Ruby
We were back at the condo later that night, both of us hanging out in the living room, when a very big question hit me. I asked Jett in a flat tone, “What happens when you fall in love? I don’t think any woman is going to want her man living with another woman, even if it isn’t a sexual relationship and I’m just an employee.”
I stopped downloading free books to the e-reader Jett had gotten me, and looked at him sitting in a recliner across the room.
If Jett suddenly fell in love, what would happen to me?
Since he’d asked me to marry him, I assumed he didn’t have somebody waiting for him in Seattle, but I’d discovered that assumptions weren’t always correct.
My stomach knotted at the idea of Jett being involved with a woman, and I wasn’t quite sure why. It wasn’t my fear of being alone again because I’d already been there. I was thinking the tightness in my belly had more to do with the fact that I was attracted to Jett.
Being drawn to Jett wasn’t comfortable for me, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from staring at his gorgeous body and his handsome face. For some unknown reason, I just wanted to be closer to him. Something pulled me toward him even when I should really be pushing him away.
He shrugged. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Why in the world not?”
“No woman is going to want me,” he said matter-of-factly. “And honestly, I have no desire to date anyway.”
I looked at him, confused. “Why?”
He was quiet for a moment before he said, “I was engaged once. It didn’t end well.”
Riveted, I watched his eyes grow dark as he added, “We came pretty damn close to getting married. Fortunately, we put off setting a definite date.”
“What happened?”
“My accident happened. Marcus headed a team of guys who formed a private rescue organization. We went in when the government wouldn’t and rescued victims who were kidnapped and imprisoned in foreign countries. Usually political prisoners. We’d been together for years, saved a lot of lives. But our helicopter crashed in the Middle East. A couple of us were pretty badly wounded. It’s been a few years, and I’m still not fully recovered.”
“So you broke it off because of your accident?” Why would he do that when he must have needed support?
“She broke it off. I didn’t get the best of medical care because we weren’t close to a large city right after the accident. By the time I got back to the States, they weren’t sure they could save my leg, and I looked like hell. I still am, and always will be badly scarred. Lisette hated the way I looked, and she didn’t want me with a bum leg that would keep me from doing a lot of things, especially dancing or any other social activity that required some kind of grace.”
“She dumped you because you couldn’t dance?” I asked incredulously.
“I’m pretty sure she didn’t want a guy who was going to be scarred for the rest of his life, either.”
“Oh, my God, are you kidding me?” My shocked question rang out louder than it should have, but I was pretty damn dumbfounded.
“You wanted honesty, Ruby. I’m spilling my guts here,” he informed me drily.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine any woman in her right mind dumping you for such a superficial reason.” Honestly, I was angry. Jett had been saving others when he’d been hurt. “What kind of bitch does something like that?”
His eyes lightened with humor, but he didn’t speak. He shut down the laptop he was holding, and set it aside.
Finally, he said, “I guess the kind of woman I was going to marry would do something like that.”
I put my e-reader on the side table as I asked, “Do you still love her?”
Please say no!
Jett didn’t deserve to be pining over a woman who definitely hadn’t loved him.
“I don’t,” he answered gruffly. “Hell, I don’t even like her anymore. Haven’t seen her since she walked out of my hospital room after reminding me what a mess I was. But that experience pretty much told me that very few women were ever going to be able to overlook the fact that I have…limitations. And some pretty ugly scars.”
He thought he wasn’t attractive anymore? Surely Jett didn’t think that no other woman would want him just because he’d been dissed by a grade-A bitch. “That’s not true,” I said emphatically. “You’re still very attractive.”
“You haven’t seen me naked,” he rumbled.
It wasn’t the first time he’d said that in some kind of joking form, but I wished he’d quit reminding me that I really would like to see his ripped body completely in the raw.
I wanted to tell him that I’d love to see him nude, but I wasn’t brave enough to admit that I couldn’t find a single fault in him. His scars were just a part of him, proof that he was willing to do anything—even risk his own life—to save someone else. If that wasn’t a turn-on for some women, it was their loss.
I thought about what he had told me, and all I did was get more and more pissed off. “She’s not the only type of woman out there, Jett. In fact, I’d say she was an exception.”
“Not in my world,” he snapped.
“Then maybe you need to find a new world,” I suggested.
“I don’t feel like looking for somebody else, Ruby,” he replied. “I’d rather put my effort into my company, and making a full recovery. My knee will never be quite right, but I’m hoping it will get better than what it is now. The surgeries are over, I hope. I had my last one on my knee a few months ago. So it’s all about working on getting it stronger.”
I hadn’t known Jett when his accident happened, but I wanted to be around for him now. Some woman had done a number on him, and he needed to stop looking at the world around him through a cynical pair of glasses. “I’ll help you as much as I can,” I vowed. “And it sounds like losing your fiancée was actually a gift. Maybe it doesn’t feel that way right now, but someday it will.”
