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“Spill it,” I said, glancing back at the bar. Why did I have a feeling it had something to do with...him?
“It’s just that...” Mazzie looked back and forth between Charlee and me. “Jaxon, or Jax, or whatever...may or may not be coming to the wedding.”
My drink froze midair. I put it back down. “Excuse me?” No way Mazzie just said what I thought she did.
“Gian invited him.”
“And he said yes?”
“Apparently.”
I wanted to say a hundred things, but all of them were selfish. This wasn’t about my first trip to Italy, or a vacation ruined. It was Mazzie’s wedding. And that was all that mattered. Taking a deep breath, I told her that.
“It’s fine. I can behave myself. No big deal. The only thing that’s important is you having an amazing wedding.”
Charlee didn’t even let me finish before she started laughing. “Bullshit. You are two seconds away from strangling the guy, and it’s one hundred percent not okay.”
I gave her a good-natured glare.
Mazzie smiled. “I appreciate you taking one for the team, but I agree with Charlee. I know you want to hate the guy but secretly have a thing for him. It’s a tough place to be in. I get it. Pretty much felt the same way about Gian.”
“Gian,” I reminded her, “was a bit of a playboy who needed taming. Jaxon is a full-on land-stealing—”
“Natalie,” Mazzie interrupted. But I continued.
“—cocky—”
“Nat,” Charlee tried to stop me too, but I was on a roll.
“—smug bastard,” I finished.
“Jax,” a voice at my back said. “I really am going to insist on you calling me Jax. You changed in my bathroom,” he continued without me turning around. “Wore my clothes. I think we’re on a nickname basis by now.”
The girls’ expressions said it all.
Shit.
I turned around to pay the piper, as it were.
“Tell me how you really feel,” he said, half smiling.
“No need,” I said as my traitor friends left me. “It appears you’ve just eavesdropped and know exactly how I feel.”
“First, I did not eavesdrop but simply came over to apologize. Again. Second, I may be a cocky, smug bastard, but I’m not stealing anyone’s land. There’s a process. And I’m following it.”
“Forgive me if I see it differently.”
“Natalie.” I hated that he talked to me like I was ten. But at least I was getting to him, that much was clear. Seeming to make up his mind about something, out of nowhere, Jaxon took my drink and put it, along with his own, on a nearby high-top. He then proceeded to grab my hand and pull me onto the dance floor just as a slow song started.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, aware of his hand. Aware that he was putting his arms around me. Aware that my heart was about to beat out of my damn chest.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Natalie. Just dance with me.”
It sounded very much like an order, and not a request. But as the song played, his arms firmly around my waist, there was zero chance in hell I was going to do anything but put mine around him and do what he said.
And so, we danced.
TEN
