Ruby
A few weeks later, I did regret the fact that I hadn’t become Jett Lawson’s wife.
Well…for me anyway.
For Jett…it had been the right call.
I’d learned a few things about Jett Lawson over the past few weeks:
Number one, he was stubborn and he definitely liked to get his own way, but not in a selfish kind of manner. He was usually looking out for somebody else when he got bossy. Lately, that somebody had been me.
Number two, he worked a lot. When we were at Marcus’s condo, Jett was almost always deep into his computer work with a laser focus that I wished I had.
Number three, I’d hurt him when I’d refused his marriage proposal. As hard as it was for me to accept, his offer had been sincere, and ever since I’d refused him, he’d been reserved and distant.
I knew I had done the right thing when I’d given him my no answer at the hospital.
For me, the marriage would have been the one lucky thing that had happened in my otherwise nightmarish life.
For Jett, making me his wife would be an act of kindness.
So while I regretted the fact that I wasn’t going to be married to the man who had been so good to me since the day we met. I knew he didn’t deserve a homeless woman with no decent future in sight.
Unfortunately for me, I still had a childhood fairy tale in my head that said that a couple should be in love when they get married. And although I’d gladly take a marriage of convenience and friendship opposed to the miserable life I had now, Jett should be looking for a whole lot more.
He’d felt sorry for me.
And pity was no basis for marriage.
Jett had gotten me through giving my statements to the police and the FBI interviews that followed by claiming me as his girlfriend, and giving me his home address and information. So even though we weren’t married, I was under his protection when it came to my fears of being ignored or disregarded.
The kingpin of the human trafficking organization had been taken down by Jett’s sister, Dani, so all that was left for us to do was to testify against our kidnappers and we were currently waiting to find out more about when that would happen and how everything was going to work out for indictments.
“Are you okay?” Jett asked gruffly from across the small table of the restaurant he’d chosen for dinner.
I realized I’d been staring at the wall, lost in my own thoughts as I answered, “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Is this about the stuff I picked up for you? Because if it is, we can exchange anything you don’t like.”
Oh yeah, there was a number four. Jett Lawson seemed to think it was his duty to get me everything I didn’t have.
I knew from our conversations that Jett had a good job, but I had no idea how much he made as a tech guy who owned his own business.
Obviously, he’d had enough money or credit to pay over a hundred grand to buy my freedom. But by freeing me, Jett could have completely cleaned out his savings and credit lines. And I worried about that since I didn’t have a job or a place to live, so I couldn’t get that money back to him anytime soon.
“Every single thing you got was top of the line. How could I not like that stuff? But I don’t like the fact that you’re spending money on me.”
Jett had gone way overboard on buying me what he considered necessities.
Once he’d found out what size I wore when we’d made a stop to buy me jeans and shirts, he’d ended producing a whole wardrobe for me a few days later.
New things came every single day to Marcus’s condo, and my guilt was pretty much choking me. Jett and I were using Marcus’s place until we were done with all of the FBI questioning and interviews, so at least he wasn’t paying for our stay. But what he saved wasn’t nearly the same amount as the items he was buying.
We’d had several discussions about his over-the-top tendencies when it came to getting things he thought I needed. But I usually felt like I was talking to a brick wall.
Today, I’d gotten the latest and greatest cell phone on the market, and a laptop. I’d cringed at the amount of money it had costed him.
He shrugged as he set his menu aside. “The stuff didn’t exactly break me.”
Relieved, I smiled back at him. “I really would have been okay with just a few pair of jeans. I didn’t need anything else.”
Just having an extra set or two of clothes was a big deal for me. I’d end up back on the streets once Jett left, a place where anything except food and clothing just weren’t all that important.
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have been good with that,” he said.
As usual, his comment was vague, with no explanation as to why he felt he needed to give me things that I’d never be able to carry with me once I was homeless again.
In between buying me things he thought I needed, Jett had managed to track down the two women who had been held captive with me at the club, and he’d learned that they had both escaped and were safely back in their home countries.
Finding the other women who had been victims of the sex trafficking enterprise had been only one of the many things I’d seen him do that told me he was a decent guy.
Okay, maybe more than just decent. To me, Jett was extraordinary, no matter how much he grumbled.
The waiter arrived to take our order. After he retreated, I asked Jett, “How old are you?”
