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I knew Jay saw something change. Felt it. But he didn’t comment. Didn’t ask me if I was okay, if I needed to talk. We didn’t work that way.
But he held me all night, keeping my broken pieces together, chasing the worst of my fears away.
The problem was, Jay was not permanent. I’d sleep without him, fall apart eventually. And my fears would find me again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONE MONTH LATER
We were at Klutch.
I’d vowed to never come back here.
Back when I’d been sure Jay was some kind of mob boss sex pervert. Back when I thought I’d be able to resist my need for the aforementioned mob boss sex pervert. I was wrong about the sex pervert thing. I obviously had been about my ability to resist my need for him, but the jury was still out on the whole mob boss thing. Although I’d heard on some podcast that the mob didn’t exist anymore. Which was exactly what a covert criminal organization would want the public to think.
Months with Jay and I still didn’t know what he did. Didn’t know what paid for the diamonds around my wrists. The clothes I wore. The private jet I flew in. The house I slept in every weekend.
I didn’t know what the man who I’d given my body to was truly capable of. The man I had introduced to my father. This should’ve bothered me much more than it did. A lot of things should’ve bothered me more than they did. This whole fucking arrangement should’ve bothered me. Instead it ... completed me.
Yet I would never say that out loud.
Things hadn’t changed drastically since we spent Thanksgiving weekend with my father. Although my father had called me to tell me he approved. I’d had to swallow a rather hysterical laugh at my father, one of the best judges of characters I’d come across, approving of Jay.
I had held in my laugh, but I think my father sensed my surprise.
“He’ll take care of you,” he said. “He won’t hesitate to end any man who hurts you. He’ll do everything in his power to keep you from harm. He’s obviously not perfect, no man ever will be. But knowing he’ll protect my little girl is the most important thing to me. And there’s the fact you’re in love with him.”
My father had not struck me dumb in recorded history. Not until this very moment.
“What did you just say?” I whispered.
“Don’t pretend to be shocked,” he snickered. “I raised you to know yourself better than that.” He paused. “I know love is scary, sweetheart, but I also raised my daughter to be brave. To trust herself. You wouldn’t fall in love with an asshole.”
I choked out a chuckle in between my unexpected tears.
“I know he’s powerful, has a lot of money by the looks of it and likely can handle himself in a fight, but I’ll beat him to death with my bare hands if he hurts you,” Dad added. “That’s if you don’t get there first. I also raised a daughter who knows how to throw a decent punch.”
I smiled, wiping my tears. “I love you, dad,” I whispered. I couldn’t deny any of what he’d said. Nor could I promise him that Jay wasn’t going to hurt me.
I already knew he would.
So yeah, maybe things had changed. On my side, at least. I was starting to come to terms with idea that I was utterly in love with this man.
He’d texted me yesterday to let me know that he’d reserved the VIP section at Klutch for me and my friends. He hadn’t asked if we wanted to go. Hadn’t considered that four powerful, working women might have other plans.
If I hadn’t been at dinner with the aforementioned powerful women and hadn’t read his text aloud, it might’ve gone another way.
But I did.
Wren heard the text, demanding to know who it was from and what it said. And she convinced me that we had to go since it was notoriously hard to reserve a VIP booth at Klutch. It didn’t matter how much money you had or how famous you were. Two things that usually got you everywhere in L.A.
Passes for Klutch’s VIP area were some of the most valuable things in the city. Only handed out to a special few.
I’d looked to Zoe for help when Wren started canceling her plans. But she’d already been on the phone to her PR clients, telling them she now had ‘access’ to the VIP area at Klutch. Yasmin hadn’t even complained. She had just won one of her most stressful cases and needed to let loose.
So we got dolled up and heeded Jay’s ordered.
I made sure to get really fucking dolled up. The dress I wore was short. Short. It was tight. And I mean skin tight. The halter neck had a gap right between my boobs so you could see their curves, the swell, but not my nipples. Black because I knew Jay had a thing about me in black. Not an entirely good thing, since nothing in my closet at his place was black. But that was entirely the point.
