Relentless (Relentless #1) (8 page)

“So what do you need to say, Jaxon? You said quite enough last night, but if you want to call me a slut again, go right ahead.”

He cringed and I watched him run his fingers through his hair and tug on the ends.

“I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am for last night. How I acted was unacceptable and it makes me sick to my stomach to realize I frightened you and treated you like that. Yes, I know I scared you, I noticed every time you took a step back.” I took in a sharp breath. It hadn’t occurred to me to hide that I was scared last night, but it was surprising he noticed as gone as he was. “I was drunk and thinking about things from my past that I had no business remembering. I took my anger and confusion out on you and I regret it. I’m so sorry, Violet. I’m so sorry that I fucked this all up. We should be overjoyed at this news, not fighting back old demons.”

His accent grew thicker as his deep voice shook. He rubbed at his eyes and dropped his head into his hands as he continued, “I had an ex lie about being pregnant. She cheated on me and got knocked up by some guy, but she told me it was mine. She deceived me and I believed it because I loved her. I almost married her before I figured it out. Finding that test yesterday freaked me out. Everything I thought I had worked through came rushing back. You wouldn’t do that, we’ve talked about our pasts and I know how Aaron treated you. I feel like the biggest dick in the world right now for reacting like that.”

This had to be the story that Taylor had told me last night. He brushed the high points, but there had to be more to the story. If this relationship went any further, I would have to make him tell me the whole story. I paused to gather my thoughts before I spoke.

“I can accept the fact that you’re scared, because I sure as hell am too, but I can’t accept how you treated me. You were a different person, Jaxon. You scared me when you looked like you were going to rip the chair apart with your bare hands.” I took a deep breath before continuing.

“It’s going to take a lot for me to forget the hatred in your eyes. I’ve never seen that side of you before, and I sure as fuck better not see it ever again if you want to be around your kid.” I sighed. “You aren’t the only one that fucked up though. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about the test when I took it. When it came back positive, I panicked. Some of my own stuff came flooding back that I had to deal with. I was planning on telling you last night, but Zac made me go to that awful charity gala and it took forever to get out of there. If I would have told you then, all this could have been avoided.”

My eyes welled and I sniffed as the waterworks started again. I was so tired of crying. My body was exhausted from the past twenty-four hours. His gentle fingers wiped at my tears, and I felt his lips softly press against my temple.

“I will make this up to you, and our baby, Violet. It kills me to think the first talk we had about him or her was so full of hate. I wouldn’t blame you if you want to walk away from me and just expect me to pay child support. That’s not what I want, but I don’t deserve anything I want right now. Even though you waited to tell me, I’m not sure my reaction would have been much better if you had told me as soon as you found out. I probably wouldn’t have been drunk, but it still wouldn’t have been pretty.”

We sat there in the quiet. He pulled me back and my arms wrapped around him. I rested my head on his chest and listened to the steady beating of his heart.

“I’m not ready for anyone to know, Jax. We need to keep this between us and the few people that have found out for now. The only person I’m scared will say anything is Silver.”

“I’ll take care of it. She won’t say anything or I’ll make her regret it, but I believe our secret is safe. Lexi scared the shit out of her.”

He called it
our
secret and it thawed my anger towards him a little bit. Jax looked like he wanted to ask something, but was struggling to decide if he wanted to or not. I smiled at him.

“What? Just say it.”

“How far along do you think you are?”

“Maybe seven or eight weeks, it might have happened that night at the beach, so that would make it eight weeks. Remember? We didn’t have anything, but we still…” I trailed off.

He grinned wickedly. “I remember. Vividly.”

Blushing, I threw a pillow at him. He pulled me into his arms and this time I stayed there. We sat soaking in the quiet, my head resting on his shoulder and his hands rubbing up and down my arms in a soothing pattern.

“Jaxon?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not going anywhere, but you need to promise me you will talk. No secrets from each other.”

“Done.”

We had so much to discuss, but now wasn’t the time. For now, we would be okay. Everything was forgiven, but not forgotten. I appreciated the fact that he had come clean about his ex, but it would be a long road back to where we were only a few days ago. When had life become so confusing? A few months ago, all I wanted was to apply to law school or land my next acting gig. Now my priorities had completely changed.

Neither Stephen nor Taylor seemed surprised to see us sitting together when they came back from dinner. Stephen turned back towards the kitchen and I heard him mutter something under his breath about having to see us screw on the couch every night now. I burst out laughing and Jax tried to fight the smile that was forming on his lips. The look Stephen pinned us with made me laugh even harder. Taylor took his hand and led him into the kitchen.

“Come on tiger; let’s go get you a drink.”

The next morning I watched from just outside the door as Taylor sat down at the kitchen table and gave Jaxon the third degree.  She might be my little sister, but she looked out for me just as fiercely as I looked out for her. As she ramped up her argument about why I needed to be treated like a queen, I decided it was time to intervene.

