Jasmine
Joshua’s hand fell away from my body and he let out a gasp. I frowned, rolling onto my back. “What is it?” I asked in the dimly lit air. “What’s wrong?”
When I looked into Joshua’s face, I saw a mask of shock and horror. His features were twisted and his eyes were still black. But instead of being darkened with lust and passion, I saw they were angry. He glared at me before getting out of bed and pulling his pants on.
“What the fuck is that?” Joshua snarled as he pointed to my shoulder. “Who the fuck are you?”
"I'm Jasmine," I said in a shaky voice. "What the fuck is going on, Joshua? Why are you freaking out like this?" Panic and anxiety were running through my body, like electric wires crackling and snapping. I pulled the sheet over myself to cover my nakedness, but it didn't make me feel any less exposed than I had a few seconds ago. As Joshua paced around the room, I watched him crack his knuckles before balling his hands into fists and shoving them in his pockets. I know it sounds stupid, but part of me hadn't even thought that I'd be discovered. Part of me had stupidly thought that Joshua would go on thinking Leslie was dead and gone and that Jasmine, while she reminded him of his lost girlfriend, was only a facsimile at best.
Joshua stepped closer and stared into my eyes. I shivered. Every time he’d looked at me, I’d imagined this moment happening. Despite my mistrust of him and his MC, we’d always had some kind of intimacy between us whenever we stared at each other. But before I’d felt safe and protected because even if he had a weird feeling about me, he knew me only as Jasmine.
That safety was completely gone. Now, I felt naked and exposed under Joshua’s gaze. I felt like he could read my mind, I felt like he could see all of my secrets.
“Why did you lie?” Joshua hissed. Anger was plain on his face and veins were popping out of his forehead, making him look crazed. “Why did you fucking lie to me, Jasmine?” He put his face in his hands and moaned. “I knew there was something about you,” he said in a low, muffled voice. “I just knew there was something about you that reminded me of, well, you,” he added, looking at me with a mix of panic and sorrow on his face. “Why the fuck did you have to do that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and steady even though I was shaking. I didn’t want to talk about this, not now. I didn’t want to go into the past, didn’t want to reveal why I’d disappeared. This was the absolute worst possible time for Joshua to have discovered my identity.
I wasn’t really sure why I was so cocky. I should never have come here, I lamented silently as I stared at the ceiling and tried to take deep breaths. I should have stayed and let one of the other girls do it. A pang of jealousy flared through me when I realized that if another one of the girls had come, they would likely be in bed with Joshua. I didn’t want to think about that either!
Making a fist, I slammed it down onto the bed. Joshua turned to me with a weird expression on his face. He was biting his lip and as he reached up to wipe at his eyes, I realized that he’d been crying.
“Jasmine,” Joshua said in a low voice. “Why? Why did you do this to me? How?” His voice broke and began to quiver and all of the pain, all of the guilt from years ago came rushing back tenfold.
I wanted to bury my head in the sand and forget all about Joshua McQuillen. I should have gone far away from here, I thought grimly. I should have left LA and planned to never return.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t lie to you.”
“Yes, you did!” Joshua shot back. Anger blazed in his eyes and all the traces of sadness disappeared. “You fucking disappeared, and then you lied! For all of this time! How long have you been back?”
I met his eyes, but somehow, I couldn’t make myself answer.
“Answer me,” Joshua demanded. His voice was harsh, like a growl. A ripple of adrenaline went through my body. “Tell me why,” he growled again. “Tell me why you did this!”
“I didn’t do anything!” I protested. “I…” I was going to lie again, but then I looked in Joshua’s eyes and for the first time saw the depth of pain there. I realized just how badly I’d hurt him. Suddenly, I knew I couldn’t lie any longer. “I had to,” I said softly. “I had to lie.” Tears filled my eyes and I turned my face towards the ceiling, willing them to disappear. “I had to lie, Joshua. Something…” My voice cracked and broke. “Something horrible happened, and I had to get away from you. I had to get away from everything, I had to change.”
Joshua dropped to his knees and grabbed one of my hands, pressing it against his chest. My body was so filled with powerful emotion that I thought I’d break as he squeezed my fingers with his own. Closing my eyes, I tried to pull my hand free but Joshua held me firm.
“You need to tell me exactly what happened,” Joshua said in a low voice. He squeezed my fingers again, and I felt my body begin to shake. I could feel Joshua’s heart thudding through his chest and the sensation was strangely more intimate than anything we’d shared together: the sex, the handholding, everything.
I stared straight at him, finally managing to yank my hand back and rest it in my lap with my other hand. “I don’t have to tell you anything,” I said softly. “I really don’t, and you know that.”
Joshua shook his head sadly. "I know," he said in a forlorn voice. "But you made me hurt for so long." He screwed up his eyes. For a moment, I thought he was going to say my old name, the name he'd known me as before. But instead, he let out a long sigh. "Go," he said suddenly. "If you're not going to tell me why you left, just go. I never want to see you again," he added. "So don't fucking come around here no more."
