Page 14 of For the Promise (The Raider Brothers #2)

“What do you want to know?” ~ Blossom

Blossom

T he door to the chalet opens. “I’m nearly ready.” I glance at my watch. “Which gives us five minutes to walk to the main building. We’ll be five minutes early.” Which I consider to be on time.

When Jaxon doesn’t reply, I set my lipstick on the vanity and make my way into the bedroom of the chalet, where he’s pacing back and forth.

“We need to talk.”

My heart lodges in my throat. “You changed your mind?”

He turns to face me and freezes. His gaze rakes over my body and his eyes heat. My nipples tighten in response.

“You…you…” He blows out a breath. “You look beautiful.”

My cheeks warm. “Thank you.”

He steps close and grasps my hand. “We need to talk.”

Crap on a mermaid cracker. He did change his mind. He doesn’t want to pretend to be my husband this weekend. Alan will realize I’m not married, and I’ll lose the lawsuit. I can’t lose the lawsuit. The inheritance is mine!

“Did you change your mind? Do you want to go into the hot tub after all?” I try to joke, but judging by the frown on Jaxon’s face, I didn’t succeed.

He leads me to the sofa and helps me to sit before sitting next to me. “I ran into Alan.”

“Ugh. What did he say? Was he nasty?” I bury my face in my hands. I can imagine all the mean things my ex would say about me. All things I don’t want Jaxon to know.

He tugs my hands away from my face. “He mentioned your parents, the inheritance, and the lawsuit.”

I throw my head back and yell at the ceiling. “Is this my punishment for cheating on one physics test in college? I told the professor and re-took the exam. Which I nearly failed and it ruined my GPA. Haven’t I been punished enough?”

Jaxon pinches my chin and forces me to meet his gaze. “What happened with Alan?”

“Don’t you want to ask me about the physics exam?”

He snorts. “I have five brothers who are masters in avoiding the truth and changing the subject. You’re going to have to try harder than this.”

I slump my shoulders. “I had to ask a man with five hellraising brothers to be my fake husband.”

“Why do you need a fake husband for this wedding? It’s more than showing Alan you’ve leveled up. There’s more to it.”

I bite my bottom lip as I contemplate how to answer .

He tugs my lip free. “I know your parents died. I know there’s an inheritance. I know Alan’s suing you.”

I grunt. “Alan has a big fat mouth.”

“Alan’s an asshole,” he mutters.

“He wasn’t always an asshole. When we met in college, he was fun. He wasn’t a jokester or a prankster the way your brothers are, but we had fun together. We went to football games with painted buffalos on our face, crashed frat parties we weren’t invited to, and enjoyed a ton of concerts.”

“Buffalos?”

“University of Colorado Boulder is my alma mater.”

“Good school.”

“Did you think I went to a crummy school? Just because I’m not a nerd doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

He chuckles. “You’re trying to distract me again.”

I blow him a raspberry. “You really won’t let me distract you?”

“Nope.”

I notice the time on the alarm clock next to the bed. “But we’re going to be late for the welcome lunch.”

“I don’t give a shit. I’m not going to an event where I will most likely run into your asshole ex without knowing the full story. He already doesn’t believe we’re married.”

My brow wrinkles. “He doesn’t believe we’re married? How do you know?”

“He told me. Several times.”

Damn. If he doesn’t believe we’re married, he’ll never drop the lawsuit. My face crumples and I fight to keep the tears forming in my eyes from falling. I will not cry in front of my fake husband.

Jaxon wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me near until I drop my head on his shoulder.

“I hate when you’re hurting,” he murmurs as he combs his fingers through my hair.

My heart thuds in my chest. No one’s cared whether I’m hurting or not in a long time. I nearly forgot how it feels to be offered physical comfort. I nestle into his hold.

I know this is fake but I’m accepting the comfort anyway. No one said I wasn’t allowed to have some benefits from this arrangement.

“I hate to hurt you more, but I have to know the truth. Alan will make our lives a living hell this weekend otherwise.”

I push away to stare up at him. “Are you serious? You want to continue with this charade?” He nods. “But this isn’t what you signed up for.”

