Page 52 of Steel & Jenna
“Did you mean it yesterday? When you said you’d take me over your knee if I apologized again?”
He groaned, but whether that was in pain or…something else, Jenna wasn’t sure. “Fuck, Jen, you can’t ask me that while there’s a catheter in my dick.”
Her eyes went wide and her cheeks flamed. “Oh God! Is Mr. Zarin still standing there?”
“Yup.”
She slapped her palm to her forehead. “Jack!”
He tried to chuckle but ended up hissing in pain again. “Fuck! I hate that I look like this the last time you’ll see me for a while.”
“I told you, I’ll figure out how to get out of here. I’m going to come see you today.”
“Not going to change my appearance,” he reminded her.
Jenna winced. Oops. A noise behind her had her turning around to see her sister glaring up at her from her bed. “Um, Jack, I gotta go.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just…I’m kinda using up all Carolyn’s minutes right now.”
“Be safe, Jenna. Try to call again if you can’t get out. But I swear, baby, we’ll figure this out. I love you.”
“I love you too, Jack. Bye.”
She hung up before she heard his reply. The one word she didn’t have the heart to hear come from Jack Duncan was ‘goodbye’.
“How much did you hear?”
Carolyn raised an eyebrow. “Other than Jack apparently promising to take you over his knee if you apologized to him again?”
Jenna’s cheeks flamed. She covered her mouth, completely embarrassed that she’d brought that back up. What had come over her?
Carolyn’s chuckle wasn’t mocking or condescending. “Hey, I’ve done far worse with guys who don’t even know my name. At least you know your man loves you.”
Jenna sat down on the edge of her sister’s bed. Her embarrassmentgone, replaced with the utter devastation that she might not have a choice about seeing Jack again. “How do you do it? Fight Mom and Dad like this?” She leaned forward, her arms between her knees. “I can’t breathe, Carolyn. They’re making me leave but I don’t know how I’m supposed to go.”
Carolyn moved, untangling herself from the covers to sit by Jenna. “Are you sure about this, Jenna? Absolutely sure that Jack is who and what you want?”
Jenna nodded, staring down at her sister’s dark carpet. Her soul felt like it was cracking. “I love him, Carolyn. I don’t care how young we are. I don’t care that we come from different social classes. Hell, I don’t even care that we have different religions. It’shim, Carolyn. I knew it from the moment we met that he was mine. I can’t even explain it, but it’s like we swapped hearts. He claims mine and I claim his.”
Carolyn was silent for a long time. “You’re lucky, you know,” she finally said. “You’ve always been so sure of yourself. And I owe you an apology.”
Jenna turned to her head to look over her shoulder at her sister. “What do you mean?”
“I told Mom you were at the library.”
Anger flared. She jumped off of the mattress. “Youwhat?”
Carolyn held up her hands in surrender. “Hey now. Mom asked where you were, I told her you were at the library. It was a completely innocent place to be. I didnottell her you were with Jack or anything about him. I also didnotknow she was going to have her bodyguards?—”
“Thugs,” Jenna interjected with venom.
“—thugs,” Carolyn corrected herself, “beat Jack up. All I am apologizing for is telling Mom where you were. It was just a passing question. I didn’t think twice about telling her you were at the library because I can’t even recall everseeingMom in a public library before.”
Jenna wanted to be mad at her sister, even though her admission did explain how her mom had found them, but she couldn’t. Notreally. Carolyn hadn’t done anything vindictive or with malice. Jack’s current condition was entirely their mom’s fault.
Her shoulders sagged. “It’s fine. There’s nothing to apologize for.”
