Chapter Thirty-One

As Jewell walked blindly along the sidewalk, tears streamed down her face. McKenzie had apologized profusely for not telling her sooner, and then apologized again for telling her now. She’d told her that maybe it was just better not to know the truth at all. She’d told her that it didn’t matter.

But it did matter.

It mattered very much.

It was about her brother — her brother and Blake. Now she knew why he’d waited three months to come back to her. He’d been planning on getting her one way or the other and he wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted. It had never been about love. It had always been about possession. And Blake possessed whatever in the hell he wanted to — by any means necessary, fair or unfair.

Blake hadn’t told her he’d adopted Justin, hadn’t told her even after he’d come back for her that he was only a few signatures away from taking all of her rights away. He was deceitful, conniving, and the biggest asshole she’d ever known.

Was it all for sex? Did he really want to possess her so badly that he was willing to take away the only thing that mattered to her in order to keep her? Didn’t he know that all he had to do was offer her his love instead and she would have stayed willingly?

Because Blake was now Justin’s adoptive father, he was the one with all the power. She had none. Even though the boy was her brother, even though she loved him more than any other person on this earth, she had no rights to him.

Was Blake really such a stupid man? Did he think he would get what he wanted in this underhanded way? Or was it just a sickness of his? She’d been broken the first time he’d found her, and she was even more broken now. That must be his fetish — broken women. It all made sense now, everything he’d done from the beginning. How could she have been foolish enough to fall in love with such a horrible human being?

Had Blake ever told her anything that was true? Right now, she doubted it. She just didn’t know anything anymore — except that she was lost, and she felt more alone than ever.

She was going to lose her brother, and it appeared as if she were losing Blake too. Except that he’d obviously never been hers, so how could she lose what she’d never had? But she’d been his from almost the first day.

Despair flowed through her, and as she made her way back to the place she now shared with Blake and Justin, she had no idea what she was going to do.

She’d been fighting for so long, but in the end, she had nothing to show for that fight. She had to go. She just didn’t know where.

When she arrived at Blake’s house — she no longer felt that it was hers — she opened the door and looked inside. None of this was hers. She hadn’t picked the place, hadn’t bought the furniture, hadn’t made it a home. No, she was nothing more than a guest here.

When Blake came around the corner, he had a smile on his face, but it quickly vanished when he saw her expression. Jewell had decided to push back against her heartache and face him. There really was no point in dragging this out, in prolonging her agony. Neither one of them needed an emotional meltdown.

“I was worried when I came home and you weren’t here,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and bent down to kiss her lips.

When she didn’t respond, he drew back, worry etched on his brow. He was a fantastic actor, she thought to herself.

She hadn’t rehearsed what she was going to say, so when the words came out, she was as surprised as he was. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice was flat, distant, but she watched his eyes.

And in that moment, she knew their marriage was over, because he understood immediately what she was talking about. Had she believed the pain couldn’t get worse? Big mistake. But she refused to make a scene. The two of them had no reason to discuss this at all.

It was over.

Her brother belonged with him — legally. Though she knew that no one would love Justin more than she could, that didn’t matter. She’d fought and fought the courts. They didn’t care. Blake was the one with the money, and therefore the power, and he could provide a better life for Justin than she could. It was very black and white, wasn’t it?

She needed to escape before she fell apart.

“Jewell, we need to talk. Let’s go into the living room and I’ll explain,” Blake said, reaching for her. But he could see that she couldn’t tolerate his touch right now.

At least he was giving her enough respect to allow her to back away.

“There’s nothing to say, Blake. You knew the only thing I cared about in this world was getting my brother, so you swooped in and stole him from me — you did what you have done your entire life, took something that doesn’t belong to you in order to win some game only you knew you were playing. But just because you might be able to give him a more financially stable life than I can doesn’t make you a better parent. And it definitely doesn’t make you a better person.” She almost choked on those last words, and she had to stop.

“What you said isn’t true, Jewell. Justin loves you so much. You are his world, his everything. I know that now. I know how much he needs you …” He broke off when she held up her hand.

She couldn’t hear this, couldn’t take his lies.

If he’d really felt this way, he never would have stolen her brother out from under her, never would have deceived her like this, never would have gone behind her back.

“It’s over, Blake. You won my brother, but you don’t get to win me.”

Jewell turned and walked back out of the house. Nothing in it was hers — nothing. She didn’t know what she was going to tell Justin, didn’t know how to explain any of this to him, but right now she wasn’t capable of telling him anything without falling apart.

Her world had once again flipped upside down.