Jax (Titan #9)(100)

She didn't have time for any of this!

After the last blanket was folded and everything was stacked the way it needed to be, she walked over and picked up her phone, fingers shaking, and saw the text message.



JAX: Hey. I wanted to say hi. I won't be able to talk for a few days. If you're around now, that'd be cool.



She swiped the message open as though she were going to type something, but she had no idea what as overwhelmed tears spilled.

Her dad's words about loyalty and serving too many masters circled in her head as chaos erupted like a volcano, poisoning her thoughts. All she could see was Bianca and Nolan's faces, and how she had failed them. Her crushed heart hadn't dared even ask them how scared they had been when they were taken.

There was only one thing that she could be responsible for. It wasn't herself. It was her kids. Seven threw the phone onto the couch, and her tears refused to stop until she walked away, leaving Jax's message on the couch. With her dad's voice in her head, Seven kept walking out the front door to Gennita's house to be with her kids.





CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO


A loud knock rapped on the door, and Seven knew it was Jax without looking through the peephole.

"It's been five days, princess." Bang, bang, bang.

She wouldn't be stupid enough to ask five days since what. Lenora had let Seven know five days ago that Jax had been served with divorce papers. All he had to do was sign. Same with her, though she hadn't signed, either. They sat, ready with a pen, on the counter for the right moment.

"Sidney said you weren't at work, and Gennita dished. You're home."

Seven scowled at the door. Jax was making phone calls? "Coming." She opened the door. "People are going to talk if you start making calls like that."

He brushed by her. "Let 'em talk."

"Easy for you to say. You don't live here." And he hadn't had to do decades' worth of reputation repair, thanks to dear old dad. There were still people talking about the stunt her father had pulled at the nursing home. She'd had to apologize to the staff there, and the stink about town that had started was almost more than she could handle.

Her dad was out of prison. Years early. It made her sick. At any minute, the bastard could show up and point a motor-oil-stained finger, questioning her fitness as a mother, her loyalty, her drive. She would be ready next time. Her defenses would be up. Cullen Blackburn wouldn't ruin her life again.

Except that was all she could think about.

"Seven," Jax said, standing in front of her. "I don't want a divorce. Are you listening?"

"No." She walked to the kitchen. Honesty was the best policy, at least when she had a clue what was going on in her head. Since she had come back from Colombia and crashed into her dad, it seemed as though that wasn't as often as it should be.

"What are you going to do? Move to Iowa? Get a job at the bank?" She shrugged then reached for the paperwork and pen. Now was as good of a time as any. She'd been waiting for the perfect time, but maybe it didn't exist. They could both sign her copy, and Lenora could file today and be done with it. Seven could pretend the last few weeks of her life were a dream. "The only thing I need to do is raise Nolan and Bianca so that they can have a normal life. It's the right thing to do."

His lips twisted. "The right thing?"

How could doing the right thing feel so wrong? Seven held on to the pen, paralyzed and terrified. The right decision was in front of her. There was no logical reason they should be married.

"You haven't signed? I'm surprised."

"I've been busy," she said.

"Then sign already." Tension ticked at the corners of Jax's eyes. "If that's what you want to do."

What she wanted and needed were polar opposites, and damn him, she didn't want to cry. "You don't have to be an asshole."

"I am an asshole, Seven. If there's one thing you've known about me for years, it's that I'm—" He crossed his arms and worked his jaw back and forth in silence. "What'd you call me? I'm a jerkface. Right?" He smirked. "Cute, by the way."

He wasn't an asshole or a jerkface. He was… Jax. And he was being that way to prove her point—that she knew him better than most who maybe thought that was true.

There was a right way and a wrong way, and she had spent her entire life trying to get away from the wrong way of doing things.

"Hell. Put the pen down."

"I can't." She squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the small urge to listen. Tension wrecked her. The chaos and her need to organize it were driving her to the point that simple right and wrong, black and white were an upside-down gray mess.

"Princess, give me the pen." Jax pushed away from the wall and rounded the table, dropping down so they were face-to-face.

Her right arm ached from the intense force with which she held the pen, and dropping the pen seemed wrong, but handing it to him—hell, he had to sign, anyway.

Trust Jax.

He trusted her. She jolted like a rusty robot and thrust her hand to his. He clasped both hands around hers. "Don't sign that."

"We don't even remember getting married."

"That's bullshit. Maybe a few details are fuzzy. But stop fighting it and tell me you don't remember that night."