Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“Hold up,” I called out, raising my finger. “Replacing things? Contractors?
Jay nodded. “For your move.”
“My move?” I cocked my head, struggling to keep up with everything that was happening in the middle of the night.
“Into this house,” he explained, as if he was pointing out the obvious.
I stared at Jay, my heart racing and my nails digging into my palms. I needed the pain to assure myself I wasn’t dreaming. “You want me to move in with you.”
“Stella. I’ve just made it clear that I’m not going to tolerate another single night without you. This is no longer an arrangement. I’m going to have all of you. Which means you’re going to sleep here. Every night. Voldemort will have to get used to a new environment, though I suspect he’ll like it here. Your snow globes will go in the bathroom here.”
Snow globes?
He wanted my cat to move in here? Me to move in?
“We can’t move this fast, Jay,” I argued.
“Why not?” he asked, his voice was warmer now. The tenor of it. The way the vibrations moved against my skin.
“Because ...” I trailed off, trying to find the words to express all the reasons why not. Because I loved my apartment? Because Jay’d had people killed? Because I barely knew anything about him?
“Will you promise me something?” I whispered instead of arguing a command I didn’t want to argue.
Jay didn’t speak. Didn’t blindly say yes. That’s not how he worked. He waited, coaxed more from me.
“Promise me that you’re mine too,” I implored, unable to keep my voice from shaking.
Jay’s eyes cut through me. Left me in glorious, broken pieces. “Stella, I’ve been yours since the second you walked into my office.”
Then he kissed me.
Like we were in some kind of romance movie.
Which, of course, we were not.
That would become clear later.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I won’t get married,” Jay announced.
It came out of nowhere. We were cooking dinner. Well, I was cooking dinner—Wren and I had started taking classes, and I was rather good—and Jay was typing away at his laptop. His office a Klutch still existed, he still worked there sometimes, the times when me and the girls were in the VIP area, or the times when I was curled up on the sofa, reading until he decided he wanted to fuck me against the window. Or the very rare occasions when he had to conduct business, the kind of business he still didn’t want me to be a part of in any way. The business of sex. Of organized crime.
The business that I had found a way to make peace with. For better or for worse. There was no way Jay was going to change the core of who he was, and his illicit businesses were at the core of him. I’d fallen in love with him for who he was, every fiber of him.
The man who wanted control over everything in his life. The man who had a past darker than midnight. Whose body was covered in scars. And who’d promised me that he’d never fall in love with me.
But somehow, he’d changed. I’d changed him. But I also realized there was only so far he’d bend. He wouldn’t break for me the way I had for him. It was enough for me that the rules were gone, that I spent every single night with him, and he spent more time at home.
Our home.
Or it would be in a couple of weeks. Although I’d ached to move in the second he ordered me to, I’d needed to pause. Needed time to digest what my life was going to look like now. Or understand that I didn’t have control over what my life was going to look like. I hadn’t let myself even envision a future with Jay because doing that would’ve been a form of emotional self-flagellation.
Yet now there was a future.
One without marriage, apparently.
I didn’t react to his words. Instead, I stirred mushrooms in the pan and waited.
“I’ll give you everything I can, everything I have, but I won’t give you that,” Jay continued.
I sucked in a harsh breath. This should’ve been something that I’d expected. Jay was not a traditional man. We had not met in the traditional way, nor had we fallen in love in the traditional way. He had structured his life so he didn’t have to commit to a woman, didn’t have to develop any personal connections. And we’d connected, against all odds. But he wasn’t going to break all of his own rules. Not for me.
“You’re not telling me what you’re thinking.”
I jerked at Jay’s voice, finding my way out of my own head. He was staring at me, as he always did, but there was something more in his eyes. His jaw was set, body language stiff.
I continued stirring the mushrooms. “I should’ve expected you didn’t want to get married,” I replied slowly. “And I’m just trying to process it.”