Burn for You

His answering shriek in the affirmative was almost deafening. All three of us laughed.

“Okay, then. I’ll see you later, sir. Bianca.” Charlie nodded at Bianca then turned around and went back around the corner toward the nursery, Cody chattering away on her hip.

“You’re very good with him,” said Bianca quietly once they were gone.

I looked at her sharply. Why did she seem so disturbed? “He won’t be a bother to you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Charlie keeps him busy, and he’ll start preschool next year—”

“Jackson! That’s not what I was thinking at all!” Bianca looked appalled. “I just meant that you’re very . . . good with him. A natural. You seem like you were born to be a father.”

That floored me.

I loved Cody with all my heart, like he was my own flesh and blood, but I was always convinced I was doing something wrong or could be doing things better. I’d gone to boarding school as a kid, and when I was home my father was always working, so I didn’t have much in the way of day-to-day role modeling from a father figure. I was basically just winging it with Cody, praying my best was good enough for him.

So for Bianca to tell me I was a natural at fatherhood made me feel fifty feet tall.

“Thank you,” I said gruffly. Then I noticed that her nostrils were flaring and her face was red, and I went from flattered to confused. “Are you angry?”

She said stiffly, “I’m not the kind of woman who’s bothered by children.”

My confusion was growing like a tumor in my stomach. “Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did,” she cut in, eyes glittering, “or you wouldn’t have said it.”

I was beginning to get the sense I’d done something extremely stupid and should proceed with utmost caution, assuming live munitions were buried every few feet under the floor. I said slowly, “Whatever I’ve said to offend you, I’m sorry.”

She stared at me with those glittering eyes for a while. Then she turned away stiffly and shook her head. “Forget it. Let’s just get on with this.”

Her bitter tone wasn’t easing my mind. In fact, it was driving me crazy. Before she could take two steps away, I curled my hand around her arm and gently turned her back to me. She refused to look at me, so I put my hand under her chin and tilted her head up.

“What is it?” I said softly.

For a moment her expression seemed to convey her answer would be two stiff fingers poked into my eyes. But then her look softened, and she sighed.

“Ignore me. I’m premenstrual.”

She tried to pull away, which I was having none of. “Bianca,” I said, pulling her closer. “What. Is it?”

When she looked into my eyes, everything else disappeared.

She said, “I’m not the girl you need to think the worst of, Jax. I’m not the girl whose motives you need to suspect. You said you wouldn’t lie to me, and I believed you, so I’ll extend you the same courtesy.” She inhaled, her lower lip trembling. “When you say something thoughtless, my feelings are going to get hurt. That child is the sweetest little boy I’ve ever met. He won’t be a bother. He won’t be a burden. I don’t know how much interaction you’d like me to have with him, but I would very much like to become his friend, and for you to insinuate that I’m that heartless that I’d be put out by living in the same house as him, well . . .” She sniffled and looked away. Her voice got high. “That really makes me want to smack you again.”

With my slow exhalation, my final, futile shreds of resistance slipped away. My lips said, “I’m an idiot. Please forgive me.”

But my heart said, I’m yours.

TWENTY-FOUR

BIANCA

I chose a corner bedroom that had windows on two walls and a built-in bookcase on a third that reached all the way to the vaulted ceiling. The room was about the same size as my entire house.

“If you need to change the temperature, close the drapes, or turn the lights on and off, everything is operated from this screen.” Jackson made spokesmodel hands at a square touch screen on the wall by the door. “And if you’re not near the door, you can just speak your command aloud and Alexa will execute it.”

“Who’s Alexa?” I asked, worried someone was about to burst out from under the bed.

He pointed to a small black cylinder lurking on the bedside table. “It’s a voice assistant. It can also read your audiobooks, check the weather, and let you buy things online just by using your voice. The whole house is wired.”

Rayford wasn’t kidding about Jackson’s technology obsession. I looked at the black cylinder with trepidation. “Will it watch me sleep?”

Jackson chuckled. “No. But there is a video option on the touch pad so you can FaceTime with anyone in any room in the house.”

When I looked alarmed, he chuckled again. “You have to accept the incoming call before the video feed activates. No spying.”

I smiled and said, “Of course not,” but the first thing I was going to do was tack up a piece of black cloth over that contraption. And Alexa was getting unplugged.

Jackson looked around the room. It was large and beautifully furnished, done in shades of cream and celadon with an elaborate four-poster bed that would have looked at home in Buckingham Palace. He frowned at the bed.

“We can change out any of this stuff you don’t like,” he began, but stopped when I laughed.

“What?”

“Everything’s perfect,” I said. “This makes the bedroom at my house look like a homeless shelter. I love it.”

I’d never spent time or money decorating my house because I had so little of either. I was always working, at Mama’s, or asleep. In comparison, this was the Taj Mahal.

Maybe living here for a few years wasn’t going to be all bad.

“Good,” said Jackson, obviously pleased but acting businesslike and nonchalant. I tried not to notice how adorable that was.

“I do have a lot of books, though,” I warned, looking pointedly at the bookshelves, which were only half-full.

“Bring them. I want you to be comfortable here. Bring anything that makes you feel at home.”

He smiled at me. A flutter started deep in my stomach. I looked away. “So. What’s next?”

He moved across the room, headed for the soaring windows, his hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. Gazing out into the bright morning sky, he said, “Packing. Moving in. Kentucky.” He turned his head and looked at me, his face now serious. “We fly out tomorrow.”

The flutter in my stomach turned into a sick feeling, like I was being marched to the gallows. “Oh. But I don’t have a ticket yet—”

“My father’s sending his private jet.”

His private jet. Of course. I blew out a nervous little breath, trying to quell the hysterical laugh lurking behind my teeth. “I see. What time are we leaving?”

“Five o’clock.”

Exactly when I would normally be getting ready for the first guests to arrive at the restaurant. My heart did a dying-fish flop under my sternum. “When will we get back?”

“Sunday night.”

“Okay,” I squeaked, praying to God that Eeny and Pepper could manage for three days without me.

Jackson said, “I’ve hired a home health-care firm for your mother. They’re going to send someone to her house tomorrow to help out while you’re gone for the weekend. If you like the girl, you can keep her on indefinitely, but you can also interview other candidates next week . . .”