Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I paged forward and landed on an entry written two days ago.
August 22nd
I’m so scared. I hate being scared. Fear isn’t part of who I want to be or who I am, but I can’t help this feeling.
The more time I spend with him, the more time I want to spend with him. He’s crept into my soul. He’s in my veins, in my cells, now. Every step I take is governed by thoughts of him and that cannot be the case.
I swore to myself I would never let another man decide my future or the path I chose. This is my life. I’m supposed to be living it. I’m supposed to be planning for the future, but each night I’m here I lose focus of that future.
The studio is still making too little money. It’s enough to pay Veronica what she deserves and cover basic living costs for me—food, sanitary stuff. I can’t make a move in any particular direction because my hands are tied, financially, at least.
I’m stuck in limbo in so many ways, and it’s driving me mad. I’m supposed to be the go-getter, prove mom and dad wrong. Right now, I’m the do-nothing. Except when it comes to thinking about Jax and how he felt inside me. How he looks at me. How his lasagna tastes—ha ha.
What the hell am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?
I can’t think straight anymore.
“Fuck,” I repeated. It was the word of the hour.
A week. It’d been a week, and she was addicted to me as I was to her. How could she dream of doing this? I turned the page, dragged my fingers over the words. The final entry had been written today, probably in the afternoon before she’d headed to the restaurant.
August 24th
This is it. I’m going to introduce him to Veronica. As cheesy as it sounds, she has a kind of radar for scumbags and she wants—
“What the hell are you doing?” Riley’s voice sliced through the room and through my thoughts.
I faced her, the diary on the desk, my fingers still on the pages, and heat barreling through me, demanding I make her understand that she wouldn’t—She couldn’t—
“Jax, what the fuck are you doing with my journal?”
Chapter 16
Riley
Jax rose from my desk and held the top rung of the chair, his grip so tight the scars on his knuckles flashed white against his skin. My journal was open beside him. The medical records beside it.
God, I’d come back here to talk to him about what Veronica had told me. To be mature and talk to him about what I’d started feeling for him, and this was what I walked in on? Him snooping in my things, touching and reading, and, god, it gave me the shivers.
“How could you?” I asked. “Who gave you the right to go through my things?”
“No one,” he replied. “I wasn’t going through them. I was looking for your address book. Fuck, I don’t need to make excuses for this.”
“Get out,” I said, my arms trembling. I smoothed my hands over the baby blue cocktail dress I’d chosen for tonight, feeling the soft fabric beneath my fingers, trying for a semblance of control. It was all I had left.
“No,” he replied and tapped his fingers on the back of the chair. He shoved it out of his path, and it toppled over, hit the floor. He strode toward me. I flinched, but he kept on coming. “I’m not leaving, and neither are you. What the fuck did I just read, Riley? A baby? Insemination? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I? We’ve known each other a week!” I screeched, my sense of calm fraying at last. “A week! And you haven’t exactly been open and honest with me. Oh yeah, you pushed me for more information about myself, but you told me absolutely nothing about where you were at.”
“Pushed you?” Jax stood in front of me, not touching me, but looking down on me. This was what he did. It was his power play, standing tall like this.
I refused to crane my neck. “Yeah, pushed me. Why were you squeezing me for information like that?” And now I’d found him snooping in my private business. “This is too much. It’s been what, ten days? Ten days? I don’t even know you. I should just leave.” Veronica had insisted I sleep on her couch. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, and for once, I could see the sense in it.
“No,” Jax said and grabbed my wrist. “You’re not moving a fucking inch until we talk about this.”
“What’s there to talk about? You’re an ex-con, and you’re snooping in my shit. I don’t know you, and it’s time for me to leave. That about sums it up, doesn’t it?”