Six Weeks, page 10
His words made her giddy.
“Hell, we can get married if we want.”
How pathetic was it that a part of her sort of wanted that?
She’d never been the type of woman who watched wedding dress shopping shows or dreamt of a perfect fairy-tale wedding. Yeah—eye roll—she was not like other women.
Her prince was an arrogant criminal lawyer who was an awful whisky snob and who put far too much emphasis on his own powers of self-control. Put that way, Austen probably deserved to be stuck with her and her many issues.
But Jaya knew what happened when you let yourself get attached. You got left. Families abandoned you. Families died. The result was still the same. You were alone. That’s why she always left first. At least that gave her a sense of control. Not Austen-level control, but a bit of it. Enough to protect herself.
Doing the abandoning was far easier than being left again. And the idea of Austen leaving her was too catastrophic to contemplate.
Jaya chose her words carefully. “I didn’t think you would ever want to get married or even engaged after Lisa.”
“Lisa!” Austen put his fingers through the hair he’d just finished combing. “Who’s talking about Lisa?”
“I am,” she said quietly.
He stalked over to a chair he kept by the wall and threw himself down into it. “Okay, so talk. What do you want to know?”
Jaya took a deep breath and let it go on a question she’d been inhaling for what felt like an eternity.
“Why did you decide not to buy the engagement ring? Was it because of me?”
His answer was simple and devastating.
“Yes.”
She leaned forward. “Because I made you miss your appointment with the jeweller?”
He shook his head. “No. I could have booked another appointment any time. It was the night I spent with you, talking and drinking too much, that showed me how it would never be with Lisa. How it would never be with any other woman.”
Jaya protested, “But—but that was years ago.”
“I wanted you years ago,” he said simply. “I told you that before.”
Putting her hand to her head, she told him, “I’m sorry. Things seem to take a long time to sink in with me.”
“Yes,” he said, his tone fervent, “they do.”
His face changed. “That’s why six weeks isn’t enough time. Today is our deadline, did you know that? Six weeks to the day. Happy anniversary, kitten.”
She didn’t know what to say. He sounded so bitter.
Austen rose to his feet as abruptly as he’d sat down. “We should go.”
* * * *
Austen’s arm was tight around her waist as they walked into the private club where the dinner was being held.
The entrance to the club was a nondescript one fronting a major downtown street, its plain façade not hinting at the old-style splendour of dark red velvet and ornate wood carving within. Not a place Jaya would have been invited to in the ordinary course of her life. The splendour she knew best was artificial, created by paint on canvas and expertly lit to give the impression of other places in other times.
This was the real thing. Wealth, often passed down for generations, grace and elegance. She was glad her dress was modest blue silk instead of black lace and simulated semi-nudity.
“Trust me, I didn’t want our last night together to be spent this way.”
He murmured the words as they steered through the other recently arrived guests, not giving her a chance to reply.
Besides, as it happened, Jaya had more urgent messages to communicate to him.
“My ex is here,” she hissed.
Austen’s face was bland. “Which one?”
“George. The city councillor.”
With a tug of her hand, she managed to indicate the direction he should turn to spot the man she was speaking about.
“Is that his wife?” Austen asked in a quiet voice.
Jaya had to admit she didn’t know.
“If it is, it gives me hope,” he said. “Perhaps a case of the Jaya virus isn’t always terminal.”
She looked at up him. “You,” she said, “are a complete idiot.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Don’t I know it,” he replied pleasantly.
Happy anniversary, indeed.
They mingled for a while, with Austen unobtrusively keeping them well away from George and his date, for which Jaya was thankful.
Whatever his private opinions, he was obviously still very protective of her.
But when it came time for them to find their assigned table, George was already seated there. His face was red and sweating, and his date was nowhere to be spotted.
Her ex spoke first, as Austen was drawing her chair out for her to sit.
“Hello, Jaya,” George spoke stiltedly. He nodded at Austen. “Is this my replacement?”
So much for being discreet about their former relationship.
“Hello, George,” she said. “This is Austen. He’s no one’s replacement. Austen is completely unique.”
“Austen?” The other man repeated the name incredulously. “You mean, your cousin Austen? The lawyer and all-round paragon?”
Jaya knew she was blushing. What must Austen think?
He was in the act of sitting down beside her, slinging a casually possessive arm around the back of her chair as he did so.
“Austen King.” He supplied his name in a cool authoritative voice that, to Jaya, made the need to confirm he was a lawyer completely redundant. “Jaya is my cousin by adoption only.”
“Yours or hers?” George asked, for no other reason Jaya could see than to be offensive.
“Both,” said Austen. “Would you like the names of the orphanages we came from, too?”
George’s brief bravado seemed to collapse on itself.
“I knew it would be him you ended up with eventually,” he said, much more quietly. “Every second sentence you spoke started with his name. At the end, I was starting to wonder when you would realise you were in love with him and not me. I guess you finally did.”