Okay. Yeah. It was weird that I didn’t even know the basics about the guy I’d been staying with for weeks, but I wanted to know more. I just wasn’t feeling his willingness to be open with me, so maybe I was going to have to be the one who pushed.
“I just turned thirty-one last month,” he answered.
“Is Dani older or younger?”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “She’s the baby of the family. There’s five of us. Harper, my other sister, is between me and Dani. And I have two older brothers.”
I took a cautious sip of the glass of wine the waiter had just delivered before I replied, “I wish I had siblings.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So I take it you don’t?”
I knew Jett would like to know more about why I was on the streets, but he hadn’t asked me anything personal until now.
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t have anyone.”
His face turned grim, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but he seemed to shake it off and reached for his drink.
“I’d like the chance to thank your sister for what she did,” I said softly. “We barely knew each other, yet she was willing to send you to help me when she was rushing into her own bad situation.”
Jett had mentioned some of Dani’s history, and what she’d been doing in Florida. I’d been pretty surprised when I’d discover that she was trying to take down a millionaire who was completely corrupt and the ringleader of not only the sex trafficking operation, but a lot of other despicable crimes.
He shrugged. “I guess you have to know Dani. She’s always had a big heart.”
“And your other sister?”
“She’s the same way,” he admitted.
“And your parents?” I asked, feeling like I was tugging information from him, little by little.
He shook his head, his expression grim. “They were both killed in a car accident. But they were both incredible.”
So are you.
Jett Lawson obviously had the same qualities when it came to helping other people as his sisters did, even though he tried to blow it off as nothing.
Since I hated the sudden sadness I saw in his extraordinary eyes, I changed the subject. “So will you be going back to Seattle soon?”
I started to fumble with my linen napkin, waiting uneasily to get his answer.
“Pretty soon,” he said noncommittally. “When I do, you’re coming with me.”
My heart tripped at the thought of staying with Jett, but I knew I couldn’t hang out as a guest of his forever. He’d already done way too much for me. “For how long?”
“Do we really need to set a time limit on friendship?” he asked.
Were Jett and I really friends? Mostly, he’d pretty much been stuck with me because he was too nice to dump me back on the streets.
I shook my head slowly. “No. Friendship shouldn’t have a time limit. But I’m…scared.”
“Of me?” he asked, glancing up to look at me as he waited for an answer with a disappointed expression.
“No,” I said immediately. “I’m not afraid of you. But I’m terrified that I’ll get too used to being with you, too used to sleeping in a real bed, and much too used to not being alone.”
Becoming accustomed to something that was going to eventually end was never a good idea.
“You’re never going to be alone again, and you need to get that into your head right now,” Jett rumbled. “Do you honestly think I’m ever going to put you out on the streets? It’s not going to happen, Ruby. I don’t care if it takes years for you to get into a position to be on your own. Until that happens, you stay with me, or you let me get you a place here in Florida and pay your bills until you can make it on your own. Those are your choices.”
I balked at his bossiness, but I shoved my indignation away as quickly as it appeared. Really, I wanted some kind of normal life so badly I could almost taste it. I longed for a stability I’d never experienced. Someday, I wanted to repay Jett for every cent he’d spent on me. It might take decades to return the money he’d spent to get me off the auction block and to somewhere safe, but I would pay him back.
The FBI had told Jett that he might be able to recover some or all of his money, but it could take years, and there was no guarantee he’d ever see a penny of the funds he paid out. Everything would depend on where the finances of the ringleader ended up after the investigation was over.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I told him, “You’ve already done way too much for somebody you don’t even know. I already owe you so much.”
“You don’t owe me a damn thing,” Jett said in a low, growly tone.
I stared at him, astonished that he’d even say something like that. “You and I both know that isn’t true.”
“You really want to repay me?” he said in a demanding voice.
“You know I do.”
“Then come to Seattle with me. Stay with me and be my assistant. I’ve had to do the majority of my work at my home office because of my accident, and I could use some help. I’m backed up on a lot of things, and having somebody around to help me out would be more than enough payback for me. I’ll give you a salary, plus bonuses.”
I frowned. “I don’t really have any skills.”
“Can you use a computer?” he asked.
“Yes. I used them in libraries, and I got some skills in high school.”
“Can you run errands?”
“Of course.” My foot was pretty much healed, but Jett still needed to continue to baby his knee until his meniscus was completely healed. “My driver’s license is expired, but I can renew it if I’m in one place for a while.”
