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Jax bites his bottom lip, holding my gaze for a beat longer, until eventually, he nods. “You ready?” he asks.
“To meet my husband’s mother and explain why I’ve torn her heart out by marrying him on impulse and ruining her opportunity to be mother of the groom?”
He winces. “I’ll take that as affirmative.”
I chuckle. “Time to face the music.”
* * *
We do make our arrival slot and spend thirty seconds twisting and turning for cameras, holding hands, looking at each other like star-crossed lovers and me laughing as Jax pinches my waist, then tells me I look pretty when I let my hair down.
When TJ steps onto the red carpet next and the media call for Jax to come back for a picture with his brother, I stand to the side of the show. This is where I normally stand as a PR at these events, looking on at the stars I’ve come to support and schmooze. I should feel comfortable in this spot. Right now, though, I’m recalling a moment in Las Vegas.
It was one of Tray and Amelie’s earlier ceremonies. We were in a chapel, Jax dressed as Elvis in a bell-bottom jumpsuit with fiercely bushy eyebrows, dark hair quaffed, while I was dressed in Marilyn Monroe’s famous white dress.
“You let me know when you’re ready to let your hair down, won’t you?” Jax said.
Scowling, I’d rouged my Marilyn wig and told him, “My hair is down.”
Then he’d noticed my empty wedding finger, I guess, because he asked me, “By the way, where’s your ring?”
That’s how I came to tell him, “Carl’s been banging our secretary,” and that’s when he said, “Well, that explains your foul mood.”
I’d laughed, truly, for the first time since opening that bedroom door to my ex screwing someone else.
Now, Jax and TJ head my way and when my husband slides his hand to the small of my back, he asks, “Are you good?” and I beam at him. My knight in an Elvis jumpsuit. “Yeah, I’m good. Thank you.”
“Wow, Sienna, you look amazing,” TJ says, leaning in to kiss my cheek, as if we don’t work together.
“Good enough to meet your mom?” I ask.
I expect a quick-fire remark, something about how Jax and I got ourselves into this mess. After all, TJ has been on the receiving end of a few quips and scowls from me since the accidental release of the wedding ceremony video that caused me to need to stay married.
But he says, “She’s going to love you.” Sweet like his brother. As if this whole thing is real, when TJ was there, in Las Vegas; he knows how fleeting this marriage will be. He witnessed the minion vows.
We’re inside one of the island’s finest hotels. I’ve taken brunch meetings in the lounge here in the past but I’ve never been this high in the skyscraper to get the view right out across Manhattan’s skyline. There’s a small-town girl in me who gravitates to that view no matter how many years I’ve lived in New York but tonight, I feel a squeeze of my hand and the alternative view – Jax – is different, unexpected, and equally magnificent.
He’s always been this guy, always this attractive, but now that I’m starting to truly know him… I don’t think there’s another person in the world I could find more alluring.
“Okay?” he asks.
My lips curve up in response to his. “Great,” I tell him honestly, because the trepidation I was feeling earlier seems to have dissolved into something… calmer and happier. “Really great.”
Then he tugs me into his side and presses his lips to my scalp, squeezing me tightly, in a way that makes me feel strangely… caught. Something is happening to me. Something I haven’t experienced before. There are cameras around us, sure, but this PDA feels bigger than the rules.
I think I might be falling—
“Jax. Mrs Jax.” A guy interrupts us; older, greyer, less dazzling than the man by my side and a heap ruder. “It’s great to see you,” he says, oblivious to the way he high fived the patriarchy. “I was just saying that I’m expecting the Dragons—”
“Wilson, this is Sienna,” Jax cuts him off. “Sienna Jamieson first, incredible woman second, and somewhere down the list, the woman I’m lucky enough to call my wife.”
I am momentarily stunned, speechless, as it dawns on me that this interaction is one of the reasons I have always mingled solo when I’m working. I’m my own woman, a businesswoman, not defined by attachment. Yet, if I were in Carl’s company, I’d get comments – always said through a smile – like, “Ah, the other half of the company,” and “You must be Carl’s girlfriend.” Never once, not ever, did Carl cut through the crap on my behalf. In fact, with hindsight, I’d go so far as to say he enjoyed it. Even enjoyed the way he broke off one relationship for another; the kudos of having two women want you at the same time.
By contrast, here’s Jax, who could have any woman he chooses, who operates in a heavily male environment every single day, who has no reason to defend me other than genuine respect. Now I’m excited to meet his mom, if only to tell her before I leave this country that she raised a pretty stellar human.
It turns out the misogynist is one of the partners at the sports agency that represents Jax. Surprising that I haven’t come across him before but that probably means he was on Carl’s list of contacts for our business and that puts me on alert, serving as a reminder that Carl could have come here tonight.
I’m thrilled when I spot Mitch and Lauren, standing by an extremely swanky arch of dried flowers and sprayed sprigs. I lean up to Jax’s ear and tell him, “I’m going to say hi to Mitch and Lauren. Come over when you’re done?”