The room swayed.
This was a dream. It had to be. Or else a nightmare.
Because there was no way she could believe the reality that her ex-boyfriend had just announced to the table that she was in love with Austen—and always had been.
She couldn’t look at Austen. She couldn’t.
His arm had tightened around her shoulders. “Let’s dance,” he suggested.
“There’s no music.”
The soundtrack to her everlasting humiliation was silence.
“Then let’s take a walk around the room,” Austen persisted.
Somehow he managed to gently propel her to her feet and force her to match her strides to his.
“Are we running a race?” Jaya finally protested.
They were out in the main entrance hall. Austen pulled her into an alcove where he grabbed her by the arms, his fingers biting into her skin.
“Is your stupid ex right, Jaya? Do you love me?”
She was confused. What did he want her to say? He’d already made it clear that today was their last day together.
“Yes. No.” She shook her head. “Like you said, he’s stupid. No one should listen to him.”
Excepting, of course, the citizens of the city ward he represented. But Austen failed to point that out.
He leaned down to peer intently into her face. “Yes or no? Which one is it?”
He might have been questioning an unwilling witness yet some gleam she saw in the blue depths of his eyes gave her courage.
“Yes, okay? Yes!” She gulped. “I’m in love with you.”
Almost immediately, she found herself crushed against his powerful chest.
“You call me an idiot,” he murmured into her hair. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Or did you only just come to that conclusion?”
“No.” This time she was sure of the answer. “I guess I knew a long time ago. I-I couldn’t admit it to myself.”
His expression was tender as he lifted his head to stare down at her. “I understand,” he told her. “I went through the same struggle a long time ago.”
Jaya raised both eyebrows. “Oh yes? I must have forgotten exactly when you told me you loved me.”
“I told you already,” he reminded her.
“That was a game.”
“Not for me,” he said. He cupped her cheek with a hand that shook ever so slightly. “I love you. Madly. Deeply. Forever.”
Jaya smiled up at him. “Then, my darling, why don’t we put the past to bed?”
* * * *
On the way back to his place, Austen drove so fast Jaya was forced to hang onto her door handle.
“I take back what I said about you not breaking the law,” she told him, her eyes briefly squeezing shut as he manoeuvred by a car trying to turn left by the expedient method of making up his own lane.
Austen was completely in control of the vehicle but, goodness, she’d never seen the familiar landmarks of the city pass by at quite that speed.
He had to be going at least twice the limit.
Austen glanced over at her, saw her wide eyes and applied the brake, bringing the car down to a more moderate pace.
“Disobeying the speed limit is not exactly an indictable offence,” he pointed out.
“What about giving me a heart attack?” Jaya asked.
Leaning over, he kissed her quickly on the mouth.
“Austen!”
Turning his attention back to the road, he said, “I love how you say my name.”
“Even when it’s in mortal fear?”
He chuckled. “This car has autonomous braking.” His voice deepened to smooth black velvet. “I would never risk your safety, kitten.”
Jaya shivered a little, though the interior of the car was perfectly temperature controlled. It would take some time for her to get used to his protectiveness, even if it were wrapped up in that lovely compelling voice. Six weeks wasn’t a lot of time to do that, but of course now they had all the time in the world.
That was something else she would have to get accustomed to.
“We should tell your parents about us.”
He shot her a curious glance. “Are you sure? I recall you were appalled at that idea a few hours ago.”
Jaya reached out to take his hand. “That’s before I knew it was this. Before I knew you loved me.”
“Wilful blindness,” Austen murmured. “Worst case I ever saw.”
When she tried to snatch her hand back, he tightened his grasp and lifted her struggling fingers to his mouth. She ceased resisting when she felt the press of his warm lips.
“Idiot,” she said.
He let go of her hand to make a left turn.
“I suspect my mother already knows how I feel about you.”
“What?” Jaya was startled. “How?”
His mouth twisted ruefully. “Because she’s my mother. Mothers have a sixth sense about their children.”
Jaya blinked hard. Hearing him talk about his adoptive mother reminded her painfully of hers.
“I’m sorry.” His hand was back on hers.
She smiled at his husky, worried tone. “It’s okay. I wonder if my mom would have approved. She never said it, but I know she wanted me to be in a stable relationship. S-she never got to see that happen.”
Austen was quiet for a moment.
Finally, he said, “Our mothers were twins. They always agreed on the big stuff. I’m certain they would have agreed on this. On us.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Jaya snuggled down into the soft leather seat. His swift assurance satisfied her. He’d always possessed that power to encourage and reassure her.
They arrived at his condo, and Austen abandoned his car to the concierge.
Jaya had to stifle a giggle at the sight of the elderly man’s face. “That’s getting to be a habit,” she said as they stepped into the elevator. “I wonder what Gregory thinks the reason is we race home every night.”
Home. Why had she started to think of Austen’s condo as that?
