Page 69 of Jackson

“No, I don’t.”

I reached up again toward his face, desperate to wipe his tears away like he had mine. He tangled our hands together instead, twining our fingers in a tight hold that he pressed against his chest.

“I will nevereverhate you, Ayen.”

“Why?”

How could he not?

I could’ve cost him everything. Maybe that was why he was sitting here with me in the hospital—he had no job to go back to.

His mouth opened to answer me, but was soon cut off by the door to my room sliding open. Lifting my head up slightly, I was surprised to see a tall woman walking in with a cardboard tray with two coffees in her hand.

She stopped short at seeing us, her eyes bouncing between me and Jackson before she slowly lifted a brow. She was striking to look at, her features reminding me of those high-end fashion models that would be plastered all over NYC billboards promoting some kind of luxury perfume.

“Am I... interrupting something?”

Jackson sighed, letting go of my hand and devastating me even more when he slid off the bed to walk over toward her. “No.”

She offered him one of the cups and then worked her own out of the holder that she then tossed into the small trashcan by the door. My gaze was glued to Jackson as he popped the small lipof the cup up and took a generous swig of it, clearly needing the caffeine.

He needed to go home. Now that he knew I was fine and wasn’t going to die and cause him a mound of paperwork, there was no more obligation to stick around.

“Ayen, it’s nice to meet you,” the woman said. “I’m Nina. I’m going to be handling your case.”

Oh, his lawyer friend.

In response to that, I forced myself to sit up.

“Shit—” Jackson darted back over to my side of the bed. “Ayen.”

His arm quickly hooked around my midsection, holding me up when I began to sag forward. Clearly, my body was still exhausted with what it had gone through during the fire, enough that I was barely able to sit up on my own. Or maybe that was from whatever drugs they’d been giving me to keep me sedated while I recovered.

Either way, it fucking sucked.

Jackson leaned away briefly to set his coffee down on the little lip of the monitor next to me, and then wrapped both of his arms around me and very carefully readjusted me back against the mattress once more.

Nina appeared at my other side, her perfectly manicured hand reaching over to press on a button on the side of my bed that slowly raised it up into a soft incline, allowing me to sit up and still lean back into it.

“There we go,” she said, before stepping back.

Jackson sighed, running a hand through my hair in an absentminded way to brush back the pieces that fell across my forehead, sending a shock of pleasure racing up my spine. Him being bold like this in front of his friend was thrilling as well as a little scary. If she reported us to the Warden, we were done for.

Surprisingly, though, she didn’t seem at all fazed by it and simply walked across the room to retrieve something out of her bag that was sitting in one of the reclining chairs. A file that was probably two to three inches thick was carefully held in her hand with the pages bending from how heavy it was.

She held it up toward me. “I went through all of your documents with a few colleagues of mine. They all agree that you got pretty shafted.”

My cheeks suddenly felt hot. Honestly, I never thought I’d hear a lawyer say it so bluntly. Sure, I knew it just from being in this predicament and while at the time, my court appointed lawyer had been sympathetic to a point, to hear that said from someone else other than Jackson felt... well, validating.

Of course, Jackson’s opinion was important to me, but sleeping with someone tended to muddle up the brain from thinking clearly.

“Nina’s planning on meeting with Judge Callahan to discuss what can be done.” Jackson squeezed my hand gently. “You could have a real shot in getting out of this.”

Behind him, Nina nodded. “This will all be pro bono, of course, so don’t worry about any of that. But going through your case file, there’s some solid evidence that your defense attorney purposefully withheld that could’ve swung the jury in a different direction, as well as the prosecution trying to bury witnesstestimony in order to win their case. That’s enough to get a judge’s eyes on it, at least.”

This was all beginning to sound too surreal to hear.

Sure, I’d imagined this exact scenario plenty of times late at night in my cell when I let those dark thoughts get the better of me, but my fantasy rapidly turning reality was seeming to be too good to be true.

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