Page 29 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)
THIRTEEN
THE HIGH BEFORE THE STORM
CHANEL
Happiness has weight. Mass. Density.
It sits on my chest this Sunday morning—this strange, forgotten pressure. Not unpleasant, but unfamiliar enough to wake me before the rest of the house stirs.
I lie still, orienting myself to the sensation. To being in Jakob's bed for the second night. To the arm draped across my waist with casual possession. To the rhythm of breath against my neck, steady and warm.
To the terrifying ease of all of it.
I extricate myself carefully, practiced in the art of leaving sleeping men. But as I slip from beneath the sheets, his fingers tighten briefly around my wrist.
"Stay." His voice rough with sleep, eyes still closed.
"Bathroom," I murmur, the lie small but necessary. A buffer against this sudden domesticity neither of us planned.
He releases me without argument, rolling into the warm space I've vacated.
I pause in the doorway, watching his body settle back into sleep.
The hard lines of him softened in dawn light.
The ruthless businessman momentarily indistinguishable from the boy he must have been before the world taught him to build walls, to guard vulnerabilities, to expect betrayal.
I wonder if that's what I look like when I sleep. If Jaden sees the same contradiction when he watches me—strength momentarily surrendered, control temporarily abandoned.
The thought of our son propels me from the doorway. I need coffee before he wakes, before this day of playing family continues. Before I have to decide what any of it means.
In the kitchen, muscle memory guides me through familiar motions. Filter. Grounds. Water. The routine unchanged from our marriage, like my body never forgot its place in this space, even as my mind insisted on distance.
I lean against the counter, watching sunrise paint Manhattan in golds and ambers, waiting for the caffeine that might clarify this blurred line between past and present.
Between what was and what might still be.
The coffee machine gurgles to completion. I pour a mug, adding the precise amount of cream that turns the liquid the color of Jakob's eyes when he's?—
I stop myself. This is how it starts. The small surrenders. The romanticizing of details. The softening that preceded every heartbreak I've experienced. Every disappointment.
Every abandonment.
I sip the coffee, letting its bitterness ground me. Remind me that what feels safe is rarely what is safe. That history doesn't simply disappear because of good sex and tender moments and the expression in Jakob's eyes when he watches our son.
When he watches me.
"Mom?"
Jaden stands in the kitchen doorway, hair rumpled from sleep, eyes squinting against morning light. His presence immediately reshapes the space, changes its temperature, its meaning.
"Hey, buddy." I set my mug down, opening my arms. He moves into them without hesitation, that unconscious trust children place in parents before they learn better. "Sleep okay?"
He nods against my chest, still half-dreaming. "Can we have pancakes? Dad promised."
Dad promised .
"Sure." I smooth his hair, buying time, rebuilding composure. "Go brush your teeth first."
He pulls away, the momentary vulnerability of early morning already receding. "Is Dad still sleeping?"
Is Dad still sleeping in your bed? The unasked question hovers, though I might be projecting my own discomfort.
Jaden's acceptance of our temporary arrangement has been troublingly complete.
As if he's been waiting for this exact scenario—both parents under one roof, sharing spaces and glances and the mundane rhythm of family life.
"I think so," I say, navigating the half-truth. "But I'm sure he'll be up soon."
"Cool." He disappears down the hallway, feet padding against hardwood, leaving me with the ghost of his question and the implications of my answer.
I turn back to the counter, reaching for flour, for eggs, for measuring cups. For the concrete certainty of recipes that deliver consistent results when followed properly. Not like relationships. Not like trust. Not like love.
Those recipes change without warning. Those measurements prove false. Those ingredients spoil when you least expect it.
"Morning."
Jakob's voice behind me stops my breath mid-inhale. My skin tightens at the sound—heat blooming beneath my ribs like something dangerous coming back to life.
I don't turn immediately, needing the extra seconds to compose my face, to regulate my pulse, to remember who I am outside the gravity of his presence.
"Coffee's fresh," I say, voice steadier than I feel. "Jaden's awake. He mentioned pancakes."
"Did he now?" The amusement in his tone pulls me around despite my resolution. He stands in the doorway, hair damp from a shower I didn't hear, wearing sweatpants and a faded T-shirt that clings to his chest in ways that make thinking difficult.