Because, a voice inside her answered, it was where Austen was. And anywhere Austen was, was her home.
“Gregory has seen you and he’s seen how I look at you,” Austen said. “He knows why we’re racing home.”
Jaya stepped away from the side of the elevator and into his arms. His kiss was restless, seeking…she did not know what.
They had both made the important admissions. Of need. Of lust. Of love. What more was left? The promise of forever? Hadn’t they both agreed that that was a fiction?
Then she remembered what Austen had said.
“I love you. Madly. Deeply. Forever.”
As they walked arm in arm down the hallway to his condo, Jaya’s lips started to tremble. Panic rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. She couldn’t promise forever. In the past, every time she had started thinking about a relationship as a long-term endeavour, she knew it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. But she couldn’t avoid Austen. He was family—and they both lived in Dodge.
Austen pulled away to let her proceed him inside. A frown marred his handsome face as he glanced down at her.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She clung to his arm. “I love you.”
Those three short words were like a magic spell. Immediately, his expression softened. “I love you, kitten. More than I could ever tell you.”
Ever. There was that implication of an eternity again.
Jaya forced a laugh. “Coming from a lawyer, that’s saying a lot.”
He joined in the laughter, apparently not noticing the strained quality of hers. “Are you always going to throw that back at me? That I talked you into this relationship?”
Always. This relationship. The alarming words kept piling up in her head.
Jaya walked past him and into the living room, not looking back to see if he followed. She knew he would.
But he didn’t join her on the couch right away. Instead, he stood by the sleek sideboard and busied himself with drinks. He brought them over and handed her one.
Jaya sipped the amber liquid. Scotch and very little soda. The contents of Austen’s tumbler appeared even darker. Straight scotch, she suspected.
He leaned against the sideboard and regarded her over the rim of his glass.
“Are you angry that I convinced you to date me?”
Jaya put down her drink. “Is that what you call this? Dating?”
“I’ve tried to make it as normal as possible,” he said quietly.
A part of her knew that that was what he was doing with the law firm events and the trip to Stratford. Even the idea of going to Niagara Falls for their first date. He’d tried to make this new stage in their relationship normal, even romantic.
“You blackmailed me,” she said, giving voice to a grievance she’d harboured for the last six weeks. “You threatened to avoid me for the rest of our lives if I didn’t ‘date’ you.”
He stared at her pensively. “Would it have been such a great loss?”
The question was a blow to all those years of cousinhood and camaraderie.
“Austen,” she choked out, “you’re my best friend.”
“And you’re mine,” he said. “I hope you will always be, whether we’re dating or married and raising a family together.”
Marriage. A family?
Families leave, she repeated to herself. Families decide you’re too much work and put you up for adoption. Families die.
But not Austen. What did Katie say? “He always did like you best.”
Oh, and I like him, too. Somehow, that was more devastating than her love for him.
Abruptly, she rose to her feet. “I don’t know anything about children and my family chose to give me up when I was a baby. That’s not the kind of legacy anyone would want to pass on to another generation.”
“Your family were Jeff and Nicole Buchanan,” he told her, his voice getting louder with every name. “Your family are Brian and Victoria King. Your family is me!”
He shouted the last sentence, after which they stared at each other for a shocked moment.
Jaya had never heard adult Austen shout about anything. Ever.
“Your family,” he went on in a more normal tone, “aren’t those people who donated a few cells twenty-nine years ago. They’re the people who loved you and raised you for twenty-eight years.”
Jaya sat down again and bowed her head. “You’re right. I-I guess I’ve never thought about it like that.”
The tautness of his features made it clear he was still angry. He was intimidating, with the muscles around his mouth bunched up. Yet he’d never before looked quite so hard and handsome.
“Austen.” She made her eyes plead with him. “Can’t we just take it as it comes and not think about the future?”
“For how long?” he threw back at her. “I know what I want. How long is it going to take you to figure out what you want?”
He was right. It was unfair to ask him to wait, particularly when she wasn’t certain she would ever be able to give him the promise he seemed to want.
Only a few weeks ago, she’d been anticipating a proposal with excitement and only a little trepidation. What had changed?
She loved him. That was what had changed. Now, she was no longer playing for table stakes. She would be staking her heart.
And what would happen once his obsession was finally fed? He would move on to someone else. Someone elegant and beautiful like Lisa. Someone who fit him far better than she did.
Austen wanted her to make ridiculous promises of forever but all she would be doing was buying time. The cost of doing that was higher than she could afford.
Reaching out, Jaya picked up her glass and knocked back its contents in one burning gulp. She welcomed the fire. It hurt far less than the ache in her chest.
He bent his head, pressing the fingers of one hand to either side of his nose. It was an action she recognised as a mixture of weariness and frustration.
Finally, he lifted his head. “I can wait,” he said. “The six-week deadline I had looming over my head almost drove me off the edge. Take all the time you need, Jaya. I love you. I only want to be with you.”
