Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“I’m happy for you, Jersey.”
“Yeah.” She pressed her hand to her chest, rubbing the ache as her other hand clutched the phone.
The bus stopped, and Jersey got off.
“Where’s the shelter?”
She crossed the street. “Opposite corner of Mission Church.”
“Can I pick you up in thirty minutes? Take you for a drive and talk?”
She nodded for several seconds before realizing he couldn’t see her. “Yeah … yes. That’s good.”
“See you soon.” He disconnected.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
He pulled up in his blue sports car with the top down. Jersey pressed her hand to her tummy to calm it. Ian made casual sexier than anyone—gray shorts, blue tee, messy hair, and sunglasses. And that lopsided smile.
“Hi.” Her voice shook as she opened the door and plopped down into the luxury leather seat.
“Hey.” Ian held his smile, but it faded a fraction when he glanced over her shoulder to the group of guys huddled outside of the door to the shelter, smoking their cigarettes. He sped off into traffic as soon as she clicked her seat belt.
She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. The wind made it difficult to have a conversation without yelling, so she leaned her head back and let the breeze play in her hair as he drove them up into the hills. Darkness enveloped them by the time he pulled off the road. As the car crept forward, a spectacular view of lights below them, including the Hollywood sign, came into view.
“Wow …” She broke the silence.
Ian shut off the car and unfastened his seat belt. “Not a bad view. It paints a much more beautiful picture than what’s really there.” He pressed a button, reclining the back of his seat a few inches.
Jersey released her seat belt and felt the side of her seat, hitting the wrong switch the first time before finding the one to recline her seat.
“So … you told your friend, Natasha, about us?”
She chuckled, staring at the smattering of stars in the sky. “I tried. I’m ninety-nine percent sure she doesn’t believe me.” After a few minutes, she rolled her head to look at him. “I didn’t know what we were. After Kessler died, I didn’t know what we were.”
Small talk felt wrong, and she wasn’t great at it anyway. Jersey held a bunch of emotions in her mind, weighing heavily on her conscience.
Ian rolled his head to meet her gaze.
“I felt kept,” she continued. “Like your need to protect me was all that mattered. But I don’t need protection. I’m not the little girl you saved from Mr. Fisher. And I didn’t feel loved. I didn’t even feel wanted. I just felt … kept. Like one of your awards you have in a glass case. I needed the truth. I needed you. But you wouldn’t give me either one.”
“But I did love you.” His eyebrows pulled together.
Jersey’s shoulders lifted. “Then it wasn’t the love I wanted. I wanted the love you gave me in the dark, in the bathroom, when I told you my deepest secret.”
He studied her for a moment. “That you were going to miss me?”
She nodded. “It was when I knew killing you would kill me too. It’s when my heart begged me to just walk away.”
“But you didn’t truly love me back.”
“I could love you or kill you, but I couldn’t do both.”
Ian’s lips twisted as he nodded slowly, gaze focused. “You fucked another man, Jersey.” Agony … that’s what was in his voice. Unshed tears filled his eyes.
“I was waiting for you to love me. I was feeling pretty fucking unloved.”
In tiny increments, he shook his head a half dozen times, focusing back to the sky. “Yeah, well, welcome to my world.”
Jersey climbed out of the car and walked closer to the steep drop-off. A few seconds later, Ian’s car door clicked shut, and clumps of dirt and brush crunched beneath his feet as he approached her.
“I don’t know much about love.” She crossed her arms over her chest, focusing on the sea of lights. “I think Dena and Charles loved me. And I think G loved me. Sometimes, I even think Chris loved me.
“I don’t really think sex is love. I know people say ‘make love,’ but I’ve never felt it. Even with us, I sometimes wondered if that’s what we were trying to do, but I couldn’t make love to someone who took my life. And that’s what I thought … I thought you took my life from me.”
“So what is love to you?”
She quickly wiped a stray tear from her cheek and sniffled. “When Dena used to braid my hair and tell me what a strong young woman I was and how I was going to do amazing things in life … change the world. That was love. And when Charles promised he would never do anything to lose my trust, never be anything like the men before him; he made sure my bedroom door had a lock on the inside that no one could open from the outside because he wanted me to feel safe. That was love.”