Chapter Twenty-Three
Jade: Want to come over for dinner?
Jade sent the text to Hunter as she was walking through the grocery store buying ingredients for the night’s meal.
Hunter: What’s on the menu?
Jade: Chicken parmesan, garlic bread, and lots of dessert. ;)
Hunter: Can we eat dessert first? :D
Her pulse spiked as she imagined exactly what type of dessert he would be eating.
Needless to say, her evenings with him over the past few weeks had been far from boring.
Jade: Always. I’ll have it warmed up by the time you get here.
Hunter: Don’t you dare. The warming up is my job.
Even with innocuous texts, the man had a knack for conveying all of his dirtiest thoughts.
Hunter: might have to work a little late tonight. Coming back from Ridgefield. okay if I’m there by 8?
Jade: No problem. See you then. :)
For some reason, she hadn’t been able to stop baking since she and Hunter had started…he was calling it dating.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but she always had the urge to whip something up. It wasn’t that she missed being a baker—hell, no. She just felt like she was in such a good place that she could finally revisit that part of her life. Enjoy baking again, instead of grumbling about it because it was her job.
Now, she could have fun with it.
Hence the strawberry shortcake Rice Krispy treats and s’mores cookies sitting on her kitchen counter.
Total food-gasm.
Hunter was going to flip.
Two hours later, she was showered, her hair was curled, her makeup applied, her house picked up, and her dress painted on. There wasn’t actually much point in getting dressed at all because he was going to rip everything off her later, anyway. But she had been dying to wear her new skintight red dress for him. It was very Jayne Mansfield. She figured the little Donna Reed apron she had on over it was also a nice touch, one he would appreciate.
Definitely going to flip.
She was tossing the ingredients for the sauce into a pan when the doorbell rang. The time on her clock told her it was too early for him to be there. Maybe he’d left work sooner than expected. She double-checked her lipstick in the hall mirror, took a deep breath, and opened the door wearing her most seductive smile—
That immediately vanished.
Oh God, please let me be dreaming.
Her devil of a stepbrother darkened her front porch, a sneer on his face as his gaze raked over her. “My, my, Jade,” he said in a singsong voice. “You’ve certainly filled out over the years. I must say I didn’t expect this kind of reception, but I’ll take it. Good thing we’re not actually related, huh?”
He’d been there two seconds and already she wanted to vomit.
Feeling much too exposed, she crossed her arms over her chest. Lane was not supposed to be the first one to see her in this dress. Or ever see her in it, for that matter. His slimy perusal somehow made the garment feel tainted.
“What the hell are you doing here, Lane?” she snapped.
He smirked, spreading his arms out. “What? I can’t visit my only sister at her new home?”
“Stepsister,” she curtly corrected. “And no, you can’t. I didn’t invite you, you’re not welcome, and I have company coming over.”
His eyes traveled over her once again, pausing on her chest. “I’m sure you do. Didn’t take long for you to saddle yourself with some small-town loser. Desperate much?”
She dug her fingernails into her arms in an effort to keep from screaming bloody murder at him. “Leave. I want you off my property right now.”
“I’ll leave after we’ve talked,” he said firmly, and attempted to push his way inside her house.
She pushed him back forcefully. “No, Lane. I told you to go away.” She started to shut the door in his face.
His foot stopped it.
Before she could throw all her weight against the door and break every bone in his foot, he shoved it open and pushed past her. He was nowhere near as muscular as Hunter, but the guy wasn’t scrawny, either. Plus, his height gave him a slight advantage over her.
“It won’t take long,” he said once he was inside her living room. “It’s not as if I enjoy being in this shithole of a town.”
“We have nothing to discuss. How many times do I have to tell you?” She pointed to the door. “Get. Out.”
He planted his feet stubbornly, his face darkening with anger. “I’m not leaving until you listen to what I have to say.”
She grunted in frustration and slammed the door shut. Standing on the other side of the room, she wondered how quickly he would go down if she hit him over the head with a table lamp.
“Fine,” she gritted out. “Speak. And make it quick. Then I never want to see you again.”
He straightened his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets, looking as confident and arrogant as ever. “You haven’t yet signed the paperwork on your trust that would give you access to the remaining funds. Correct?”
Here we go. It was like a broken record. Money, money, money.
She narrowed her eyes. “You know I haven’t. It’s the reason you two have continued harassing me.”
His jaw tightened, making her smirk. Lane had always been the type who could dish it out but couldn’t take it. Hunter would have eaten him alive.
“I’ve come to negotiate the terms of the trust with you.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “Nothing to negotiate. It’s my name on that trust. Not yours.”
“It could be.”
She stared at him blankly. “Excuse me?”
“You have the power to sign the trust over to Mother,” he said, pacing the floor. “If you do that, give us total control over the payout, then we’ll write you a check for your share, and you never have to see either of us again.”
She almost choked. “My share?”
He turned his glare back on her. “If you don’t, we’ll never leave you alone. And you know us, Jade. We can make your life a living hell. Signing it over to us is the easy way out, believe me.”
She could not believe the nerve of this asshole. “What the hell makes you think I would ever do that?”
