Page 22 of All Fall Down

“In whom?” I retort. I hadn’t been given a lot of opportunities to have faith in my life. My mom blowing up her marriage to my father hadn’t instilled faith and love. My father’s inability to keep the electricity on for more than six months at a time didn’t instill a lot of faith in authority. But really, watching my sister die because of one stupid decision in a car, that’s when I lost faith in the universe.

“I know you have a lot of reasons not to believe. And I know it might take you a lifetime to heal from all the terrible things that happened to you. But I’m going to be there for that lifetime. I’m going to spend every day reminding you that good things can happen. That it’s okay to believe and to hope and to have faith in other people.”

“What if I can’t?” I ask in a breathless voice. I don’t have a successful track record when it came to blind trust.

“Baby steps, Duchess.” He reaches out and brushes his knuckle under my chin. “Start with me. Have some faith in me. We’ll go from there.”

I had faith in Jameson, and it had been taken away from me. Why can’t he see that my cynicism isn’t rooted in some warped fixation on the past, but in the continued barrage of unfortunate events that had both brought us together and torn us apart?

“I can’t just have faith,” I admit to him in a small voice. I want to, and I want to tell him that. But he’ll take my foolish desires as a sign that I’m capable of this tremendous feat he’s asking of me.

“How about we start with something concrete?” he says softly.

I raise one eyebrow. He’s going to need a miracle if he’s asking me to make this leap. Then again, I’m going to need a miracle if I plan to walk out of here alone tonight. I want him, and I want the picture he’s painting. But is it a future I can ever have?

“Oh Duchess, I’m sorry they broke you.” The light finger on my jaw shifts and his whole palm cups the side of my face. His touch feels warm and comforting and right, so how could it ever be wrong? “But I’m going to fix you.”

“You can’t.” The sooner he figures that out, the better off we’ll both be.

“Look at me,” he demands, and when I open my eyes, his burn into mine. “I’m Jameson West, and I can do anything I want. So, when I say I’ll spend my life teaching you how to have faith—when I say I’m going to fix you—I will.”

I want so badly to trust him, but in my experience, dreams don’t come true.

“I told you that I had proof. We’ll start with one concrete reason why you should believe in us.”

“And what is that?” I snap, as I feel the wounds in my heart begin to crack open.

“Your DNA,” he says. “It doesn’t match my father’s. For good measure, it doesn’t match mine, either. You aren’t related to me, Emma Southerly.”

I can’t process what he’s saying, how he knows this. He takes my silence for exactly what it is, disbelief. Sighing, he reveals the source of his findings. “You were sleeping at my house, remember? I borrowed your hairbrush, your toothbrush. Hell, there was a whole team in the guest bedroom. You could probably be cloned.”

“What does that mean? How can they know so soon? Mackey said...”

“Mackey’s using the resources of a government-funded laboratory. I had labs in New York, Switzerland and London test and send results. Their findings were all quite clear. We’re not related. So, as to your question, what does that mean? It means that you’re going to lock your car, and then you’re going to get into the passenger seat of mine. My jet is waiting on standby. It’s your birthday, Duchess, and I’m taking you wherever you want to go. The registered flight plan has us going to New York, but from there we can go wherever, so long as that place has a bed.”

“A bed?” I choke out the word. My cheeks flush with heat as the memories I’ve done my best to erase flash through my mind. There’s no stopping them now that Jameson has drained the fight from me.

“It’s your birthday.” His voice is low and suggestive. Apparently, he hasn’t forgotten the date or why it is important. He had been the one to set the rule and force me to agree: we wouldn’t sleep together until then. He smirks as if reading my mind. “You’re 18, Duchess, and that means you’re mine.”