“I don’t remember adding a clause to our agreement about backing out if things got tough.”

“But…” I snap my mouth closed. Bringing up how he ran away and avoided me after our panty-melting kiss won’t help anything.

I blow out a breath and gather my courage. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything, but I’ll settle for why Alan’s suing you.”

Unfortunately, I can’t explain why Alan is suing me without explaining everything .

“My parents were awesome.” He cringes but I can’t stop to ask him why. If I stop now, I’ll never finish this story.

“Mom couldn’t have any more children after me.

So, Mom, Dad, and I were a tight-knit unit.

I was never one of those kids who was embarrassed of my parents.

Why would I be? They were awesome. Our house is where my friends congregated every day after school.

Mom always had cookies for us, and Dad would come home with pizza at least once a week. ”

“Your childhood sounds magical.”

I sigh. “It was.”

I clear my throat and force myself to continue. “I didn’t want to leave for college, but CU Boulder has an excellent chemical engineering department.”

Jaxon fiddles with the ends of my hair. “And you met Alan at CU Boulder?”

I nod. “After graduation, he got a job in Boulder and I decided to stay there with him. I should have gone back home to Denver. I never should have stayed.”

He squeezes my shoulder. “What happened?”

“My parents were coming to visit us two years ago for Christmas since Alan couldn’t get any time off for the holidays. There was a snowstorm. A driver of a semi-truck lost control and slid into their lane. They didn’t make it.”

Jaxon doesn’t hesitate. He gathers me into his arms and settles me on his lap. “Let it all out, Petal. Let it all out.”

I cling to his t-shirt as the tears I was holding back break through. Jaxon rubs his hand up and down my back and murmurs to me until I manage to get myself under control .

“I’m sorry you lost them,” he says.

“Me too,” I whisper. “But there’s more.”

“Tell me, Petal.”

“My parents left me a bit of money. When Alan found out, he contacted a contractor and had him draw up plans to expand our house. He didn’t tell me. I found out when the workers showed up to start work.”

Jaxon growls. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I asked him how we were going to pay for all the work. Our inheritance was his answer. Our inheritance. I wasn’t planning on touching the money and he had already spent it. I walked out of the house and never came back. I was done.”

“And now he’s suing you for half of the money.”

“Asshole,” I mutter.

“But why does he think he’s entitled to the money?”

“Because he’s an asshole who claims we were married when I inherited the money.”

“Wouldn’t you know if you were married?”

“Colorado is a common law state. He claims we acted as husband and wife in public and therefore we were married.”

“And so you told him you were already married,” Jaxon guesses correctly.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I never presented myself as his wife. Did I use his last name to make dinner reservations? Sure. But if I had wanted to marry him, we would have discussed marriage.”

“You owned a home together, but you didn’t want to marry him? ”

I shrug. I’m not explaining to him how I ignored all the red flags. How I was a foolish girl who wanted to be loved.

“Do you think Alan will drop the lawsuit if he thinks you’re married?”

“I’m hoping he will. I can’t stand the idea of him getting any money from my parents. How dare he demand half! He didn’t even attend their funeral because he had a ‘work project’. Work project my ass.” I snort. “Screwing your colleague isn’t a work project.”

Jaxon’s nostrils flare. “He was with his lover while you were at your parents’ funeral?”

“Yep. He denies it, but the used condoms in the waste basket proved him wrong.”

“I should have decked him.”

I blink. “What?”

“I wanted to punch him in the face but I held back. I shouldn’t have.”

“I hate to point this out because I would love to witness Alan getting married with a black eye, but violence isn’t going to help him drop the lawsuit.”

“Neither is pretending to be married,” he mutters before lifting me off his lap.

My stomach rolls. “You don’t want to pretend to be married this weekend after all?”

Sinking mermaids. Alan is never going to drop this lawsuit.

“Not what I said,” he mutters as he digs his phone out. “Go wash your face. We don’t have much time. ”

“Time for what?” I ask but he waves and walks out onto the deck without answering.

What is he doing?