Wethering the Storm (The Storm 2)

He looks confused. It, marred with his anger, makes for a scary-looking Jake.

“I got to hear the full lowdown while I was sitting on the toilet, about your activities pre-me. They didn’t know I was there,” I add for clarification. “But I got to hear how I’m not good enough for you, and how she was going to go to the label tomorrow to offer her services to you.”

“Who?” he asks, voice hard.

“Have there been that many you’ve screwed in your office that you don’t know who it would be?”

“Yes.” His tone is low and cold and absolutely heartbreaking.

“You make me fucking sick!” I cry, my eyes filling with tears. “What about the blonde? Is she one of your office conquests too? Or did you just screw her at the house?”

He looks confused again.

“The blonde at the bar I saw you flirting with! Have you shagged her too?”

“I wasn’t flirting with her. That’s Dina. She works for me. She manages Vintage.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes!” I shout at him. I’m past caring who hears me. “I want to know if you’ve fucked her too!”

His eyes darken. “No, I haven’t.”

“Just everyone else in LA, then.”

He takes a step back, leaning against the wall. “You knew how I’d lived my life when we got together, Tru. Don’t act like this is a surprise now.” He rubs his face hard. “Are you ever going to be able to get past this?” he asks. His voice is softer but serious.

My anger wilts.

I wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t know.” I shake my head, looking down. After a beat, I say, “And if I can’t, where does that leave us?”

“Right where we are but having to find some way for you to be able to cope with my past mistakes.”

Moving away from the wall, he steps closer to me. “I’ve never given you any reason to doubt my faithfulness to you.”

“Aside from the girl I found in your bed in Boston.”

Shit.

I shouldn’t have said that. But it’s too late. I know I’ve pushed the wrong button.

His face darkens, taking me back a step.

“Out of the two of us, I think I’m the one with more cause for concern—you didn’t exactly have any trouble jumping straight from Will’s bed into mine. So who’s to say you won’t do the exact same thing to me?”

I feel like he’s just slapped me. Hard. Repeatedly. Over and over.

My face burns. My eyes sting. I can’t stop the tears leaking from them.

Without another word or look, I make for the exit.

“I’m sorry.” He takes hold of me from behind. Wrapping his arms tightly around me, his chest presses up against my back, and his lips are against my ear. I freeze in his hold.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.” He blows out a breath, and I feel it rush over me, momentarily heating my chilled skin. “Just seeing you, dancing with him to that song, of all songs.”

My ears instantly become alert to the song playing in the club coming to finish—Beyoncé’s “Sweet Dreams.” The song Jake and I danced to in the club in Copenhagen. The night that was the start of us.

Did I subconsciously dance to this song on purpose to hurt him?

“I want to go home,” I say quietly. Shame and embarrassment course through me. And in this moment I’m not really sure which home I’m referring to.

His body stiffens. “I’ll take you,” he says, releasing me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

We’ve been driving for a while, not speaking, with only music for company. Jake’s not heading in the direction of home. I want to ask where he’s taking me. I’ve wanted to ask for a while now, but I don’t want to be the first to break the silence.

I hate when we fight like this.

We didn’t even get to see Vintage play. Or say good-bye to Zane. I bet he thinks Jake and I are crazy together.

In many ways we are.

Jake takes a sudden turn down an unmarked treelined track and presses a call into his phone, which is nestled in the hands-free.

Dave’s voice fills the car. “Everything okay?”

“Wait at the top. Make sure nobody comes down here.”

Jake clicks the phone off.

I hadn’t even realised Dave was following us. It makes sense; he’s only ever a step behind Jake.

We reach a clearing that opens out to a cliff-top panoramic view of LA. Even better than the view at home.

All the glittering, twinkly lights of the city of angels are before us. Or more like Jake’s city of sin.

A city I’m not wholly sure I belong in.

Jake kills the engine but leaves the music playing.

“I come here when I need to think,” he says without looking at me.

“Do you need to think now?” I ask, turning my head in his direction, my heart beating a hard rhythm.

He meets my eyes in the dark. “No. But we do need to talk.”

Jake climbs out of the car without another word, and I follow suit.

I meet him around the front of the car, where he’s leant up against it, legs crossed in front of him, arms folded over his chest.

I set myself beside him, leaving a gap. The gap of our fight. I wrap my arms around myself. “What happened at the club will be in the news tomorrow.” It’s not a question, I already know the answer.

“Yes.”

Crap.

“And I’m pretty sure I’ll get a call from the cops soon too.”

That gets my attention. “Why?”

“Because he’ll file a charge for assault.”

“But you didn’t hit him.”