I stood up and walked over to the other side of the room where my clothes lay in a discarded heap. Joshua stared straight ahead, not even noticing when I bent over and reached down to pick up my shirt. My heart was clanging like an alarm bell as I dressed slowly and carefully. Joshua was silent, not even the sound of hard breathing came from him.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” I said finally as I stood in the doorway. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Joshua looked at me. His face was a mask of pain, his features distorted. “You did,” he said in a low voice. “You hurt me more than I ever could have imagined.”
Another tear came to my eye and I reached up to wipe it away. “Joshua,” I said softly. I stepped forward and something inside of me twisted and broke. You can’t lie anymore, I told myself grimly. You have to tell him the truth. Even if that means causing him more pain. You have to tell him.
“What?” Joshua was staring at me, his eyes dull. “What the fuck do you want? You’re leaving, right? So, you don’t get to ask questions,” he added in a nasty voice. “You don’t get to talk to me like that anymore.”
I shook my head and walked forward. My legs felt like lead, but somehow I got all the way to the bed and sat down gingerly on the end. “No,” I said softly. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
Joshua looked at me. His face didn't change, but after a moment, he gave a brief nod. "I'm waiting," he growled. "...I've been waiting for years.”
“I know,” I said heavily. “And I’m sorry.” Joshua glared at me. “I never wanted to hurt you, Joshua,” I said, feeling weak. “I’m so sorry this had to happen.”
“Unless you can do better than that, you need to go,” he said gruffly. “I don’t have the fucking time to sit around and listen to your empty apologies, Leslie.”
The name stung like a brand. I winced, looking down at my feet. They were nervously tapping on the floor, a frantic rhythm that matched the rapid beating of my heart. “I had to get away from you because someone killed my parents,” I said finally. It was the first time I’d ever spoken the words out loud and one of the most painful sentences that I’d ever managed to say. “Someone killed them, Joshua.” I swallowed hard, the pain from years ago coming back to me like a knife twisting in my gut. “He faked it, the man who did it, and he made it look like a car crash. I had to identify their bodies,” I added, my voice breaking. “It was right around my nineteenth birthday, when we got engaged.”
Joshua nodded. “I remember all too well when it happened,” he said in a cruel, cold voice. “Keep going.”
I swallowed hard and shifted my weight on the soft mattress. "Well, the person who killed my family got in touch with me," I said. "That night, after you'd fallen asleep. I got up and went downstairs to get a drink of water and the phone rang." My voice quivered and shook. "It was a man, saying that if I didn't do exactly as he said, he'd come and murder everyone I cared about, making it look like an accident."
Joshua’s face twisted into a scowl. “And you expect me to believe that?” He laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I swallowed hard. “It’s the truth!” I protested hotly. “He had a list of names, Joshua. Full names, like last names, too. Yours was on there! So were my other family members, my cousins, my aunts. Everyone I loved,” I said softly. “Everyone that I cared for. He said he’d kill them all.”
Joshua blinked. “Why?” he asked. His voice was softer than it had been before, but his face was still contorted with grief and loss. It was like talking to a man who had just lost the love of his life.
Deep down, I felt my panic and anxiety begin to go into overdrive. If Joshua couldn’t forgive me for this, if we couldn’t work together…everything will be lost. Everything will be lost and gone forever and you’ll have failed.
“He had a vendetta against our family,” I said softly. “Joshua, please believe me!”
Joshua stared at me, expressionless. “And then what?”
“I couldn’t leave,” I confessed. “But I was afraid that he’d find me if I didn’t find him first.” I swallowed hard. This was my least favorite part of the story, the part that I really didn’t want to mention to Joshua. “So I had to change my name and everything else about me.” I grabbed a hank of my hair and showed it to Joshua. “I had to dye my hair, obviously. And I had to completely disappear from everything that I’d been involved in.”
Joshua’s green eyes glowed dully with pain. “And you’re telling me that you knew someone wanted to hurt me, and you didn’t warn me?”
Desperation twisted inside of me sharply. “Because I was afraid that I’d lead him right to you,” I said, my voice rising to a high, anxious pitch. “I was afraid that he’d follow me and kill you as soon as I’d gone! Joshua, I was so fucking scared! I did it to protect you,” I said softly. “Don’t you understand that?”
Joshua’s jaw twitched. “I don’t see it that way,” he said shortly. There was a long pause. “And then what happened?”
I swallowed hard. “Well, I formed my group,” I said softly. “That’s where the Wild Witches came from. I formed an MC to get a strong group of women around me, and take revenge against the asshole who killed my parents.”
“Did you kill him?”
I nodded. “I did. I got to him before he could hurt anyone else.”
Joshua’s eyes flashed pain and anger and I wondered why, until he said, “And you couldn’t have come back for me? After you killed him, you couldn’t have reached out and contacted me? Jesus fucking Christ, I thought you were dead!”
My heart sank. This wasn’t going the way I’d wanted it to go. Not at all.