“You have no job experience?” he questioned, sounding more curious than worried that I’d never worked a real job.
I took a deep breath. It was time for me to share a little bit about my past with him. “My mom was a pastry chef. She and my grandmother had a catering company. I didn’t really pull a paycheck, but Mom gave me some money for every event I helped out with. Gran always handled the food because she was an amazing chef, and Mom handled all the desserts. My dad ran the business part of things, so it was mainly a family business. I helped my mother with events from the time I was in grade school until I left Ohio at the age of seventeen.”
“You’ve been on the streets since you were seventeen?” he asked with a frown.
I nodded, hoping he wouldn’t ask me about anything else.
“Then you worked,” Jett concluded. “Obviously you were a good assistant or your mom and dad wouldn’t have kept taking you to the events.”
I smiled. “I loved it. Eventually, I helped Mom do her baking, and I learned to do decent pastries myself. The only thing I’d ever wanted to do was keep on working in the catering business with my family.”
Jett was silent for a moment before he asked in a husky voice, “What happened, Ruby? You were out on the streets when you should have been getting ready for high school graduation.”
Since I didn’t cry, I refused to acknowledge the tears that were welling in my eyes. I blinked them back before I answered. “We were on our way to a big event when I was sixteen. The roads were icy, and my dad lost control of the van. My father, my mother, and my gran died instantly. I only suffered some cuts, bruises, and a concussion. I don’t remember most of the crash or what happened right after.”
My one and only visit to the hospital had been the worst day of my entire life.
“Jesus, Ruby,” Jett rasped. “I’m so fucking sorry. No wonder you’re so damn afraid of hospitals.”
I tried to swallow the enormous lump in my throat.
I’m not going to cry. Not in the middle of a nice restaurant. And not anywhere else, either.
“You didn’t have any other family to go to?”
I stared at my half-filled wine glass, unable to look at Jett as I told him, “Only…my uncle.”
“You have an uncle, and you’re on the streets?”
Yeah, it was going to be hard to answer Jett’s question, but I needed to be as honest with him as possible. He was trying to help me, so I owed him that.
“He was…abusive.” I looked up at Jett, my eyes pleading with him not to ask me anything else.
He nodded sharply, like he understood that I didn’t want to talk about my uncle. “What happened to your inheritance? There must have been money coming from the business, and I’m sure your parents had some funds.”
I shook my head. “My uncle was a silent controlling partner. He’d given my dad the funds for startup, so he took over half ownership. He sold it. And since he was my only relative, he was also my guardian once my parents and grandma were gone.”
“A house? Life insurance? Savings?” he asked.
“We rented our home, and we didn’t have a lot of money,” I told him. “We were one of those families who just got by.”
“So you didn’t really ever have a chance to work because you left home while you were a minor,” he observed.
“Not much else except the catering business,” I confessed. “I picked berries where I could for money while I was on the road. I did just about any unskilled labor I could to survive.”
“Why South Florida if you were a Midwestern girl?”
“When you’re homeless, it’s better to be someplace warm. I can cool down during the day in the library, but it’s hard to survive frigid temperatures.”
“What about shelters?”
“I used them sometimes, but there was usually somebody who needed it more than me. Mothers with kids, someone elderly who couldn’t survive the elements. There just isn’t enough space for every homeless person.”
“Come with me to Seattle, Ruby. Trust me just enough to know I’m never going to send you out on the streets again,” Jett commanded in a guttural tone.
I knew he could never understand that I really trusted no one. Being alone and homeless, I couldn’t. I’d already made a huge mistake by trusting the wrong people, and I’d had a smaller lesson that I’d learned on my own during my adult life on the road.
But Dani had stuck her neck out and helped me, even when she really had no idea whether or not I was worth saving. And then Jett had done the impossible and gotten me out of a bad situation at considerable risk to himself. He’d even been injured trying to save my ass.
We locked eyes, and I asked, “Is that really what you want?”
He nodded. “Maybe I need you as much as you need me.”
I highly doubted that Jett Lawson really needed anyone. He appeared to be pretty self-contained. But if I could help him, and keep myself off the streets, I was willing to try to be useful to him.
“Then, yes. I’ll go. But I’d really like to find a job as soon as possible.” I had to take a huge leap of faith because there was no other option if I ever wanted my life back.
He actually looked relieved when I’d given him the answer he appeared to want.