“Taylor, stop. We’ve discussed it and its over.”

She scowled at me from across the room, and I stuck my tongue out at her.  A giggle escaped as I poured myself some coffee, without thinking I took a huge gulp.  I took off running for the bathroom with Jax hot on my heels. He pulled my hair back while I threw up the breakfast I had just eaten an hour earlier. Groaning, I said, “Not coffee!  It’s supposed to be my best friend. Why did it turn on me?”

“I'm sorry, love.”

My nausea went away after a few hours, but the only thing I could keep down all day was apple juice. I had only tried that out of desperation because I normally hated it. Apples in general weren’t my thing. If this kept up, I wouldn’t have to worry about hiding baby weight any time soon.

Two days later, I was back on set filming. Gage had played off my absence as exhaustion and a touch of some virus going around. I owed him big time.

Amanda walked up carrying my coffee and it took everything I had not to gag at the smell. She thrust it into my hands, and I grabbed it before it fell to the ground.

“I appreciate that you brought me coffee this morning, my stomach isn’t up for it yet,” I said. As Stephen passed by, I handed it off to him. He grabbed it from me and shot Amanda a smile. She didn’t smile back.

“Are you sure you don’t want a drink of mine? Just a sip?”

She was fishing for a reaction from me, but I didn’t understand why. I took a step back to get away from the cup she tried to hand me.

“No thanks,” I said gagging. “I’m still not quite myself.” What the hell? Why was she still pushing? She took a huge gulp of coffee and my stomach turned just watching her. I normally enjoyed the smell of coffee, but I didn’t know how much more I could take.

Amanda smacked her lips after taking a sip, and that was all it took. I ran towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Everything I had eaten for breakfast came right back up. It took me a few minutes to wipe my face and rinse my mouth out before I left the bathroom. When I opened the door, Amanda stood there with her hands on her hips and she looked pissed.

“I think it’s time we had a little chat, Violet. You’re pregnant.”

“What? Why would you think that?” I hedged.

My head whipped from side to side to make sure no one had overheard. She grabbed my arm and led me into one of the bedrooms, locking the door behind us.

“Oh give it up, Vi. You were sick the day before we shot out at the beach, coffee set you off then too. When you walked out of the bathroom that day, you looked like you had seen a ghost. I went in after you came out and it’s a good thing I did because you left the top of the pregnancy test sitting on the floor next to the trash can. I wanted to talk to you the next day, but everything was so screwed up between you and Jaxon, I figured you needed a minute to take in the news. With how you guys acted with each other, I take it he didn’t take the news well?”

“Everything is better now, but it didn’t start out that way. It was incredibly fucked up.”

I ended up telling her how everything happened and how bad it got the night I told Jax. It was a relief to have another woman to talk to. As great as Taylor and Lexi were, sometimes I needed a new perspective. Most of the time I could tell what they would say before they even said it. Amanda promised to keep my secret and told me she supported me no matter what happened.

I drifted in and out of sleep on the couch between scenes. At some point Gage came in and picked up my feet and sat down with me. He was absentmindedly rubbing my swollen ankles while he watched TV. My attempt to finish the book I had been reading was a losing battle. The hormones from pregnancy made me fall asleep as soon as I sat down anywhere.

We were waiting to start filming for the afternoon. The crew was running two hours behind schedule because of a summer storm that ruined the lighting. It promised to be a challenging day, and no one was looking forward to the long hours.

I peaked one eye open as I felt Gage’s eyes on me, “What?”

“Just thinking about your situation, and how things will end up.”

“What do you mean by that?” I looked around before saying, “Am I not mom material?”

Gage and I had been getting along since our outing. He’d been incredibly protective of me, especially after what happened at the beach, and I was hurt he thought I might not be able to handle being a mother. My emotions had been all over the place, so it was hard for me not to jump to the conclusion he was being a jerk.

“I don’t mean that in a bad way, Vi. I just know how I would want things to go,” he looked around before continuing, “if I had got someone pregnant. I would have already insisted we get married. Jax is a good guy; I’m a little surprised that he hasn’t mentioned it.”

“Really? That’s a horrible way to start a relationship. What happens if you guys end up hating each other? The poor kid would be stuck seeing its parents in a bad relationship, probably fighting all the time, and thinking they resent one another because of him or her. Jax
has
mentioned getting married, but I don’t want to just because I’m pregnant. The next time I get married, it will be for the right reasons.”

Looking up, I caught Jaxon’s eyes as he stood in the doorway. Hurt flashed in his gaze, but instantly it was gone, replaced by an indescribable blank look. I wasn’t sure how much of our conversation he’d overheard, but it was something I should have been talking about with him, not Gage. Before I could say anything, he turned and walked back down the hallway he had entered from.

“Shit,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Jaxon walked up and overheard everything.”

“You guys haven’t talked about this?”

“Kind of.” I winced. “I don’t want to hurt him, and he won’t like my answer.”

“You’ve been straightforward with me.”

