CHAPTER 37
JESSE
Jacque was still the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen in my life. Even if she did look as wrecked as I felt.
Damp dark hair curled around her shoulders, wetting the top and back of her shirt like she might only just have gotten out of the shower when I’d arrived. Those golden brown eyes were completely devoid of any makeup, her skin glowing slightly, as if she’d just scrubbed it, but she still looked tired. Worn out.
Absolutely nothing about her told me she’d been expecting this visit, but the way she looked at me after I’d asked if we could talk made it seem like she’d been bracing for it nonetheless.
“Thank you,” she said finally, glancing down at Hubert by her side. “I mean it, Jesse. Thank you. For all of this.”
“It’s your dog,” I said. “He belongs with you, not stuck in some tiny house on the other side of the world.”
“I know, but you didn’t have to do this for me, so…” She trailed off. “Just, uh, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I meant it, too. What that man had done was vile. Someone had to set it right, and while I’d like to think that I’d have done this for anyone who had such a disgusting act perpetrated against them, it’d been absolutely nothing compared to the lengths I’d go to for her. “How have you been?”
She hesitated for a moment before she turned, waving me with her to the living room as she headed for the couch. Hubert moved with her like a shadow, immediately curling up on her feet once she sat down.
“Jane came to see me” she said quietly. “Did you know about that?”
I shook my head, taking the seat across from her no matter how much I wanted to be next to her instead. “I really didn’t. What did she want? I’m assuming, since you brought it up now, you’re not talking about a meeting you had with her for work.”
“No, not work.” She folded her fingers in her lap and started fidgeting with them, pausing for a long minute before she finally looked at me again. “She said Alex is looking into the probate case that affected my family so heavily back when I was little.”
I frowned. “He is?”
Jacque pushed her hand into Hubert’s fur, but her gaze swept across my face like she was trying to figure out if I was lying. “You really didn’t know?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I didn’t.”
When I’d asked Jane, Alex, and Nate for that information, it’d been so that I could understand what had happened. Whatever Jacque had dealt with growing up had obviously made her unbelievably paranoid and suspicious of my family. I had to know what had been done to her.
I hadn’t actually expected them to do anything about it, though, and I’d been a little too preoccupied with the international dog retrieval to have done anything with it myself until now. Sliding a hand around the nape of my neck, I squeezed the muscles there and then shook my head again.
“I swear, it didn’t come from me,” I said. “All I did was ask them to look into it. You told me about an inheritance you didn’t get, but I was light on the details. I didn’t think he’d follow through on whatever he found.”
Her expression softened. “Jane said that they are.”
I nodded slowly, part of me hoping it was because Alex cared enough aboutmeto step in instead of doing it just because he was a control freak. It was also possible that he had some kind of bigger plan, but I was really hoping this time, it was only because it mattered to me.
I didn’t say that out loud, though. “I’m glad they’re on it. If anyone can fix something like that, it’s them.”
She held my gaze for a moment longer before she looked down. “I like you, Jesse.”
Although the words were quiet, they hit me like a hurricane and I sucked in a breath, but I’d also heard them before. Our feelings hadn’t mattered then and I doubted anything had changed.
Still, the corners of my mouth twitched upward. “Well, I guess that’s good. It would’ve made this very awkward otherwise.”
A quiet laugh slid out of her, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much humor in it and my chest constricted.This is not shaping up to be a declaration of undying love.
“I mean it, Jesse. I really do like you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Her fingers tightened slightly in Hubert’s fur. “Do you? Do you know that I like you for you, not for your money, or your fame, or your power. It’s not about any of that for me.”
Despite knowing better, I got so close to being relieved, I could almost taste it, but the fact that she didn’t exactly look happy right now told me there was abutcoming. Seconds later, she proved me right.
