He wanted to bring heat and hunger, but he couldn’t right now. So he settled for a chaste but hard kiss to remind her of who he was. Yes, he’d been through a traumatic experience, but he’d still made choices that only he could make. He owned those choices.
“I don’t think you’re as cold as you want the world to think you are,” she countered. When he was clearly about to reply, she held up her hand to stop him. “Fine, Blake. We are both screwed up, probably too screwed up to ever discover real happiness. So what the heck? I’ll marry you. I’ll do what you want.”
It took a few moments for her words to sink in. But Blake didn’t feel the triumph that he’d expected to feel. He’d told her his story and now she felt sorry for him. That wasn’t what he wanted — not at all.
“I don’t need your sympathy, Jewell,” he growled.
“Whether you want it or not, you have it.”
“Don’t think I’m going to change just for you,” he told her.
“Have you changed your mind about getting married, Blake?”
That stopped him. “No, I still think we should marry,” he told her. “I just don’t want you to think it’s going to be a traditional sort of marriage.”
“I would never think that,” she said, and her sad sigh made that tightness reappear in his throat.
But Blake had just gotten what he wanted, and he wasn’t going to let the guilt consuming him change the course his life was going to take. Jewell would be his wife.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Save yourself!”
Startled, Jewell lost her hold on her cup of coffee, and was thankful that it bounced into the sink. Timing was everything!
She couldn’t help but smile when she turned around and saw Justin come running into the room with Blake hot on his trail.
“Help, Sissy,” Justin hollered, but the words were scrambled because he was laughing so hard.
“There is no help for the two of you,” Jewell said with mock weariness, and then began laughing when Justin’s socks made him go skidding across the well-polished tile floors.
The boy landed in a heap near her feet. Thanks to the counter, Blake barely managed to come to a stop; he might have landed with a splat right on top of Justin.
The last three weeks had passed in a blur for her. When Blake said he could get things done, he hadn’t been fooling around. They’d gotten a court date within two weeks — for mere mortals, that would have been miraculous — and been granted temporary custody of Justin, and the three of them had been living in Blake’s new home since they had brought the boy home a week ago.
So quickly that it made her head spin, they had gotten into a routine. They got up together and had breakfast, and then Justin went to school while Blake and Jewell headed off to work. She loved her new job with Dr. Rice. It gave her purpose and she felt, for the first time in a long while, as if she was in control.
Maybe not complete control, as she was very unsure of where she and Blake stood, but at least there was some stability in her life, and most importantly, she had Justin back. She would do nothing to screw that up.
One thing about the situation baffled her. Blake hadn’t touched her since they’d moved in together. She didn’t even share a room with him. Since she’d agreed to the marriage of convenience, she hadn’t heard him utter another word about it.
And her fear that this was all a dream prevented her from bringing it up again, though she thought about it almost constantly. How could she not when she was around him so much?
Blake was standing there in a low-slung pair of sweats and a tight T-shirt, his normal morning attire. When he reached up for a mug and then poured himself some coffee, she couldn’t help but appreciate his incredible physique.
She also couldn’t help but wonder whether he now thought this hadn’t been such a great idea. Still, he was amazing with Justin. Maybe he really had just needed someone to make the business deal go through, and in the meantime he was getting attached to her little brother.
Jewell didn’t know what to think anymore. Elsa worked part time for them, cleaning and cooking on occasion, but other than that, she and Blake split the household responsibilities.
They seemed to be nothing more than housemates.
“What are your plans tonight?” he asked as he got out the cereal for Justin while the boy reached into the cupboard for a bowl.
“The girls at work asked if I wanted to go out for a drink tonight,” she told him. “I’m pretty excited about it, actually. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been asked to go anywhere with someone.”
“Ah, that’s good,” he replied, but the expression on his face didn’t match his words.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked as she racked her brain for something she might have missed. “Is something going on later today that I’ve forgotten about?”
“Not at all,” he replied, but he’d lost all the joy he’d displayed when he and Justin had first hurtled into the kitchen.
A sense of guilt followed her around while she changed for work and said her goodbyes, but she didn’t understand what she could possibly be feeling guilty about. She hadn’t done anything wrong, had she?
Blake surprised her when he met her at the front door, his eyes unreadable. “Have a nice day at work,” he told her, and he kissed her on the cheek.
She walked to her new car and climbed in almost in a daze. If only she could read him. After all, she was living with the guy. But it seemed that nothing would come easy between two of them.
Jewell made it to work early and sat in her car for a moment to look at the building the doctor’s office was in. She felt pride when she walked through the beautiful front doors and said hello to the receptionist before heading to the back rooms, where her office was.
No, her job wasn’t exciting, but she’d had enough excitement in the last year to last her a lifetime. What she absolutely craved right now was peace, normalcy, and the absence of any further disasters in her life.
Did she miss the passion she’d shared with Blake? Well, sure she did, but she’d lived all but four months of her life without having it or missing it, so she could certainly get used to living without it again.
She might even have a chance to find true love one day — romance and passion both. It wasn’t as if she were an old maid, to use a ridiculously dated and sexist term. Yes, she’d have Justin at home with her for the next ten years, but a lot of people had patchwork families, and having a child didn’t scare every guy off.