Be Mine (Jackson Boys 2)

It’s impossible to ignore him for long. He corners me during the reception as I take a break from dancing with Cassidy.

“How are you holding up?” he asks, shoving a champagne flute into my empty hand.

“My feet are beginning to hurt.” I wiggle my toes in the white satin, red-soled shoes that Charlie insisted on buying—so we matched, she’d said. “But this is the best party I’ve ever been to.” Cassidy is running in a circle with a few other kids at the edge of the dance floor that had been laid on top of the grass. “Your home is beautiful.”

“I actually grew up in the city. Dad bought this place for Mom, and we’d come out here on the weekends, take the boat out onto the lake, roast a few marshmallows on the beach, make huge piles of leaves.” He eyes the magnificent estate with a fond, familiar glance.

“Your mom didn’t mind you tracking all the dirt and stuff into her house?” Nick’s family money blows me away. It’s a good thing I met him in Texas otherwise, I never would’ve been able to convince myself that he could love a woman like me—a teenage mom with a humiliating past.

“Nah. The dirtier the better. Besides”—he smiles impishly and my heart does a flip—“she had two boys. It was either accept that her home would be a tornado or live every day in despair.”

“Well, she looks amazing, so I’m guessing she didn’t spend the last twenty odd years in despair.” I sip on my champagne. “That’s not the face of someone who’s spent much time, if any, dwelling on unhappy things.” We both take in his mother’s beautiful face. Grace isn’t a classic beauty, by any means, but the peace and happiness that is imbued in every atom makes her glow like an angel. Noah can’t keep his eyes off her.

Nick slouches beside me. “Speaking of unhappy things, how is our girl doing?” He nods toward Cassidy.

“She’s handling it pretty well.” My grandma had passed away in her sleep a week ago. I brought Cassidy to the funeral. It was the first time I’d seen my mama in three years. She broke down crying, telling me that kicking me out was the worst thing she’d ever done. I don’t know if it’s because she knows I’m seeing Nick or whether she genuinely missed us. We’re taking it slow. “If Grandma had been a bigger influence in her life, it might have affected her on a deeper level,” I admit. In that, I suppose, there was a small blessing for being kicked out of the house when Cass was young.

“I take it you haven’t told Charlie yet?”

My gaze swings toward my beautiful friend who is on the other side of the room; one arm linked through her gorgeous, uniformed husband’s while the other clasps the hand of a well-wisher.

“I’ll tell her after the honeymoon.” Charlie is in the midst of cancer treatments, a hospital room kitted out in this very house.

“She’ll be upset,” Nick predicts “She likes to know everything.”

“I’ll tell her about everything at once after her treatment is over. Including us. Besides, I’m betting Nate will have made her so blissful that any sharp edges will have been worn down by the time she floats her way toward me.”

Nick snorts into his glass. “I talked to my parents. They want to take Cassidy for a while.”

“What for?” My cheeks burn at the thought of Nick talking to his parents about our sex life—as if the things we did were so crazy, she couldn’t be in the same zip code.

Nick tilts his head so I’m forced to look him in the eye. “Lainey,” he says with a hint of impatience, “the only thing that’s keeping us apart is Chip. I thought I’d be able to let it go for the season, but I want you at the games every Sunday and in my bed every night. That’s not going to happen until we work out the Chip problem.”

“What are you gonna do? Have you brother’s SEAL team take him out?” He’s silent for so long that I nudge him with my shoe. “Nick!”

“Sorry.” He gives me a crooked grin, “I was indulging in a little fantasy. But you’re right. We can’t actually do that since I can’t win football games from prison. Or maybe I could, but not the right ones. So let’s strategize.”

“In the middle of your brother’s wedding reception?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yup. You’re not going to leave Cassidy, and my mom would kill me if I left before the wedding party, so let’s use our time wisely.” He pulls me over to an abandoned table and pulls out a chair.

With a huge sigh, I lift up my frothy blue skirt and take a seat. He positions himself next to me so we can both keep an eye on Cassidy.