“Yeah, but we haven’t talked about this in depth. I’ve always laughed it off every time he’s mentioned getting married. You guys don’t think about this being my second marriage because I don’t talk about Aaron often, but it was a horrible relationship and I’m more damaged than I let show. Aaron cheated on me for most of our marriage. It took me finding out he got his receptionist, a girl that claimed to be one of my friends, pregnant to leave him. My self-esteem was shot to hell when I finally left him.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, the whole thing was messed up. I should probably go talk to him.”

I wasn’t sure if he was upset or disappointed; I just knew that something I said had hurt him and it needed to be fixed. Gage grabbed my hand and squeezed it reassuringly. He had more faith in me than I did. Somehow I needed to figure out what to say to Jaxon and quick.

I knocked softly on the door before walking inside. As I walked to his room, I braced myself for the same anger he’d shown when we talked about my pregnancy the first time. Instead of being furious and hateful, he appeared to be upset. He tried to mask the emotions showing on his face, but I was learning his quirks.

“Jaxon? Can we talk?”

He lay on his back, throwing a ball up into the air and catching it. A smile flitted across my face as I thought about how many times I had walked in to him doing exactly this. Jaxon looked like such a little boy when he did it and I could easily imagine us having a little boy that looked like him.

We had tons of time on our hands between filming. It had allowed us to get to know each other better, but sometimes it made things difficult when we needed to have serious conversations. He paused before throwing the ball up again, looking over at me he asked, “What do you want to talk about? You made your feelings on the subject of marriage pretty clear to Gage.”

“Jaxon, I’m sorry.”

“Why? Because you don’t want to marry me?”

I flinched. “No, I’m sorry because I should have been having that conversation with you. I stand by what I said though; we shouldn’t get married just because I’m pregnant. No one should get married just because they’re pregnant.” I walked over to him and gingerly sat down on the bed, “I don’t want us to do something we might regret later.”

Jax looked frustrated, “You think that just because everything happened so quickly that we aren’t serious? Do you believe we would end up together after some arbitrary amount of time, or are we wasting our time trying to be together because of the baby?  If you weren’t pregnant would you have already broken up with me?”

“Of course not, Jaxon. I wouldn’t be with you just because of the baby. I wasted too many years on a man that didn’t love or respect me; I never plan on doing that again. Do you remember the first night we met? Our attraction was instant, or at least I thought it was. I’ve never felt that way before about anyone, even Aaron.” 

My voice cracked, and I turned away before he could see the tears forming in my eyes. I stood up and bolted for the door. Jaxon was up and across the room before I grabbed the doorknob.              

“Talk to me, love. Tell me everything.”

I reached past him for the door, focused on leaving before the tears fell, but he reached past me and placed his hand on the frame keeping me from opening it.

“Violet, please don’t run away.”

He turned me around so I was facing him. Jaxon tenderly brushed his thumbs across the wet steaks running down my face. His lips grazed my cheeks as he kissed the path the tears had fallen down my face.

“I want to marry you, regardless of whether you are pregnant or not. I want you to be my wife. I think I’ve known that since the first time I ever saw you. I’ve never felt anything like our attraction to one another either, and it scares me just as much as it scares you. My relationships all seemed doom from the beginning,
you
changed my mind. Being with you has made me a better man, one that wants to take care of his family.”

I lifted my face to look at him and saw the honesty behind his words.

“I’m scared to rush anything. Yes, I could see us getting married, but I don’t want it to happen because I’m pregnant. I never want you to regret marrying me for the wrong reasons.”

“I love you, Violet.”

He loves me?

My face must have shown a myriad of emotions because I felt all of them, surprise, confusion, and a love so fierce it could have knocked me down. I wondered if he knew how much those words actually scared me.

“Jaxon, I—” I trailed off.

“Don’t say anything right now, please. I can see you aren’t ready to hear it, but I wanted to tell you. I never expected to fall in love with you so soon, but it happened. You and the baby are my whole world and I’m done pushing you away. It’s time to stop running from what I want. You will marry me and soon, I’ll just have to do my best to convince you that it’s the right time.”

That cocky smile was back on his face. Jaxon’s muscled arms wrapped around my back and pulled me in close to his body. His lips gently kiss the top of my head, and my body finally relaxed.

“Jaxon, I love you too, but I need time for the rest of it, okay?”

“I would wait forever for you, love.”

I tilted my face up and his lips captured mine in a searing kiss. His hands cupped my face as his tongue tangled with mine. Jaxon walked us back towards the bed. With every step, his intentions were crystal clear. My body surrendered to his tender passionate exploration. We spent the time we had together touching and teasing each others bodies and whispering our love to one another. As my climax hit, I clung to Jaxon and told him how much I loved him over and over again.

The quiet surrounded us and there was so much more that was said without words. My ever important control was slipping away and I wasn’t sure I minded. Jaxon was consuming me and working his way into my life so I could never leave him.