Page 18 of Bad Boy Husband
SADIE
T he townhouse was nothing like the sprawling big house on the Westwood estate or even Jameson’s mansion. It was much smaller but warm and with a lived-in feel. Somehow, this felt more like him. Like a place he’d bought and decorated just for himself.
Exposed brick walls, leather sofas, and dark wood floors.
I set my overnight bag down by the door and paused to get my bearings.
Hooch, probably exhausted from shadowing Jameson around all day like a drooling bodyguard, sniffed around for just a moment before claiming a patch of sun in the living room.
Jameson cleared his throat, carefully snapped his keys onto a hook just inside the door, and glanced at me over his shoulder. “I’ll show you around.”
I followed him wordlessly around the first floor, surprised by the family-style kitchen, the modest dining area, and the small den that doubled as an office. Like his house at the estate, it smelled faintly like cedar and lemon, and I inhaled deeply, quickly becoming fond of the scent.
Upstairs, there were two bedrooms and a guest bath. I assumed he would tell me to take the smaller bedroom, but he stopped at the door to the master. “You should take this one.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Where are you going to sleep?”
His jaw flexed. “The other bedroom. The couch. It doesn’t really matter much to me.”
We lingered in the hallway, neither of us moving as we waited for the other to continue the exchange. He leaned against the door frame and folded his arms, and I could see the debate in his hazel eyes.
Finally, I decided to break the silence. One of the reasons why it might not matter much to him where he slept for now was because eventually we would be sharing a bed, but I still didn’t know that for sure. I didn’t know anything for sure and it was about time we started talking about it.
“What is this supposed to look like, Jameson? Us being married to each other.”
“I’m not sure yet. I guess we’ll start slow. Maybe become friends again.” His gaze flicked from one of my eyes to the other, searching. “I mean, eventually, I’d like to have kids. I’m not in a rush. That’s not why I’m doing this, but as a long-term plan, sure.”
I blinked back my surprise. “Since when do you want kids?”
He shrugged. “Since always. I wasn’t sure it would ever happen for me and it’s not like I’ve had much reason to think about it before now, but yeah. That’s where I’m at. Why? Do you not want any?”
“I do,” I said quietly. “Someday. Just not now. I can barely keep Hooch fed at the moment and I never even thought I would be willing to settle down, let alone calmly discuss having children with someone I wasn’t speaking to last month.”
He almost smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching, but the air between us grew dense with things unsaid. There had been a time when I’d thought I knew everything there was to know about him, and talking about this now was bringing up a lot of old emotions.
“What does it look like for now, though? I get just trying to be friends again as a start, but are we…” I trailed off and sucked in a deep, long breath. “Knowing that we’ll also be getting married soon, are we supposed to be romantic again? Business-like? Just friendly?”
His shoulders lifted in the slightest shrug, but his fists tightened at his sides like he had to physically stop himself from reaching for me. “I don’t know, Sadie. It might be easier if we start fresh. Pretend nothing ever happened before.”
That stung, feeling a little like he was pressing on a bruise that hadn’t quite healed yet. “Yeah, maybe it would’ve been easier if you hadn’t dumped me back then. Maybe we wouldn’t have been here, playing house while we could’ve had the real thing together all along.”
His features sharpened at the dig, his eyes darkening in a way that told me my aim had been true. “Sades?—”
“No, don’t Sades me. It’s true.” The words burned on my tongue, my chest tightening as I thought back. “Look at where we are right now, Jameson. Look at where we ended up.”
“I’m looking,” he said after a brief pause, his teeth grinding. “What about it?”
“What about it?” I scoffed. “Trent is livid. Your friendship with him seems to have ended anyway. That wasn’t my choice, Jameson. You made that call when you came to me with this proposal.”
“I’ll deal with him,” he repeated what he’d already said so many times today. “I told you, I?—”
“Yeah, you’ll handle him. Now. Ten years later. My brother is as pissed as he would’ve been then. Time hasn’t changed that, but now you’re willing to deal with him. What’s that all about? Has it taken you a decade to find your balls?”
The silence stretched so taut that it was almost like I could hear the tear before the snap. Jamie’s knuckles had turned white and I realized I was shaking a little, too. I just didn’t know if it was anger, memory, or that other thing. The thing that felt way close to longing.