“Because you hate us just as much as we hate you,” he answered, a curl in his upper lip. “It would be more than enough to sustain your”—he glanced around her living room in disgust—“lifestyle down here. This way, everyone has money and we don’t have to see each other again. It’s a win-win.”
He was certifiably insane.
“Except for me,” she pointed out. “Because you’d be stealing half of my father’s money.”
He took a quick step toward her, forcing her backward. His face filled with rage. “That should have been our money, anyway!” he shouted. “My mother was married to that bastard. He left her nothing but a pile of junk! At least half of that money is rightfully ours!”
Ours, not hers.
He really needed to get off mommy’s tit.
Smug satisfaction made her smile. “I see what’s going on here,” she said. “Mommy blew through the money her daddy left her. Plus the money your daddy left her. So now she wants the money my daddy left me. Classy, yet somehow not surprising.”
She saw the moment something flickered in his eyes that made him change tactics.
“You’ve wanted to get rid of us since the day your father died.”
Actually, it was the moment she’d met them.
“If you do this,” he said, “we’ll be out of your hair for the rest of your life. Isn’t that what you want? To live down here in your new house, with your new store and your new man, without us interfering?” His expression turned threatening. “Because I can promise you, there will be no peace in your new life if you don’t agree to this. It’s an easy call.”
Never having to see or speak to Lane and Cassandra again sounded like a real blessing. But that wasn’t the point. Her father had left that trust for her. It was his hard-earned money that he had built up from the age of seventeen. He’d created an empire from nothing. The last thing she wanted was for two selfish, spoiled assholes to get their greedy hands on it.
It wouldn’t be right, and she knew it wasn’t what her father would have wanted.
His memory deserved to be honored.
Not squandered.
She glared at Lane. Would she break her hand if she punched him? Because with the amount of fury coursing through her, she was ready to go Mike Tyson all over his ass.
“You know what?” She stuck her face right in his. “Bring it on, fucker.”
He tried to hide his shock, but she detected a slight widening of his eyes and it spurred her on.
“I dare you to do your worst,” she continued, moving back from him again. “Because, quite frankly, I don’t give a damn. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve got all the power here, and you can’t touch me. So why don’t you run on back up to mommy and sit around on your spray-tanned ass and mooch off her marriages.”
Suck on that, dickweed.
He lunged at her. She gave a startled gasp as he grabbed hold of her arm in a surprisingly tight grip.
“I’ve about lost my patience, you little whore,” he snarled. “I’m to the point where I’m not asking nicely anymore. Let me tell you this in a way you’ll understand.” He got right up in her personal space, his eyes full of menace. “Get your fucking ass up to Connecticut, sign over that trust to my mother, or so help me God, I’m going to make you wish you’d never met me.”
Too late for that.
She had never seen him so pissed before. She was ashamed to admit a spike of fear shot through her at his threatening stance. But she shoved it aside and let her anger take over.
By driving her knee up and connecting with his crotch.
He doubled over and let out a howl of pain.
She leaned over him. “Don’t you ever lay your hands on me again. And I wouldn’t advise coming back here. Because if my small-town loser boyfriend heard you speak to me like that, trust me, you’d get much worse than a swift kick to the nuts.”
It was the first time she’d called Hunter her boyfriend. And surprisingly, she hadn’t spiraled into a panic attack after she’d said it. Well, not over that, anyway.
Her stepbrother slowly, carefully, rose to his feet and inched toward the door. “This. Isn’t. Over,” he gritted out.
“Yes. It is,” she replied, smiling in gratification.
He stumbled to his car without another word.
As she stood in the doorway, watching him peel out, she heard footsteps approach.
“Hey,” Ivy said. “Everything okay? I heard shouting.”
Jade managed to nod her head. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Who was that?” Ivy asked, nodding toward the vanishing car.
“My evil stepbrother.”
Her friend’s brow hiked. “And I’m guessing his visit wasn’t the pleasant sort?”
The question didn’t need to be answered.
There were so many thoughts ricocheting around in Jade’s head, her brain felt like it was going haywire. Her emotions were all over the place. She needed Hunter. Now. But he wasn’t supposed to get home for another hour.
His spare key.
She knew where it was, and she could go wait for him until he got home.
She just needed to be away from her own house and the stench of her stepbrother’s memory.
She grabbed her purse, locked her front door, and rushed down the walkway to her car. “I’ll be back later, okay?”
Ivy followed her. “Jade, wait! Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to talk?”
“Everything’s fine. We’ll talk later. I promise.”
Without looking back, she got into her car and sped off toward Hunter’s place.
Surprisingly, she started to feel…damn amazing.
The scene at her house marked the first time in…ever…that she’d actually stood up to her stepfamily and told them where they could shove it. She felt changed. Like a new, stronger person, who could do anything she wanted. Be anything she wanted.
Have anyone she wanted.
And suddenly, everything became clear.
She had been holding part of herself back from Hunter. Convinced that if she were to give him all of herself, her heart would somehow, at some point, be smashed into a million pieces. But now she realized she no longer wanted to hold back her emotions. Keeping herself closed off wasn’t fair to Hunter—or to her—and she wanted to give their relationship a fighting chance.
They liked each other—really liked each other—and they wanted to be together. At the end of the day, that was all that mattered.
She wanted Hunter to be hers. All hers.
And now, she was ready for him to know it.