She was loud and opinionated, competent and commanding, much like her youngest daughter. But she’d always been kind to him. And he sensed she respected him and appreciated what he’d done for Joel and, by extension, her family.
Vanessa, apparently, did not have the same experience with her mother.
“She disagrees with everything I do.” Her voice was tight, her gaze fixed on the wood on the sawhorse. “I never do anything right, or good enough. If it’s not her way, she insists on correcting me.”
That stubborn defiance crept through her posture, even as she talked about something that clearly hurt her. And damn it, he couldn’t ignore the pull in his chest anymore.
“Lucy was the rule follower,” Vanessa continued, her tone dropping a notch. “The people pleaser, the perfect child who always did everything right. But I didn’t fall in line so easily. I didn’t do anything my mother’s way, and—” Her voice cracked so quietly he almost missed it. “She never forgave me.”
The rawness in her words hit him like a punch. He could see the pain clearly now—the years of living with it, the resentment that had built up between her and Maria. He’d heard it in the bitterness, the way her words had been sharp but laced with something deeper, more fragile. It wasn’t only anger. It was the hurt of a daughter who’d been trying to get her mother’s approval her whole life and never succeeded.
“So,” he said, gesturing around the courtyard. “This is your way of asking for forgiveness.”
“No!” She patted the wood panel resting on thesawhorse. “This is my way of proving to her that I’m not a screw-up, and I can do something right.”
As the silence stretched between them, Jordan regarded her. From the outside, Vanessa had it all. Fame, success. Hell, she was a household name. People would die for the life she had. But the more he saw her, the more he realized how fragile the facade was.
“Vanessa,” he said, his voice gentle. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”
Her gaze flicked to his, and for the briefest moment, something unspoken and raw passed between them. It heated his blood until he didn’t feel the cold anymore.
She cleared her throat. “Maybe not,” she muttered, kicking a chunk of gravel out of the way. “But if I don’t do this, and do it well, I’ll always be the screw-up.”
Jordan stepped closer, his boots scraping lightly on the gravel. The distance between them seemed too wide for something that was so...complicated. “You’re not a screw-up.”
He took a chance and moved a strand of her hair behind her ear, his knuckles brushing along her soft skin. The air shifted. She swallowed hard, her stare meeting his. Her lips parted, and he zeroed in on them. They were so pretty, so plump. He bet they tasted the way she smelled, sweet and spicy, at the same time.
When she leaned toward him, he sucked in a breath and stepped back. It sounded like she had enough regrets in her life. She didn’t need to add him to the list.
Reaching behind her, he pulled the hood of his coat up, tugging it tight around her ears. “If my parents were still alive, they’d tell you all about screwed-up children.”
She blinked a couple of times, returning to reality. “You couldn’t have been that bad.”
“I was as bad as they came, baby.” He inched back, putting distance between them and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Stayed out all night, ran with the neighborhood gangs, sassed my mom more times than I can count, skipped more days of school than I attended, stole cigarettes from my neighbor’s back porch.” He watched her pupils grow wider with every word. “And that was all before I finally dropped out of school at fifteen.”
“What happened after you were fifteen?” She asked in a tone of sheer curiosity.
He shook his head, because some truths were too ugly, too dark, to speak out loud. “Things I want to keep far away from you.”
The sounds of a vaguely familiar pop song filled the air, jolting her backward, ripping them both out of their trance.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“That’s my phone,” Vanessa said as she stepped around the sawhorse to grab the device off the worktable. “Taylor Swift ringtone.”
“Who’s Taylor Swift?” he asked, deadpan.
She gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
Sometimes, watching the way she looked at him, like he’d crawled out of a cave, was the best part of his day.
“How do you live in the world?” It was her turn to shake her head as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
He waited until she’d turned away to grin. He’d take her sass over her heartbreak any day. This fundraiser? He hadn’t realized it meant more to her than simply a career move. This was personal. She really believed this was her shot at proving she wasn’t the screw-up she believed she was.
His grin faded as he watched her talking excitedly to the person on the phone. Maybe she needed more than someone to protect her from the threats of the world. Maybeshe needed someone who saw her for who she really was. Resilient, strong, relentless. Maybe he wanted to be that someone.
He squashed the thought as quickly as it formed. As far behind him as it might be, he knew his dark, morally gray, profoundly illegal past had no place in her life.
