“Don’t tease me,” she said.
“I’m not teasing.” His tone was as hard as granite.
Ice crystallized in her veins.
“You have questions,” he said.
“I mean it,” she insisted. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not teasing,” he repeated.
A lump grew in her throat. Jase, the man she was falling for, really had spent the past nine years in prison?
She stood, jolting away from him. He watched her, his expression losing its hard edge and going blank. The blank one she knew too well. But she didn’t know him at all, did she?
Multiple emotions frothed inside her, and she began to pace. “How is that possible? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. You stopped me.”
“You should have told me anyway. Should have told me sooner!”
“Maybe. But I’m telling you now.”
“Now isn’t good enough.”
He flinched. A reaction that kept her from bolting out the door.
“Ask anything,” he said. Not only did his expression remain blank, but his voice was now deadened. “I will answer.”
“Wh—what were you in prison for?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Voluntary manslaughter.”
He’d killed someone. Her hand fluttered to her throat, her pulse hammering fast and hard. “Tell me everything.”
He placed his hands on his knees. “I was eighteen.”
A kid. His entire youth had been spent behind bars with hardened criminals. Murderers. Sociopaths. Rapists. They’d shaped the man he would become.
At least his scars made sense.
“There was a guy. Paxton Gillis. Pax. He was nineteen, in college. Tessa had gone to a frat party. He was there and he followed her to her car and raped her.”
Brook Lynn flattened a hand over her stomach.
“When West, Beck and I found out, we hunted him down. I don’t remember who threw the first punch. So much of what happened is a blur. I was so angry. I lashed out and just...didn’t stop. I couldn’t.”
She remembered the picture and the news clipping she’d seen when she’d searched Jase online—the slim teenager who’d been arrested for beating a college student—and she felt sick.
“So West and Beck were in prison with you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I took full responsibility.”
“Why?” she repeated, her voice lashing like a whip.
“They had bright futures.”
“And you didn’t?”
He hiked his shoulders.
She stopped to stare at him, to study him. He wasn’t just blank anymore—he was cold. As cold as he’d been the first day they met. He hardly seemed capable of a good mad, much less a black, uncontrollable rage. But too well did she remember the wine-and-cheese tasting. How, for a split second, he had looked capable of murder. Would he have hit that woman, despite his claim otherwise?
A tremor of fear washed through her. What would happen if ever he lost his temper with her?
That day in the yard, he’d pushed her and come at her with his hands fisted.
He might not want to, might not mean to, but...
Fear held her in its jaws, razor-sharp teeth sinking deep into her heart.
“Are you sorry?” she asked.
“Every day since,” he said.
Was he really? Or was that his answer simply because it was the right one?
“You don’t look sorry,” she said. “You don’t look like you feel anything.”
“I feel. You know it.” He stared back at her—giving nothing away. “Are you afraid of me now?”
“Yes,” she snapped, because it was true. She understood why he’d erupted back then. His friend had been hurt in a horrible, cruel way. But he hadn’t stopped himself from going too far. In his own words, he couldn’t stop.
“I would never hurt you, Brook Lynn.”
“So easy to say,” she muttered.
Another flinch, as if she’d struck him. Yes, okay, he did feel. But was it enough to stop him from unleashing on her if ever his control snapped?
“Jase,” she said, hating herself—hating him. “I...I’m going to go. I need time to process this.”
He didn’t hesitate to give her a clipped nod, as if he’d expected the words. She waited, but he offered nothing more.
Disappointment coursed through her. Had she expected him to fight for her to stay after she’d just confessed to fearing his temper? It may have been wrong of her, but...yes. Part of her wished he would draw her into his arms, hold her tight and promise everything would be okay.
So confused!
“I...I’m sorry.” Turning, she fled the room, the house...and the man she’d never really known.
* * *
BROOK LYNN DIDN’T report to work the next day, or the next. Jase’s chest had stopped throbbing at least; it now hurt all the damn time. He wanted to shout “See! I knew this would happen.”
He’d once heard fearing something gave it entrance into your life, and actually brought it to pass, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it changed the way you thought and spoke and acted. This—Brook Lynn’s defection—had been his biggest fear.
And here I am. Without her.
By some miracle, during their talk he’d managed to return to the state he knew best—every emotion hidden behind armor—guarding himself against desperation, rage and even heartbreak. He’d managed to hold himself together all the minutes—seconds—since. He’d worked. He’d gone to another soccer game and cheered for the Strikers. He’d helped plan a few details for Tessa’s celebration.