Page 5 of Traitorous Lies
Jax honestly wasn't sure.
Everything about Monique was so transparent. Her appreciation as her gaze roamed his body, her nervous hesitations, her determination to set aside whatever made her anxious and come with him. Following so trustingly that he knew he was going to feel a whole lot of guilt about using her, even if he had no intention of hurting her.
“Champagne?” he asked when they reached the bar.
“Umm …”
There was clear hesitation in Monique’s voice, and her gaze darted around, surveying the room, although what she was searching for he had no idea. According to his intel, she hadn't come with anyone—neither family nor a date—so she wasn't looking for anyone in particular.
“You don’t drink, princess? It’s fine if you don’t, we can grabsomething else,” he told her. He wouldn't be drinking, he needed a clear head and was pretty sure there would be no need to get Monique drunk to get her talking, not that he would have taken that route anyway. This wasn't about taking advantage of an innocent woman, it was merely about doing an unpleasant but necessary task to clear his dad and stepmom’s names and get the targets off his family’s back.
“Actually, I don’t very often, and never when I'm at one of these,” Monique replied.
Anger unfurled inside him at the possibility that something bad had happened to this woman that made her feel like she had to be constantly on her guard. “Someone hurt you, princess?” he growled.
Those gray eyes of hers widened until they were almost impossibly big. “What? No! Course not. I'm okay, no one hurt me,” she soothed, and the fingers of the hand he still held tightened. “I just get sick of stuffy, boring, rich guys wanting to drone on and on forever about how rich they are, and all the things they want to do with their money. How they think they’re better than everyone else because they have money, and how I'd be so lucky to be with them because they have money. Yuck.” Monique made a disgusted face, her body shuddering, but then she whipped up her eyes to meet his.
“What?”
“Sorry,” she squeaked.
“For …?” Whatever she wanted to apologize for, he wasn't following. This woman wasn't anything like he’d expected her to be. He’d thought the Kerr princess was going to be this spoiled, bratty woman who looked down on everyone, but in reality, she was the opposite.
“You'reone of those guys, right? I mean, you're here.” She winced and shot him an apologetic smile, attempting to tug her hand free from his.
Maintaining his hold on her hand was easy enough, and Jax enjoyed the feel of it nestled in his palm. It was so much smaller than his own, her fingers dainty and delicate, her nails polished in a perfect French manicure. Stupid as it was, he wanted to maintain this tenuous connection to her.
There would be no maintaining of a connection.
This was about getting answers.
As soon as he found out where her coward of a father was hiding, he’d be out of her life quicker than she could blink, leaving behind nothing but another type of guy for her to dread running into at these events.
“You'rehere,” he countered, not wanting to blow his cover but also not wanting her to lump him in with the rest of the men she clearly disliked.
Monique sighed. “I know. I'd much rather be at home, curled up in front of a fire, reading a book and eating chocolate. Introverts like me don’t usually love big gatherings like this. Too noisy, too busy, too many people, too much forced conversation, and too much peopling,” she added with an exaggerated shudder and a twinkle in her eyes.
“Then why come?” This woman was like a puzzle wrapped up in silky satin and soft gauze.
“Because I never miss an opportunity to fundraise for my animal rescue.”
What caught him by surprise wasn't learning that Monique ran a rescue, he’d already known that, it was the passion in her voice when she said it. He’d assumed that running a rescue really meant she lent her name to the charity so she had an answer when someone asked her what she did and what causes she believed in, not that she actually cared about it. Which, if her tone was anything to go by, she absolutely did.
“A rescue?”
“Yeah, we take any animal, doesn’t matter the species, the age, how it came to be in our care,” she explained, practically vibrating with enthusiasm. “We once had a tiger. Like an actual tiger. I have no idea how it was even snuck into the country, but the owner quickly realized they were in over their head, so we cared for it for a few weeks before it was taken in by a zoo.”
“A tiger, that’s cool. I hope it’s okay to ask, and I'm not offending you, but why do you need to fundraise for your rescue? You're Monique Kerr, right? The Kerr princess. Don’t you have a ton of money already?”
Some of the enthusiasm vibrating through her faded. “I sunk most of my trust fund into buying the land and setting everything up. The rest is set up to pay my personal monthly expenses. I have enough left over to help some animals, but it’s not enough. I won't get the rest ofthe money until my dad and his parents pass. I don’t just want to help some animals, I want to help them all. And the people here are always willing to donate to something, which means they can pretend to be good people who care about others and the planet.”
“I think that’s amazing,” Jax answered truthfully, and was rewarded by a pretty blush pinkening Monique’s cheeks.
“Thank you. My family … it’s not what they had planned for me. They wanted me to marry an appropriate man from an approved family and add to their wealth, so I'm a bit of a disappointment in their eyes.”
“Hey.” When he squeezed her hand, she looked up at him. “Who cares what they think? You're doing something amazing that you love. That makes you a good person.” Unlike him, who was here to use and manipulate her for his own personal reasons.
Big picture.
