“What do you want me to say?” Blake thundered. “This isn’t helping me.”
“There has to be more to this than finding out you’re Justin’s father, though that is a big deal. But I’ve seen the way Jewell looks at you, and looks at her brother. She loves you both immeasurably. For her to walk away, there has to be something else going on,” Tyler said as if he were speaking to a child.
“Maybe you broke her,” Byron said with a sneer.
Blake stopped as he stared at his brother. “What?”
“Oh, hell, Blake, don’t get all melodramatic on me. I was just kidding,” Byron said, and he tried to look like he didn’t care.
But Blake knew his brother cared. That thought somehow made him stop again. He thought back to the last few months, thought of all his times with Jewell, of the good and the bad, of the laughter and tears, the desperation and the peace.
“She does know that you love her, right?” Tyler asked.
“Of course she does,” Blake said, but then he stopped again.
Tyler pushed. “Because you’ve told her.”
“Not with words,” Blake replied.
“You guys are being ridiculous!” Byron thundered. “Are you listening to what you are saying? Do you want to be just like our father?”
Byron stood up, his chair flying behind him, and both Blake and Tyler watched as he stormed from the room. They sat there a few more moments in stunned silence before Tyler spoke again.
“Don’t let this woman get away from you, Blake, or you’ll go back to feeling and acting like that,” he said as he looked toward the door.
“Byron is fine,” Blake insisted. But it was true. He had been just like his brother, and not too long ago — not trusting anyone, lying as easily as he spoke the truth, and treating women as nothing more than play toys whose only purpose was to please him.
He didn’t want to be that man anymore. He wanted to be the man in love with Jewell. He was the man in love with Jewell. “I haven’t said the words, Tyler, but she has to know how much I love her,” Blake finally said.
“How can she know if you haven’t told her?” Tyler asked.
“Because I show her every single day. We make love and it’s burning in my eyes. We snuggle on the couch and I have to touch her. With everything I do, every hour of every single day, I have her in mind. She’s my world, her and Justin, and I can’t even imagine living without them now,” he said.
“Why are you telling me this, and not her?” Tyler asked.
“I…I don’t know,” Blake said. Was he the biggest of fools? It felt like it.
“Look, she’s had a rough year, Blake, and even though you were an ass, she still managed to fall in love with you. So you get this great woman, and you find out you have a son, and you get him too, and then you don’t tell her he’s your son, and you don’t tell her how much you love her. What do you think she’s thinking right now?”
“I don’t know!” Blake said, frustrated beyond all reason.
“She’s thinking that she’s disposable,” Tyler told him.
“How could she possibly think that?”
“If you ever figure out how a woman’s mind works, then please enlighten us all,” Tyler said, attempting a joke. Blake wasn’t in the mood.
“I won’t lose her, Tyler. I can’t!”
“Then go and fight for her,” Tyler told him.
“She refuses to speak to me. How can I fight for her if she won’t even talk to me?” he asked, furious that he sounded so weak right now.
“You have to prove to her that you love her,” he said, and Blake thought he could do that. “And Blake, it won’t be easy, because now she has walls in place. So you’d better have one hell of a plan before you storm the fortress.”
When Blake left the office building, he had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew for sure that no matter what it took, he would win her back.
Chapter Thirty-One
Breathe.”
Blake stood outside Jewell’s door and wondered how long he’d have to wait. He’d knocked, he wouldn’t use the key that was burning a hole in his pocket. That wasn’t a way to show her he respected her, loved her.
No, he would wait for her to open the door to him. Since she had a peephole, he thought the wait could be a very long time. So he was shocked when he didn’t have to wait long at all.
The door opened, and there she was standing before him. He inhaled deeply when he saw the way she looked, and guilt consumed him because he knew that he was the one to blame for those circles beneath her puffy eyes, and the ashen cheeks.
And yet even though she looked as if she’d lost her world, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. And it was because he had no doubt that she loved him, that she would be his forever, because he wouldn’t leave until she knew that he loved her too.
“You think I married you so I could gain Justin’s trust?” he said, deciding it was best to get straight to the point. He didn’t think either of them could handle dancing around the subject right now. It was just too painful.
“Yes, Blake, and I don’t blame you for it. I don’t know what I would have done in your situation had I found out I had a child I knew I could get my hands on,” she told him. Her voice so flat, so sad, ripped him to his very soul.
“And you think that I simply used you to get to him?”
She paused before she looked him in the eyes. “Do you really need to hear this, Blake? Do we really need to discuss this? It’s done.”
“Do you think I love him?”
She paused again and he could see she was thinking over the past couple of months and thinking about them all being together. Yes, he’d bonded with Justin, more than he’d thought possible, and yes, he loved him, heart and soul.
“Yes, I know you do, Blake. I know you’ll take care of him.” This time, her voice choked up a little bit. It pained him to not grab her, to not comfort her.
“Then you know I won’t lose him, right?” he said and this time her eyes filled with tears, and they slowly dripped down her cheeks.
“Why are you doing this to me? I left,” she sobbed.
Before he could change his mind, before he grabbed her and lost all focus of what he was doing, he pulled out a document from his attorney. She didn’t take it from him; she just looked at him with a trembling lip and glassy eyes.