Page 110 of Timeless

“Jax…”

“You were always strong, brave, and so fucking perfect and now…” His eyes were covered in pain.

“You can stop, Jax. I don’t need to hear what you think of me now.” I crossed my arms. “Um do you still want to meet Jack or not?” I couldn’t handle seeing the pain in his eyes. I just got straight to the point. I didn’t need him to list all the reasons he thought I was a fuck up.

“You have an eating disorder, depression, and you think it’s okay for men to cheat on you and you think it’s okay for me sleep with club women. You know what I think is worst out of all that?”

“I’m the mother to your son and you can’t change it?”

“You don’t even acknowledge there is a problem! To any of it!”

Really, he thought that? That I didn’t acknowledge I had problems!

“I can’t do this right now. Do you want to meet Jack or not? Make your mind up, Jax.”

He was silent. So, I looked up. His eyes were locked on me.

“Jax, stop it. I’m not this way because of you. Okay? Sure, maybe the easy way to handle my problems is to blame you. But it’s not your fault.” As much as I didn’t want to do this. I found myself opening up to him. I couldn’t have him standing there blaming himself. “I stopped eating because we didn’t have money. You got that right.” I didn’t want to recall those memories but here I was. “I got really thin and I liked it. So, I’ve stayed that way since. So, yes. I rarely eat. You are right again. I do have an eating disorder.”

This was so fucking hard. Standing in front of the one person I had always felt safe with, and telling him all my faults in detail. I swallowed sharply. “As for the depression, that’s on me. I don’t handle it well. It’s not you. As for letting Will do what he did, I guess I never really loved him, so I didn’t care. Being with him was easy. So, I just was with him.” I shrugged.

“As for me letting you sleep with other women. I’m just trying to put your needs above mine. That’s it.” I pinched my eyes shut for a second. This was saying more about my character as I went on. “I don’t expect you to stop living the way you are used to. I also never expected you to put me first, I guess.” Yeah, that hit the nail on the head. “So, there. Now you know. And you don’t have to feel guilty. The blame is on me.”

My train wreck of a life. I thought I had left my train wreck of a life behind me the day I left him in prison. But all I did was start a new train wreck. Just under a different name.

He took a step into me. His hands cupped my face and brought my eyes to his.

“I want you to give me a real shot, Amber. That involves your heart.” He looked suddenly nervous. “I don’t want a relationship that is all sex. I want what we had but better. I want to be your husband and not one who lives at the club fucking other women.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “I want to be by your side, raising our son. But if that is going to happen, I need you to really give me a shot. One where you value yourself in the relationship.”

I told him I loved him. I told him I always loved him. But he was asking me to fall back in love with him. He was asking me to put my heart on the line. To really risk it.

I kept staring into his eyes. So dark and captivating. They always drew me in. His eyes could sum him up. He was dark. He was dangerous. But if you stared long enough, you could see the cracks of light.

I exhaled slowly. “Well, I guess in that case, I’m going to have to take up target practice again.”

By his expression, he didn’t understand.

My hands went over his. “If I’m going to be serious about killing any woman who touches you, I need to work on my aim.”

His face lit up, like I had just made all his dreams come true and all I was doing was falling in love with the man who always had the power to kill me.

I bit my bottom lip. “Jax, please, don’t hurt me again.” I didn’t hide the pleading in my voice.

“Does that go both ways?”

I stopped biting my lip. He didn’t want me to hurt him. He was looking like I was clenching his heart in my hand and had the power to squeeze it to death. I nodded. “Both ways.”

He gently kissed my lips. “We can do this, right?”

“I don’t know. We’ve failed a few times.” My eyes were locked on his.

“I wasn’t talking about that. I know our relationship isn’t going to fail this time. I was more talking about being parents.” He looked nervous. “I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“He is your son. Just go with your gut, okay?” I kissed his lips softly. “Now I really need to face my day.”

“It’s going to be painful not to touch you.” He slowly took his hand off my face. “But I can do it.” He was saying that more to himself than me.

I smiled. “If it is any comfort, you might get that good night sleep tonight.”

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