Page 79 of Deserving Maisy
“Owl! Get out! Run!”
Shoot, maybe mentioning Owl’s name hadn’t been the right thing to do. Maisy did her best to wiggle an arm free, and once she succeeded, she wrapped her hand around Jack’s nape. “He’s safe. He and Lara are good. She’s pregnant. You’re going to be an uncle.”
Her words had Jack going still.
“And Henley and Reese are too. You’re going to be an uncle three times over. Well, four if you include Jasna in there. Oh, and Cora and Pipe are on the short list for a foster kid. Things are good around here, Jack. Promise. You’re home safe, those men can’t touch you anymore.”
“Stellina,” Jack whispered. He hadn’t opened his eyes yet.
“That’s right. It’s me. I’m here.”
“I’m going to go,” Owl whispered.
Maisy nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t take her attention away from the man in her arms. Her only goal was to settle him down. To soothe him. She distantly heard the bedroom door click closed but immediately dismissed it.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said quietly.
Maisy blinked in surprise. She had no idea what he was apologizing for. “It’s okay,” she told him.
Then his eyes opened, and she was startled to see them so clear. So focused.
“Jack?” she questioned, stiffening. It was one thing toclimb into his bed when he was having a nightmare and had no idea what was happening; it was another when he was lucid. Especially considering how things had been between them.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“Um…okay?” It came out more as a question than a statement.
“I’ve been a dick. You didn’t deserve that.”
Maisy was afraid to get her hopes up. He was usually kind of out of it after a nightmare. It was likely he wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning.
“Actually, I deserve anything you want to dish out,” she said a little sadly.
Jack’s arms tightened around her. “Can we talk about it?”
Maisy knew exactly what “it” was. And no, she definitely didn’t want to talk about it. “Now?”
“I’m awake, you’re awake, and the last thing I want to do is think about what I was just dreaming about…so yeah, now.”
Sighing, Maisy closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about how horrible she’d been. How she’d lied to him time and time again. She was right where she’d wanted to be for the last week or so. She’d craved this, him. And now that she was in his arms, in his bed, she didn’t want to do or say anything that might rip that away from her again.
“Please?”
That did it. The last thing she wanted was to make this man beg her for anything. Especially with his abhorrence for the act. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Anything you’ll tell me. Obviously, I know that your brother had me kidnapped so I could marry you and startthe clock ticking on your inheritance. Was everything you told me about our relationship his idea?”
Maisy nodded against him. She’d opened her eyes and was staring at his chest. “I went to Jason and told him it wasn’t going to work. That you’d have questions about why you had no belongings at the house, what you did for a living, things like that. He told me what to say. And when I still expressed doubts about his plan…well, he made it clear I didn’t have a choice.”
Jack’s arms tightened around her for a moment before he relaxed again. “I couldn’t understand why the hell I’d up and leave and go to Spokane. It made no sense to me. Even if we weren’t getting along, that didn’t feel like something I’d do.”
She couldn’t help it, she snorted against him. “Kind of like now. You hate me, and yet you won’t let me stay anywhere else.”
Jack rolled then, forcing Maisy onto her back. She stared up at him with wary eyes.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, the sarcasm easy to hear in her tone. “I lied to you over and over, pretended to be your wife, tricked you into marrying me, all because I was scared of what my brother would say or do if I defied him. I should’ve told you the truth. Gone to the police.Something.”
