew I wanted to be here for her. Protect her. I just wasn’t sure how to do that.

I kissed the top of Cat’s head and, at a loss of what to say, just said, “Jesus, does anyone knock? I thought we locked the door.”

She let out a forced laugh as she shook her head. Her soft, silky hair brushed against my chest and my dick took notice. It grew rock hard in less than a millisecond.

“No, and we did. As you can see, my privacy is not a priority. My mother had keys made for my room.” With that explanation, Cat stood and walked over to the clothes hanging on a rolling steel bar that hadn’t been there when we’d gone to sleep. “We probably have fifteen minutes, at the most, to get ready and downstairs before Jerry or someone else will be up here.”