I already know it’s permanent too.
I couldn’t live without it.
Can’t live without Jack now, and I have the strong impression he feels exactly the same way about me now too.
Weird, because I’ve spent my whole life questioning myself, hating myself even. It feels like in just a single day, someone’s come along that not only tells me I’m okay. But actually wants me more than words can say.
“You can take the rest of today off, surely?” he asks, nuzzling my neck. My new favorite spot for him when he’s not between my legs.
I feign a groan of protest before I hear myself making the usual excuses.
Excuses that just don’t seem to work when tossed against Jack Mercury.
“But it’s my job. If I don’t go… My bills. Oh my god! The rent,” I exclaim, trying to get worked up in the way I used to about everything.
My old, pre-Jack life, which was only yesterday but already feels like someone else’s.
Someone who doesn’t really exist anymore because they never really did in the first place.
Chapter Eighteen
Jack
She’s my greatest achievement. We’re our greatest achievement now.
I could have the jet just circle for the rest of the day, landing only for fuel and then take us anywhere we wanted.
There’d be hell to pay when the studio wanted it back, but I could deal with that.
But I can see Olivia still wants to do things a certain way. That’s what I have trouble with right now.
She wants to work, she has her own ethics. I’m not gonna stand in the way of that.
Even if she wants to hang on to her own problems too. For a while.
But what if she did things just for her for a change? It’s an idea I run past her once we land and the limo is edging closer to the city.
She wants to get home, freshen up and change and then get back to work and I practically have to hold her hostage until she gave our driver her address.
“Maybe you can just pick me up later for dinner?” she offers.
But it won’t work. I won’t let it.
I’ve had her, tasted the forbidden fruit of happiness and I won’t hand it back so easily.
“Maybe you can let me help you upstairs once we get you home?” I counter, “I need the little boy’s room anyway,” I tell her.
Half-truth.
The look of panic that cements on her face before we even reach her building tells me everything I need to know.
Everything I don’t really want to know, but I guess I have to see things as they truly are if we’re going to have a lasting chance.
“I’m really busting,” I add, squirming in my seat and clenching my hands for effect.
“It’s not a private jet, that’s for sure,” she cautions me loudly, still taking my arm as I pretend not to notice the dank walls outside as we pull up.
The creepy vibe from the lobby before we take the stairs up to her apartment.
“Elevator’s out,” she murmurs quietly, translating the faded signs that I can see for myself.
It’s not the worst building in the world.
Not the worst neighborhood I could have imagined. Hell, we all started somewhere and my roots weren’t exactly this nice.
But it’s not where I want her. Not where I’d wish my queen to be, not for another minute let alone a whole other day until she convinces herself that her place is by my side.
On the other side of town, in a much better house. With much finer things.
Better surroundings.
What she truly deserves.
With me.
Mine.
I try not to let it show, but I guess I flunk as soon as she opens the door and we step inside, her offering me directions to her bathroom. Me returning her hospitality with a firm shaking of my head.
“No,” I tell her point-blank. “Not for one more minute. I won’t. I can’t have you in this place, Olivia.”
I don’t mean it to sound so harsh, not meaning anything against her for having her own place and doing the best she can.
But I know she deserves so much better, and her instant tears, her own regrets that she can’t hold back a second longer all tell me that I’m right.
We both are. She’s so much more than this place. So much better than everything she’s tried and worked so hard at so far.
“Jack, please,” she sniffs, trying to hold herself together.
Knowing I mean it, that she’s done here.
With a single glance from me, she knows.
“I love you, Olivia. I do. And if you want to work a two-bit job at a gossip column, fine. But I won’t have you here, not like this.”
Her eyes flash with anger and hurt before narrowing, her mouth opens to tell me what she really thinks but I hold up my hand.
“You want to be a journalist? Fine. But do it in style. Tell me what you need and we’ll make it happen. We’ll set you up with your own operation, not on your knees for someone else. Especially that Pilkington woman.”