“Maybe I was a little clueless back then, but I knew I’d made a lucky escape the minute she walked out the door,” he said hoarsely.
“But she hurt you,” I argued.
“Maybe. But it would have hurt more if I’d married her.”
It was entirely possible that Jett was over his ex, but I was fairly certain that he’d never gotten over the rejection itself if he thought there weren’t a million women out there who would snap him up immediately if they had the chance. Dancing skill or not.
Jett was special.
But he didn’t seem to recognize that he was a whole lot more than just a few scars.
“I think you’re gorgeous,” I blurted out before I could stop the words from flying out of my mouth.
I didn’t retract my statement. Scars included, Jett was one of the hottest guys I’d ever met. He was completely ripped, and I knew he’d been using the gym in the condo to keep up his exercise routine. I hadn’t liked that at first, but he’d explained that he could lift weights without stressing his knee. And he’d start back again with his regular routine to strengthen his leg once he was sure the meniscus had healed.
He crossed his arms in front of him, his biceps flexing as he asked, “What in the hell is attractive about me now?”
I considered his skeptical expression and the way he had one of his brows raised in question.
I melted as I realized he really didn’t see a single good thing about himself anymore.
“I love your eyes,” I said honestly, not exactly wanting to tell him that I lusted after his body. “Did you know they change when you’re happy and when you’re angry? But every shade is beautiful. Your eyes are truly green and not hazel. Did you know that’s the rarest eye color? Only two percent of people in the world have green eyes.”
He was trying to resist the urge to smile, but he didn’t completely accomplish it. “More reading at the library?” he asked with a smirk.
I shrugged. “I told you that strange facts or quotes I’ve read come out of my mouth at the weirdest of times. But what I say is factual. And yeah, it’s information I picked up in the library.”
“What else do you find attractive about me?” he asked hesitantly.
Okay. I was done holding back because I could see he wasn’t quite believing what I said. “You’re completely ripped, and every time I see your ass in a pair of jeans, I want to take a bite out of it.”
“I’m scarred, woman. Are you fucking blind? You saw a small preview the night I got you out of the club.”
I crossed my arms stubbornly. “When I admire your tight butt, I’m not exactly thinking about your scars.”
“You’re a virgin. What do you know about nice asses?”
“Maybe I haven’t touched, but I can sure as hell look.”
A bark of laughter escaped him before he answered, “I give up. You have no idea how unattractive a messed-up body looks naked. Do you always look for something good in everybody?”
“That’s not hard to do with a guy like you,” I said in a breathless voice. “Other than your scars and your bossiness, you’re pretty much perfect. I think your ex was crazy to give you up.”
“But you didn’t want to marry me,” he countered.
“I wanted to say yes,” I confessed. “But you don’t deserve to be stuck with a woman like me. I’ve been homeless all my adult life, Jett. I have no job skills, and I didn’t have any kind of future. You’ve already put out more money to save me than I’m worth. Way more. And it wouldn’t have been a marriage that was happening for the right reasons.”
Jett would have done it because he wanted to rescue me, and even though I liked him, my primary reason for marriage would have been to have a roof over my head and some kind of stability.
“Nothing that happened to you was your fault, Ruby,” Jett growled.
“My uncle didn’t want me to leave. I left of my own free will,” I said nervously.
Jett stood and walked slowly over to the couch to sit next to me. “Tell me what happened, Ruby. Just throw it out there. I’m not going to judge. If he was abusive, you had to leave.”
“I didn’t have to, but once the rest of my family was gone, I had no reason to take his abuse anymore. He was an alcoholic for as long as I can remember, and whenever he drank, he got violent. I-I couldn’t take it anymore,” I stammered.
“Son of a bitch!” Jett said harshly. “What happened after the accident? I’m sure your parents protected you from him before it happened.”
“I lived with him for almost a year, just long enough to make sure I could leave without him finding me until after I’d turned eighteen. His violent temper escalated into insanity. I had to leave with almost nothing to my name. Their part of the business would end up being his, and I couldn’t stay there.”
Jett pulled my trembling body against his, and I let his strong body support mine as I leaned into him. I mumbled against his shoulder, “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to graduate from high school, but there were times I didn’t think I’d live that long. I had to go.”
Jett stroked his hand down my back in a comforting way that made me feel safe as he replied, “You shouldn’t have ever been abused in the first place.”
He sounded disgusted. Not that I blamed him. Abuse was not only painful, but it was humiliating, too. And I’d felt every moment of my shame. I still did.
I continued so I could get everything out without crying. “Looking back now, I know I should have gone to somebody at school or something after my parents died. But I was scared, and I didn’t know what would happen to me. I just wanted to be old enough to get out.”
His arm tightened around my waist as he answered gutturally, “I’ll protect you, Ruby. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
I melted into him. Usually, I didn’t like anybody touching me, but with Jett, for some reason, I felt…safe.