Chapter One
Lara
I’d woken up certain it was all a dream.
No way this was real. No way had I agreed to marry to a man who would end up blackmailing me for the death of a girl he cheated on me with. No way would I sleep in the same bed as a man who hired someone to attack me, just so he could come to my rescue and win me back. No way in hell would I stay with a person vile enough to threaten me should I ever try to leave. That could never in a million years be my reality.
And yet here I was, living every second of the nightmare.
With the door closed in our bathroom, I stood in front of the mirror and stripped off my clothes. Jackson had once again picked a dress for me to wear to dinner, but tonight, I undressed behind a wall. After yesterday, he had officially become a stranger to me, and the thought of being naked in front of him made my stomach turn. If I had my choice, Jackson would never look at me again.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have any choice at all. Not when Jackson had my T-shirt stained with Gabrielle Winter’s blood and a jump drive of her panicked voicemail, screaming about how I’d broken into her apartment. With her missing case still under investigation, he had two pieces of evidence that would rather convincingly point toward me as her killer.
So I couldn’t say a word.
Not even as he opened the bathroom door, watching me push my maxi-dress off till it fell in a puddle around my bare feet. Knotting his tie, Jackson’s crystal blue eyes swept over my body, lingering on my satin bra as I stood there frozen before him, my jaw so tight I could feel my pulse in my teeth. “Come on, baby,” he murmured. “Let me see you try on my gift.” His lips curled into a devious smile as he watched me start to pull the stretchy cotton dress over my head. “Lara, don’t fuck around. We both know you can’t fit a bra under that.”
Anger flared in my cheeks but I didn’t so much as look at Jackson as I reached behind my back to unsnap my bra. I gritted my teeth as I heard him rumble something deep and full of lust when it dropped to the floor. As I began pulling the dress on again, he stepped forward to stop me.
“Wait.”
I waited but when he said nothing, I finally lifted my glare. “What, Jackson?”
Pushing the knot up on his tie, he came toward me. “I just want to look at my beautiful fiancée for a second,” he said softly. My breath shortened as he closed the gap between us. I ignored the look of hurt on his face when I froze at his touch, stiff as a wooden board as he ran his hands along the curve of my waist. “Lara, it kills me that you’re treating me like some monster right now,” Jackson murmured, pulling me into him. My throat tightened as he hugged me into his chest, kissing the top of my head. “I don’t think you realize that I did all this because I love you. I kept that voicemail and that shirt because I was afraid you’d lost it. I was scared for you, Lara. For us.”
Christ. My eyes were blank, utterly dead as I listened to him try again to convince to me – to make me believe that I was crazy, that I might in fact be a murderer. With a heavy sigh, Jackson gently stroked my bare skin, raising every last hair on the back of my neck.
“That’s why I called Jake to come back to New York. I wanted him to help me help you. But I ended up too scared to tell him because I want to fix this just you and me, Lara. No matter what you do, what you did, I’m going to stick behind you, babe. Because I’ve loved you since the second I laid eyes on you and I’m not going to let us be anything but the couple we were meant to be.”
Pulling away, Jackson looked into my eyes with true warmth. Christ, he actually believes himself. It was unbelievable. Jackson was truly under the impression that he was helping me, not keeping me as his fiancée against my will. It was official. He was insane.
“Right,” I returned with about as much warmth as a mannequin.
“Baby, don’t be like this,” Jackson breathed, trailing his hands down my backside as he kissed my neck. “Come on.” I felt his hot tongue draw a wet line on my skin. “Let me show you how much I love you,” he murmured, pushing his fingertips under the lace of my panties and squeezing my ass. With a groan, he was hard. In no time, his erection was pulsing against my belly. “I promise, babe... I’ll make you feel better than I’ve ever made you feel,” he whispered, pushing me against the sink and trailing his lips down my neck and into the valley between my collarbones. But as his breath continued downward, I shoved him away.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Jackson,” I managed between my teeth. My eyes were cold and steely on him as he took a step backward. “I forgave you for cheating on me with Gabrielle, but if you think I’ll ever forgive you for all the shit you’ve pulled on me since, you’re out of your fucking mind. In case you don’t realize what’s happening here, you are blackmailing me. I’m staying because I’m scared of what you’ll do if I leave, not because I have any desire to be touched by you ever again.”
Jackson stared at me like a dog that had been kicked in the ribs. But in a flash, that false hurt morphed into a cocky sneer.
“We’ve been through this before, Lara,” he smirked as he pushed my hair back and gazed down at my exposed chest. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss against my curled lips, his hands cupping me gently at first but squeezing gradually harder till he sucked in a sharp breath and let out a grunt. “Oh yeah, you’ll get over this soon, babe. And when you do, I’m gonna fuck harder and better than I did the last time you forgave me,” he grinned, adjusting his stiff cock in his pants. “But till then, I’ll wait. Because I love you, Lara Kinsley,” he kissed me once more. “And I know you love me too.”
Chapter Two
Jake
Can’t leave Something happened
Please go to dinner tmrw night so we can talk
In person
Don’t txt back. Jackson near
Lara’s cryptic texts last night had tightened every last muscle in my body. It had taken truly everything in me to keep from jumping into a car and driving straight to her apartment. I could see the panic in the way she typed and knowing my piece of shit brother, I had a hunch he’d worked his master manipulation. Some way, somehow, he had gotten his way. And I should’ve known better than anyone. When it came to keeping Lara, Jackson would do anything. The thought made me sick to my stomach.
But as much as my body fucking ached to hold hers, I restrained myself. Catching Jackson’s attention with a reply would easily make the situation a million times worse. On top of that, I knew Lara. She was smart and strong and everything I loved in a woman. If she wanted to speak to me at dinner, I’d respect her wishes and force myself to wait until then.
Of course, by the time I got there, a whole other