The Storm Inside (5 page)

Who was this man?

Thankfully Josh helped me on that.

“Jake, how are you enjoying living in Tampa again? I hear you and your partner have been taking the city by storm.”

He chuckled and leaned casually back in his chair, “You know, it’s nice to be back. I’ve missed the humidity.”

“Is working over in the Middle East as hard as they say?”

“It is.” Jake said. “You live and work by a different set of rules. But it was good for me, straightened me out.”

Josh seemed to think it was all well and good, nodding and drumming his fingers on the table. It was one of his telltale signs I’d come to know well. When Josh was leading up to a bigger question he had a routine. Leading questions, feigned agreement, drumming fingers… and then the real question on his mind. “And the money? I hear they make it worth your while…”

Bingo. Josh was fishing for information. It just so happened to also be the information I was looking for. I couldn’t help but hang on his answer. Jake’s eyes flicked to mine for a brief moment before he smiled stiffly and looked back at Josh. “Yes, the money can be very, very good depending on what you’re doing.”

“Your partner, Greg, he said you made a few key investments that helped get the new firm open.”

Jake huffed, “Greg has a big mouth. Yes,” he nodded looking back at me again. It was as if he was as desperate to share pieces of himself with me as I was to hear them. “I got lucky. A friend of mine came to me with a good idea. I invested and not long after, it took off. The kid just sold it for a mint.” He paused for a moment looking temporarily uncomfortable talking about himself. “I also helped another friend develop a key piece of technology. She was able to sell it to a military contractor that is developing similar forms of technology for the government. It was that investment in particular that made me very rich. I was able to bankroll most of what Greg still needed to get our firm off the ground here.”

“You’re a lucky man,” Josh said.

“I suppose I am,” Jake said suddenly looking grim.

Luck was such a strange and relative term. Was Jake lucky? That was probably the last thing I’d ever say about him. If he was as well-off as he sounded it wasn’t by some great turn of fortune. It was more like a payback for the years he’d already lost to a life he hadn’t chosen.

He caught me looking at him. The moment he saw the look in my eyes, he stiffened. No, there was no luck at this table. Luck would have been Jake finding a way to stay, or a way home to me sooner.

“So, you and Eve… what’s the story?” Josh asked the inevitable question. He really had no idea what he was asking.

Jake’s eyes flicked over to me, silently asking if he should talk or if I wanted to take control.

I swallowed hard; pushing down the confusion I was feeling inside and looked over at my boss. “Jake and I dated in college, actually. All four years.”

Josh’s jaw dropped open. His eyes went so wide there was nothing but black from his pupils dilating. He knew exactly who Jake was. Everyone who worked in the front office at the Trop ten years ago knew who Jake was. Papa Joe had not taken his daughter’s heartbreak very well. Not to mention I’d started working there two weeks later. The sad girl who moped around the hallways and cried through her lunch break every day tended to get a reputation. One I had gladly lost over the years. Being known as ‘The Crier’ was not something I’d enjoyed very much.

Josh was actually shocked into silence. But his stare was deadly. And it was saying everything he was thinking.

Jake cleared his throat and sat back, his eyes wandering back to me for a moment. “It was a helluva long time ago.”

Josh finally closed his mouth and looked right at me. “Does Joe know he’s back?” he stuck his finger out at Jake.

I shook my head. The only other person I’d talked to was my roommate Jennie, the one who had helped me pick up the pieces after Jake left. She was a child psychologist and, while I wasn’t a child, her knowledge and wisdom had been essential in me pulling my act back together.

Josh reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, knowing somewhere in my gut he was about to call my dad.

“Joe laid down the law. Anyone who sees
that
,” he stuck his finger back out at Jake, “is supposed to call Joe immediately.”

I put a calming hand on my boss. I was really touched he and everyone else I worked with cared about my family and me so much. But this was my problem to deal with. “Josh, please let me handle this. I’m not twenty-two anymore, I don’t need my dad to kill my shit boyfriend for me.”

Jake winced, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but he didn’t say anything.

Josh looked confused by my logic, glancing from me to Jake and back again, “Are you really ok with this? We can leave right now if you’re not.”

I smiled to reassure him, “No, I’m fine. Jake and I have talked and… we’re fine.”

We were not fine.

But for the purposes of this dinner, and for the sake of Jake’s life, I would pretend. And the truth was things were ok. Not fine, but ok. I was confused and I was wary, but the meeting and sitting here at the table with him had shown me I was perfectly capable of functioning in social situations with this man.

Alone was another story. We weren’t doing that again anytime soon.

Josh slowly put his phone back away, “Well… if you’re sure.”

I nodded reassuringly.

Josh turned back to Jake and gave him a cold stare that even scared the piss out of
me
and I knew how sweet Josh typically was. Thinking of him in any other way seemed impossible, but that stare stopped me cold. “I will be watching you very, very closely. One toe out of line and I’ll have the entire Rays line-up beat the crap out of your useless body.”

And the thing was, that wasn’t an empty threat. Baseball players were funny creatures, but very manly. They’d love nothing more than to defend my honor, so the speak.

Jake nodded slowly, his green eyes deadly serious as he spoke, “Trust me I understand completely, Josh. I will never, ever hurt her again. I can guarantee that.”

An ache developed in my chest as I watched him talk. How could he guarantee that? I knew with absolute certainty having Jake around me would lead to
more
. And more would lead to heartbreak. It was just what Jake did to me. It wasn’t his fault I loved him so deeply, so completely there was no choice but to give him all of me. Just as it wasn’t his fault that he loved me so passionately he couldn’t control it.

