New Year Second Chance

“Leave my family out of this.”

He doesn’t seem daunted in the least, though. “What did she die of? Were the two of you close? Or were you closer to your father?”

“I said leave my family out of this!” I push him away. “You don’t deserve to know anything about my mother, my father or me! You have no right to pry into my life! Have you no decency? No heart? Fuck you! Fuck all of you.”

I slip my key into the lock and open the door, which I slam behind me. Then I lean on it as I catch my breath and wait for my temper to subside.

When it does, my mind clears and I realize what I’ve just done.

Oh, shit. I’m in trouble, aren’t I?

Chapter Fifteen

Dax

This is a disaster, I think as I pace Jenna’s living room.

She told me not to come, but I rushed here after I was done with work anyway because she sounded so upset on the phone.

She still looks upset now. She’s watching Shanna, who is crawling around inside her new playpen, but I can tell her mind is wandering off. When I arrived, she didn’t greet me. When I tried to kiss her, she pulled away and then left, mumbling something about having to do something for Shanna.

I find it incredibly frustrating, but I also understand why Jenna is feeling upset. Anyone would be after being ambushed and harassed by a reporter in front of their home. And to add insult to injury, she’s being made to look like the bad guy. The video of her snapping at that reporter and throwing curses at him is all over the Internet. Now people think she’s ill-mannered, uneducated, uncivilized and immature. And those are the nicer words they’ve used. Needless to say, they don’t think she should be with me.

I don’t really care about that. I do care that some of the people I work with will think the same way and consider Jenna a bad influence on me, or worse, think that I’m just as bad as they think she is. I care that some of the male chauvinist pigs I have on my board will think that just because I can’t control ‘my woman’, I can’t control my company. Most of all, I care about the fact that Jenna is suffering needlessly and I can’t seem to do anything to help her even though I told her to leave everything to me. Though to be fair, this whole fiasco is because she did the exact opposite of that.

I stop pacing, place my hands on my hips and let out a sigh.

Damn it. Why did things have to get so messy?

“Go ahead,” Jenna’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

I look at her. Good. She’s finally speaking to me.

“Go ahead with what?”

“Say ‘I told you so.’ After all, you did tell me that if I talked to someone, I’d be crucified and burned at the stake.”

I frown. “None of this is your fault, Jenna.”

She nods. “You’re right. It’s the fault of your bodyguards for not arriving sooner.”

“They can’t fly, Jenna.”

“What, it wasn’t important enough to send them in your helicopter?”

She’s right. I should have thought of that.

“And you know what? It’s your fault, too.”

My eyes grow wide. “Mine?”

What did I do?

She meets my gaze, her eyes heavy with bitter accusation. “Maybe if you’d spoken up and told people Shanna wasn’t your child, no one would have come here.”

Unbelievable.

“I told you why that wasn’t a good idea.”

“Because people will think you care about Shanna and me and attack us? Guess what? They did anyway. They made minced meat of me, at least. Maybe if you had told them to fuck off, I wouldn’t have had to.”

I shake my head. “They would still have come.”

“You should have kept them away from the beginning,” Jenna tells me as she turns her gaze away. “You should never have led them here.”

I remain silent. I can’t argue with her on that, because I know she’s right. I should have been more cautious and brought in the security detail sooner so no photo would have been taken, no piece of crap written.

Maybe this really is all my fault.

I walk over to her and place my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jenna.”

She says nothing.

“I should have protected you from all this ugliness,” I go on. “I failed. But you’ll be protected from now on.”

Jenna shakes her head. “My soul has already been laid bare on the internet for people to dissect and devour. You can’t protect me anymore.”

“I’ve already taken steps to have all copies of that video taken down,” I tell her.

She snorts.

“The lawsuit against that reporter has been filed as well.”

“So what?” She shrugs my hand off. “You get rid of one reporter, but more will take his place, and one of them will eventually get to me and this nightmare will begin all over again.”