“No, but I threw him to the ground.”

Jefferson was after a story. That’s why he kept pushing Jake. It’s my fault. That’s probably why he asked me to dance in the first place. I’m such an idiot.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “What will you do?”

“Pay him to drop the charges.”

“Seriously?” I gape.

“Money makes everything go away, Tru.”

“Except our problems.” I sigh.

“Yeah, everything but those.” He unfurls his arms, resting his hands on the car.

I want to touch him, hold him—it’s killing me not to—but I feel like I can’t at the moment, and I’m not entirely sure why.

“Why didn’t you take us home?” I ask, quietly.

“Because I want our home to be full of happy memories, not memories of us fighting. I grew up in a house where arguments were a daily occurrence, and trust me, fights stick to the walls of houses like fuckin’ glue. I don’t want that for us.” He drags his hands through his hair, hanging them off the back of his neck, letting out a sigh.

“I thought getting the new house would make things easier for you, but this place is covered in every single fuckin’ mistake I made before I got you back.” He gestures his open hand to the city below. “And aside from leaving LA, I don’t know what else to do to make it easier for you.”

He sounds hopeless. Defeated. I hate to hear him like this.

But now, after tonight’s events, leaving LA is one thing I would happily do. Move away from Jake’s past, go back to the UK together, and build a life together there…but his business is here, and I can’t ask him to leave that behind.

“I don’t either,” I mumble in response, chewing my thumbnail.

“I don’t want to lose you because of who I used to be.” His voice is barely a whisper.

“I don’t want to lose you either.”

Without looking at me, he reaches over and takes the hand at my mouth. Holding it, he intertwines our fingers.

My skin burns at his touch.

“The irony,” he says, “is that we’re both jealous because we love each other so much. God, Tru, when I saw that guy’s hands on you, my head went. Just the thought of another man near you, touching you…it drives me fuckin’ crazy. I can’t see straight when it comes to you. It’s not rational, I know. But it is what it is, and I can’t change it.”

“Just like I can’t change that whenever we go out, I’m looking around the room, wondering which, if not all, of the women you’ve had sex with.” My breath catches hard in my chest. Just saying the words cuts me to the bone. “Honestly, I don’t know how to get past it,” I add quietly.

Leaving me, Jake pushes off the car and walks toward the edge of the cliff top.

I stare at his silhouetted form, and for that moment, Jake cuts a solitary figure.

I wonder what he’s thinking.

God, I hope he isn’t thinking the only way is for us to break up. I know he just said he doesn’t want to lose me, but what if he feels it’s all too much for him? That there’s no other way?

We can’t break up. We can’t.

“Where do we go from here?” My voice is quiet, knowing we’ve reached a crossroads. One I didn’t see coming.

The pain in my chest is unbearable. I feel like I’m crushing under the weight of my worst fear realised.

If he says we’re over, I will beg him.

Jake turns back to me, a determinedness set in his face. “Well, breaking up isn’t even an option, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I shake my head. Tears are starting to blur my eyes.

He walks to me. Taking my face in his hands, staring down at me, he whispers, “I’m not losing you, ever. I know I fuck up regularly, but I can’t fuck us up.”

“You don’t fuck up regularly.”

“I made a mistake tonight.”

What? Oh God. No.

I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.

“You did?” I swallow.

“Yep. A big fuckin’ one. I didn’t tell you how amazingly beautiful you looked the instant I saw you tonight. I was so damn worried about other men looking at you, that I spoke before I thought and I made you feel self-conscious instead of making you feel as beautiful as you are.” He strokes his thumb over my cheek.

I let out the breath I was holding.

“I’m sorry I was a bitch tonight,” I whisper, pulling my eyes from his. “Just hearing those women talking about you like that, it threw me off guard. Then I came out of the bathroom and saw you talking to Dina. I just felt all torn up inside. I guess I did dance with Jefferson to piss you off.” Biting my lip, I look back to him. “I am sorry. Really.”

He presses his lips to my forehead. “I wish I could take all those years back so you weren’t having to live them now,” he says over my skin, his warm breath soothing me. “But I swear to you, I’m not that person anymore. You have me, like no one before. You have me where it counts.” Taking my hand, he rests it over his T-shirt, over his heart. “You hold this in the palm of your hand. You are the only woman who has ever had it, and ever will. You own me, Tru.”

“You own me too. Completely.”

Jake stares down at me, his eyes flicker to my lips, and I feel a sudden heated charge ignite between us. Like the anger of tonight has flared up and turned into raging sexual tension. I don’t know who moves first, but suddenly we’re kissing, like we’ve never kissed before.