“My sister hates me.”
Ryn shrugged, bending down to sweep the pile of glass into the dustpan. “She’ll forgive you. That love you have for her? It runs deeper than any hate, and it takes so much more to hate someone than to love them. Hate is so exhausting. Trust me, I know.”
“You don’t hate me?” He held open the trash bag for her.
She dumped the glass into it. “No. I love you. But for the first time in over twenty years I love myself more. For the first time in over twenty years I feel worthy.”
Pushing up on her toes, she kissed him on the cheek. He didn’t move.
“Thank you, Jackson Knight. You gave me that.”
*
“You don’t have to watch me clean. Your place is next.”
Jackson couldn’t drag his eyes away from Ryn. Her words stunned him into total disbelief. He didn’t give her up. He didn’t let her go. And he certainly didn’t want her to walk away and thank him.
Another guy? Ryn had things all wrong. Her guy, her forever stood in the same room. Jude Day wanted a lifetime of women for one night. Jackson Knight wanted one woman for a lifetime. But not just any woman. Ryn Middleton—he wanted her and only her.
“I know you’re composing some epic speech. But I’m working and you’re done swimming in my pond.”
“Low blow.” He narrowed his eyes, but she kept working as if she didn’t just sucker punch him in the junk.
“Go.” She chuckled. “I’m working.”
“And why is that? I don’t think you’ll be getting paid to clean here anymore.”
She drew in a shaky breath then glanced over her shoulder at him. “I just … I just need to. For me.”
Jackson nodded before leaving her to clean AJ’s place for some sort of closure. He moved with the focus of a zombie through two piano lessons, giving undeserving praise to women who had no desire to do more than shamelessly flirt with him. They weren’t ugly. Jude would have classified them as doable. Maybe if Jackson would have bent them over Black Beauty and fucked them like their eyes begged him to do, he’d forget about his sister leaving and Ryn rejecting him.
He’d lost himself in so many women over the years. Meaningless sex became a cleansing of sorts. That release that lasted mere seconds gave him a sense of relinquishing control. Ryn thought hating someone was exhausting—so was needing control. Sex should have meant more. Life should have meant more. But they didn’t.
Jude Day killed people, more people than his sister could ever have imagined. Jude Day fucked women, but not for the reasons anyone would have imagined. His parents gave him the fairytale and then they ripped it away. Love, the kind that’s not bound by blood, it didn’t exist. He hated Jessica for pretending that it did. She would break Luke or Luke would break her. The inevitability happened the day Luke sobbed over her empty casket.
Jessica let Luke go because she thought it was the right thing to do. Jackson knew Luke would never see it that way. Jude Day never gave women the chance to break him. He could never be his father.
Jessica never knew her dreams of normalcy and love were built on illusions. She idolized their parents’ marriage. Sunny Day’s blood ran through her daughter’s veins. Their mother loved another, then she built a family on pillars of altruism and loyalty.
Had Jessica and Claire not been kidnapped, Jude would have told her the truth. Before Claire died, they had no secrets. After she died, Jude’s life revolved around protecting Jessica from herself, her past, and anyone who might shatter her dreams.
“Jackson?”
He lifted his head from his arms crossed on the ledge of the piano. It wasn’t like him to not hear things, but Ryn stood before him.
“Hey.”
“Were you sleeping?”
Relinquishing a sad smile, he shook his head. “Just … deep in thought.”
“Oh. Well, do you want me to come back?”
“Nope.” He stood. “I’m gonna take off. Go for a ride on Jillian’s bike. Supposedly it’s good for clearing the mind.”
“It’s like … thirty degrees outside.”
He shrugged then giving her an easy nod, walked past her toward the back door.
“Jackson?”
“Yes?” He turned.
“Are you upset with me?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because of the cold shoulder and curt nod.”
Tipping his chin down, he chuckled and shook his head. He would never understand women.
“My body temperature runs pretty warm, so it’s unlikely I gave you the ‘cold’ shoulder. And it was just a nod, not a ‘curt’ nod.”
“So … we’re good?”
He sighed. “Are you good, Ryn?”
“So you are upset with me.”
“Oh for the love of—” His frustration released as a growl. “Cheese cubes on a blanket, stable boy my ass,” he grumbled. “I don’t speak ‘woman’. Never have. Never will. When it comes to relationships I have a master’s degree in fucking. You were the exception, but clearly I should go back to what I’m best at. So you go enjoy your porch swing masseur with an eye for the perfect paint color, and I’ll do what I do best. For a brief moment in time I believed monogamy was possible for me. So thank you for reminding me why that’s not possible. It seems as if we’ve both helped each other realize our self-worth.”