Page 60 of Crossed By the Stars

I kicked myself for bringing up the engagement her father had thrust upon her with Ken’Ichi Matsuda, because her whole body tensed again. I moved my hands along her leg again, easing the muscles, journeying up over her knee to dig my fingers softly into her thighs.

“Well, I wouldn’t have known any better back then,” she said. “I would have thought it was the way I was supposed to live. If my father had caught me having sex with the chauffeur back then, I would have been institutionalized or abandoned.”

I didn’t want to repeat my mistake by reminding her that shehadbeen abandoned—long before she’d started having sex with men. She’d been alone in a ballroom at thirteen when I’d first met her.

“I wouldn’t have been able to own a company with Violet,” she continued. “We would have had to have a man sign all our contracts. And if we’d refused to have children, they could have divorced us and left us with nothing.”

“Do you want children?” I asked.

“I’d be a horrible mother,” she responded without thought.

“That isn’t what I asked.”

She looked like she was going to give me some sarcastic retort, but then she bit her bottom lip, tugged at the hem of her tank top since she didn’t have a phone to play with, and then said, “No marriage, no kids, Armaud. It isn’t in the cards for me.”

We were silent for a moment while I moved on to massaging her other leg, from her ankle all the way up to her thigh.

“What about you? Do you see tiny Daxes in your future?” she asked.

“Honestly, up until recently, I hardly felt like an adult myself.”

She watched my fingers as they journeyed back and forth over her legs. “The lifestyle we led…following the next big party…following the racing circuit…it didn’t really scream adulthood.”

I nodded.

“What changed?” she asked.

“Dawson and Violet. Seeing how happy they are together. The fact that they’re out there, right this minute, trying to get pregnant. It feels like it’s time for the next chapter of all of our lives.”

Her breath caught, and she pulled her legs away from mine to sit up. She winced less than she had the day before, but it would take weeks for her to be back to normal.

“Well, there are plenty of women out there who would happily become your wife,” she said. Her wall was back up. Somehow the conversation had hit on a nerve.

“The world seems to think we’re already engaged,” I said with a small smile.

She laughed sarcastically. “That’s because you used it as a ridiculous excuse to get into my hospital room.”

“I’d do it again, if I had to,” I said truthfully, my heart in every word.

She picked up a grape and threw it at me. I hadn’t been ready for it, and it bounced off my cheek and rolled onto the blanket. I picked it up and tossed it back at her, but she just batted it away.

“Go find Benita or one of your prior conquests to try and schmooze. It isn’t going to work on me.”

But I thought maybe it was already working a little. Jada had never had someone stick around when she needed them most. She’d never had someone run after her when she pushed them away. I was determined to be the first to do so.

Jada

HOW BAD CAN A GOOD GIRL BE

“Tried to resist you but I couldn't.

Tried not to kiss you, knew I shouldn't.

But I was weak for you,

You got to me.”

Performed by Imelda May