"Apparently you promised."
"I did." He moves into the kitchen with the easy confidence of a man certain of his welcome. Pours coffee into a mug—the black one with the chip on the handle that he always preferred. The one I didn't realize he'd kept. "I keep my promises these days."
The words land with precision, quiet but cutting, disturbing the careful equilibrium of the moment. The implication clear: unlike before.
I turn back to the counter, measuring flour with unnecessary precision. "We'll see."
He doesn't respond to the challenge, just moves beside me, close enough that our arms brush as he reaches for a bowl. The contact sends electricity up my spine, traitorous body responding to his proximity.
"I'll handle the bacon," he says, retrieving a package from the refrigerator. "You always burn it."
"I don't burn it. I make it crispy."
"Cremated isn't crispy, Chanel."
For a moment, we're back in our first apartment, navigating the too-small kitchen on Sunday mornings, bodies moving in a choreography of casual intimacy. Before board meetings, billionaire status and the growing silences that eventually swallowed everything we'd built.
Before I found myself alone with divorce papers, a toddler and a future I hadn't planned for.
"Dad! You're up!" Jaden's voice breaks the fragile moment. He launches himself at Jakob with unrestrained enthusiasm, arms wrapping around his waist.
Jakob's expression transforms, softening in ways I've cataloged with increasing frequency this weekend. His hand settles on Jaden's head, the gesture so natural it makes my chest ache with a specific pain I've become expert at ignoring.
The pain of witnessing the father Jakob has become against the absence of the husband he was.
"Ready for pancakes, champ?" He ruffles Jaden's hair, eyes meeting mine over our son's head. Something passes between us—acknowledgment, perhaps. Recognition of what we've created despite our failures. Or because of them.
"Can we put chocolate chips in them?" Jaden's question directed at me, understanding instinctively that some permissions still fall under maternal jurisdiction.
"Special occasion," I concede, unable to deny him this small joy. Unable to explain that this—this temporary truce, this weekend of playing family—isn't something to get used to.
He whoops, already reaching for the cabinet where sweets are stored. Already assuming continuation. Permanence. Happy endings I've never trusted—not even in fairytales I read him as a child.
"Careful," Jakob warns as Jaden climbs onto the counter to reach the high shelf. "Let me?—"
"I got it!" Our son's voice bright with determination and the confidence of nine-year-old boys who believe themselves invincible. The cabinet door swings open too quickly, catching him off-balance. For a heartbeat, he teeters on the edge of the counter.
Jakob and I move simultaneously, instinct overriding thought.
His arm wraps around Jaden's waist as my hand grabs his shoulder, steadying him before disaster can manifest. We stand frozen in a tableau of near-miss parenting, Jaden suspended between us, three bodies connected in the most basic act of protection.
"Whoa," Jaden says, grinning, already dismissing the danger. "That was close."
"Down," I order, heart still pounding. "Now."
Jakob lowers him to the floor, his own face tight with the same fear that burns through my veins. For a moment, we're united again in the most fundamental way—as parents who would do anything, risk everything, to keep this small human safe.
"I was fine," Jaden protests, oblivious to the current passing between us. "I wouldn't have fallen."
"You don't know that," Jakob says, voice carrying the edge that makes boardrooms go silent. "And some risks aren't worth taking."
The statement lands with dual meaning, though Jakob may not intend it. Some risks aren't worth taking . Some chances too dangerous to chance. Some falls too devastating to risk.
Like this weekend. Like the fragile peace we've established. Like the feeling that grows in my chest when I watch him with our son—when he touches me with reverence rather than possession, when he whispers truths in darkness he never shared in light.
"Let's just use a stepstool next time," I say, diffusing the tension. Retreating to the practicality that's become my sanctuary. "Chocolate chips aren't worth broken bones."
"Or giving your mother a heart attack," Jakob adds, hand settling briefly on my lower back. The touch casual, instinctive, intimate in its unconscious claim.
I don't move away. Don't correct the familiarity. Don't remind him of boundaries I myself crossed the moment I walked into his bedroom last night.
Instead, I lean slightly into the contact, allowing this small connection while minds race with implications, with questions, with the growing certainty that I'm losing objectivity with each hour that passes in this fantasy.