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west

W hen I made breakfast, I expected Jackson to join. He’d told me he would, but he never showed up. It irritated me. I knew he was in his office dealing with sponsor shit, but he’d told me he’d be down.

Was I being unreasonable? I couldn’t tell. Maybe I was just grumpy after a rough night or maybe I had a right to be annoyed. Either way, I stomped up the stairs and right into his office.

“Why do you hate me, Amy?” Jackson was demanding as I opened the door. The scowl on his face stopped me short. His expression softened when his gaze met mine. Only for a minute anyway. Whatever Amy said on the other side pissed him off. “No, you do fucking hate me. I’m no one’s fucking monkey. And I sure as hell ain’t doing milk ads for Lexington.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets as I meandered into the room. Jackson clicked a button on the phone as he met me halfway.

“I’m sorry, baby, but I swear to fuck if I have to do a goddamn milk ad, I might need pointers from you about how to survive jail,” he said. He slipped an arm around my waist, pulling me close. His lips brushed against mine in a slow kiss—warm and soft .

Any comments about jail and murder slipped in one ear and out the other when his tongue slipped across mine.

“What’re you doing?” I asked gruffly. Even still, I couldn’t peel my mouth from his and kissed him again.

“I thought that part was obvious,” Jackson teased with a grin. His nose bumped against mine in an almost sweet gesture. “Not everything needs to be hot and heavy, and I aim to prove that to you. This… this right here is nice.”

My face felt uncomfortably warm. Was I fucking blushing? From the amused expression on his face, I had to be.

“You’re still on the fucking phone,” I muttered to pull the attention away from me.

“She’s on mute.”

“But—”

“Amy’s long-winded,” he replied. “It’ll be a good ten minutes before she realizes I ain’t listening.”

He kissed me again, and I liked it. An obnoxiously shrill noise on the other end of the phone interrupted us, and Jackson groaned.

“Woman, I ain’t ignoring you!” he snapped into the phone as he walked away. He rolled his eyes at me. “I’ve just heard you say it all before.”

Listening to him argue with his agent was a lot like watching an old married couple go at it. While they went back and forth, I kept myself busy by poking around his desk. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was bored. Waiting around wasn’t something I was good at. And when I saw my name on a file? Curiosity got the better of me and I flipped the file open.

My heart jammed instantly in my throat at the picture staring back at me.

Michael Miller.

That name and his face on the report made my blood run cold.

Breathing became a fucking chore as I zoned out on the image. The words in the report floated around on the page, but I didn’t need to see them to know what they said.

“I asked Mickey to look into your past when you first got here,” Jackson was quick to say. I couldn’t look at him—couldn’t take my eyes off the goddamn picture .

“I don’t remember killing him,” I told him softly. I touched the picture. I remembered very little about that day. My voice sounded distant to even me as I spoke, “They said… they said I blacked out. I didn’t know I killed him until… fuck, it was the next morning. I just kind of… snapped out of it. Came to? I don’t fucking know…”

I didn’t remember a whole lot about the days after that. It was all a blur—a lot of moving and questions and things I didn’t know how to answer.

The only thing I truly could remember was what Miller said to me before the world went dark.

“How about we add another notch on your side?”

My stomach rolled with the words floating in my head. I fucking hated Miller. I hated him. I hated what he’d done to me—how he’d killed a part of me.

“West?” Jackson’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. I blinked at him.

“What?” I whispered.

“You just stopped talking,” he said. The phone was gone. When had he ended the phone call? I couldn’t remember.

When he took a step toward me, I backed away. The temperature in the room kept rising, the walls pulsing around me.

I couldn’t be here.

“I’ve got to go,” I replied. “Horses…”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. Locked-legged, I walked my way out of the house with a desperate need to get the fuck out of there. To get away from that goddamn file.