“We were kids back then,” he said, his voice soft but rough. “Our circumstances were very, very different. I thought I was doing the right thing. Trent didn’t want us together and you have no idea how?—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I cut in, sharper than I’d meant. “It doesn’t matter now anyway, I guess. We ended up here regardless. We’re doing this because those circumstances are pushing us both into it despite how we feel.”
“Despite how we feel ?” He frowned, his head tilting. “How do we feel then, Sadie? Tell me.”
My chest started rising and falling faster, like I’d just run a mile. I couldn’t pretend like my heart wasn’t still scarred. Like sometimes, it wasn’t still difficult to believe how abruptly he’d ended things, so completely out of the blue.
“I don’t know, Jamie. That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? I never did know how you felt. All I ended up knowing was that you couldn’t have felt the same as me.”
Slowly, he stepped closer until he was near enough that I could see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes and feel the heat radiating off him. For a heartbeat, I thought he might actually touch me. A traitorous part of my soul desperately wanted him to.
Even after all these years, I still wanted him to touch me. I’d spent so long trying to forget what that felt like, but now, it was all coming back, and irrationally, I suddenly didn’t care about anything that had happened.
We could make it all right, couldn’t we? We had a chance to do that now, but his hands remaining stubbornly fisted at his sides.
“I’m sorry, Sadie.” He held my gaze, the expression in his soft but more intense than I’d ever seen. “I’m sorry, okay? You have every right to hate me. You always have. Frankly, I spent a long time hating myself, but I never thought we’d wind up here.”
“Where did you think we’d wind up then? My brother is your best friend. Or at least, he was. We live in the same city. We run in the same circles.”
“We managed to avoid each other for ten fucking years, Sadie. So no, I really didn’t think we’d be here. I thought you’d meet someone else and fall in love with him. I thought you’d marry him for that love and get everything you’ve ever wanted and more.”
His chest was heaving now, a red stain flushing the tops of his cheeks. “I hate that it’s not happening that way for you, but this, with me, at least it could be better than what your life might’ve been like in Dallas, right? At least with me, you get to be yourself.”
I sucked in a breath, so surprised that for a second I couldn’t even speak. When I finally found my voice, it was ragged and quiet. “Until a few days ago, I didn’t even want to get married at all, Jameson. If you’d just been honest with me?—”
“Then what?” His chin came up ever so slightly, the afternoon light catching the golden shadow of stubble that had appeared on his jaw since this morning. “You didn’t want to get married, but now, you have to. How would being honest have changed that?”
Exasperation clawed up my throat. “If we’d spoken about it, at least you would’ve known that you didn’t have to make an honest woman out of me before you’d even turned twenty-one, Westwood.
At least you would’ve found out what I actually wanted before you just walked away. We could’ve figured it out together.”
“Could we?” His voice was still gentle, but his eyes had gone flat.
“As two kids who were barely starting to figure out what we wanted out of life individually, would we really have been able to figure anything out together? While your brother hated us. While he would’ve accused us of being reckless, and irresponsible, and stealing each other’s futures? ”
“I don’t know, but I would’ve liked to have tried.” Admitting it cracked open old sores and left them stinging as if someone had rubbed rough salt on them. “Maybe we should just take a few hours and really think about how we’re going to approach this whole marriage thing.”
He paused for a beat before he nodded and took a big step back. “I have some meetings early this evening and a couple things left to hash out today, but I’ll meet you for dinner. We’ll talk more then.”
As he turned to leave, I reached for him, my fingers gently catching around his wrist. “I need you to know that I’m not doing this because of the money, Jamie. I could marry anyone if that was all I wanted, but I trust you. That’s rare in our world.”
Instantly, I saw him soften. The fight drained from the stiff set of his shoulders and he flashed me a half-smile that wasn’t just his trademark smirk. “I’ll be back later, okay?”
I lowered my chin in a nod and released his arm, but he hesitated before he left.
Like he didn’t really want to go. It had been so long since I’d felt this energy crackling between us, since I’d really felt the kind of chemistry I had only ever discovered existed because of him, and yet, it was as familiar as breathing.
Just a couple days ago, I’d promised myself that I would be careful with him, which probably meant that I should’ve ignored this warmth between us, but right now, in this moment, I nearly asked him if he could stay for a minute.
Unfortunately—or perhaps it was fortunate—he slipped out the door before I could get the words out and I sagged against the wall once he was gone, trying to pull myself together.