But then his stare swung over to me. He looked deep into my eyes and straight into my soul the way only he could. I swear he could see all of me. I was naked in front of him, it didn’t matter what I hid or wore, this man could see all of me. So when he spoke it wasn’t just words, it was a promise between his soul and mine. “Ten years ago I ran away from my demons. I’m back to make those demons afraid of me.”

The waiter returned with our appetizers, but Jake didn’t look away. He had me trapped with his eyes. They were smoldering and intense, undressing me slowly and caressing my skin, the heat between my legs was pulsing.

Whoever this man was, he was a strange mix of the man I had loved and the man I always knew he could be, plus something else entirely. Something unexpected. He was darker and more intense, he knew what he wanted and I had the very distinct impression he never took ‘no’ for an answer. This Jake got what he wanted. Period.

Panic ripped through me again. I didn’t like this feeling, the concept he would win me back against my will. That I had no choice in what was going to happen between him and me. “Excuse me,” I mumbled, clumsily standing up and tossing my napkin on the chair. “I need the restroom.”

Josh didn’t seem to notice the look of panic in my eyes, but Jake didn’t miss it. His intense green eyes silently watched me as I left the room.

But I didn’t go to the restroom, I ran to the kitchen. It was open and guests were welcome inside, but on a tour. I wasn’t with a guide, so I stopped dead in my tracks, looking around. A chef smiled at me warmly as he looked up from his work. For some stupid reason that made me giggle and I wandered over to the fish tanks like I belonged there.

Poor ugly fish were hours or minutes away from being someone’s dinner. I felt like one of those fish. I had been happily swimming along, blissfully unaware danger was right around the corner. Jake wanted me for his dinner and I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep him from killing me.

A throat was cleared behind me. I expected to see one of the many waiters ready to request I leave the kitchen until a proper tour was scheduled, but instead as I turned around my eyes fell upon Jake.

He was like a kid, no matter where I ran he kept turning up with a smile on his face.

“I didn’t mean to scare you away,” he kept a good five feet between us and his hands behind his back. He was making a conscious effort to seem safe and non-confrontational. “But I did want you to know how serious I am. Nothing about me is the same and I have every intention of righting every wrong I made before I left.”

He was wrong about one thing, there were many things about him that were the same. His smile was the same, his voice, and his heart. It may have been scared and buried beneath layers of crap parenting, but I’d seen it then as clearly as I could see it now. And Jake had a truly good heart.

Didn’t make me any less terrified of loving him.

“Did you pick Bern’s on purpose?” I asked. I noticed how straight he always stood. It gave him an extra air of confidence and control.

“Yes.” he said flatly. “I told you, I’m taking my life back. All of it. Even if you don’t want me back, I’m damn determined to make sure that’s what you want. I want you to be absolutely positive. Doubts will tear a person in two—trust me on that one. So, yes, I chose this restaurant on purpose just like I chose to pitch to you myself. I’m not going away, but I’m not going to force myself on you either. I didn’t expect you to fall into my lap and forgive me. This is gonna take time, time I am more than willing to invest. Because it needs to be done right. When you tell me you don’t love me, I want you to know it with every fiber of your being.”

Crap.

Chapter 3

I took a sip of my red wine and sighed as I looked out over my backyard. It was shady, surrounded by a mix of coconut palm trees and eureka palms. Hibiscus and other colorful flowers were intermittently dispersed, a water fountain soothingly dribbled in one corner, a small vegetable garden was in the other, and a covered hot tub sat just off the porch.

I loved my backyard; it was calming. My lounge chair was the fancy kind—weather-resistant wicker and big stuffy cushions, the kind that got soaked and nasty if they weren’t in a relatively covered location like my wide covered back porch. The sun was setting and Jennie and I were having an after dinner treat: wine and chocolate.

“I brought the bottle, you are going to drink until you spill your guts!” Jennie said, plopping the bottle down on the table between us and flopping into the chair beside me.

“Ha!” I replied. Eloquent, I know, but typical for me when it came to talking about my feelings. It was not my forte, to say the least. For some reason when it came to translating what was going on inside my head, the words seemed to get stuck somewhere between my brain and my mouth. Apparently facial expressions and gestures weren’t enough.

“Seriously, Eve, if you don’t start saying
something,
there’s going to be trouble. You are going through a major life event and talking your way through your emotions is the best way to identify your true feelings.”

I took a long drag of my wine and let it burn its way down my esophagus to warm my belly. “Said like a true psychologist, my dear.”

Jennie snorted, “Thank you?”

In many ways Jennie and I were opposites. Something, I felt, that made our friendship perfect. Where I tended to be logical and over think things, Jennie was a daredevil, willing to try anything. She was a leap first, look later kind of girl. I tended to stand on the side and carefully find the best solution. She got me to take chances, I got her to slow down and think.

Jennie was bubbly, I was not.

Jennie was blonde, I was brunette.

But she had a point. I hadn’t said much about what I was thinking and really, I could use a second opinion.

So I took another big swig, refilled my glass, and turned toward Jennie. She grinned wickedly, her blue eyes twinkling with excitement.

“So, at dinner last night he made a couple of big speeches…”

Her grin grew even larger, she looked like the Cheshire Cat, gripping her glass with both hands and leaning closer, “What did he say?”

Why was talking so hard? It was like turning a rusty gear, sure it moved with enough force, but it was hard, took a lot of muscle, and wasn’t very smooth. “Round One involved something about how he would never hurt me again…”

Jennie started nodding enthusiastically, “That’s good! He’s reassuring you.” Her positive outlook on Jake was mildly annoying. From the moment I first told her Jake stopped by she had been gushing about us getting back together. Her professional opinion was that he had done the logical thing: removing himself from a bad situation and working on processing his troubles. Now that he was better, he was reintegrating into society and starting a new life.