Jeanie
Iwake up feeling light.
The lightness suffuses me, like all the weight that’s been threatening to drag me under the earth is gone, vanished into the air. I can breathe, really breathe, for the first time in years.
I smile, curl up against the sheets, and smell his pillow. It’s him, grassy and musky and strangely comforting. The clock says it’s slightly after eight, which means he let me sleep in. I smile and sigh, shifting from side to side in the soft sheets.
I think of the night before, the crazy risk we took at Malcolm’s place and the crazier sex that followed. I want Gavino here, right now, his arms around my body, his face between my legs, but the anticipation of him is almost as sweet. The wanting is wild, the pure desire is like a drug, and I keep thinking about his lips against mine and reveling in the toe-curling joy that rolls down my skin.
I’ve never felt this way in my life. Never, not even close.
I’m too far gone.
And it feels good. For years, I’ve kept myself from letting this giddy, stupid, excited desire take over, and now finally, I’m tumbling and I love it. I want to spend hours and hours just thinking about seeing him, about kissing him. It sends little shocks into my fingers and toes. I can almost feel his fingers gripping my hips, his palms spanking my ass. His cocky smile, his wry, sharp humor.
I stretch like a cat and sigh before getting up and getting dressed. I think about what he’d like to see me wearing—a revealing tank top maybe? Shorts so short he can see my bare ass and think about spanking me?
I have my clothes on when the door to the suite opens. That must be him coming back to see me. My stomach does an excited flip. I want to hold him, kiss him, and I want to hear if there was anything on those hard drives. I’m in shorts and an oversized sweatshirt against the cold of the constantly blasting air-conditioning as I head down the hall quickly, grinning huge, a flirty greeting on my lips.
It dies the second I spot Romano standing near the front door, looking grim.
I frown slightly and the vibe is all wrong, the total opposite of what I was feeling in bed a second ago. Confusion settles over me. Gavino’s standing near the windows, hands behind his back, staring out at something in the distance, tracking it with his eyes. He’s glaring deeply, jaw twitching, like he’s pissed about something, and I’m suddenly afraid.
What happened? What changed since he got up?
“What’s going on?” I ask, hugging myself as I stand in the entry to the hall, afraid to come any closer.
Romano doesn’t meet my gaze. He only stares at the floor, standing at attention. Gavino keeps on looking out into the distance, but his face is twisted like someone’s ripping out his hair one at a time.
“When were you going to tell me?” he asks quietly, so softly I almost don’t hear.
I take one step forward and I feel like I might throw up. All those silly, excited butterflies turn to ash in my mouth. “Tell you what?” I ask but I already know.
It’s finally falling apart. The house of cards I built is tumbling down.
Gavino grimaces like I slapped him. “My people pulled data off the hard drives. There’s some stuff that’ll ruin Malcolm if we really want to. It’s everything we dreamed of and likely even more, given some time to sift through it all.”
I look at Romano again. His face is like someone’s stabbing him in the chest over and over.
“But what’s wrong?”
“There was also information about you.” Gavino turns from the window. He looks pained and like he’s struggling to keep his composure. “Should I call you Jeanie or Jolene?”
I gag and nearly scream. My hands come up to cover my mouth.
He keeps talking. “Smart to stick with the ‘J’ names, makes it easier to remember, right? And Malcolm doesn’t give a shit about you, which means he probably doesn’t even know what you look like. Besides, you’ve grown up a lot since he last saw you in court.”
My hands fall away and I’m pulling at my hair. A thousand excuses slip down onto my tongue, but only one thought plays through my mind.
Good things never last.
They always die, always disappear, always fade. The bad wins in the end, and like everything else, the heaven that was being with Gavino is destroyed forever.
I raise my chin, lips quivering. Tears roll down my cheeks but I swallow the sobs that threaten to break free. If my crying affects him at all, he doesn’t show it.
“I should’ve told you right away.”
“But you didn’t. You kept it to yourself and played me for a fool. Were you laughing the whole time?”