It was at Shauntay’s urging that I found myself sitting in a restaurant waiting on a meeting with Jason. It was a phone call that I regretted making, but it had to be done. It didn’t matter how uncomfortable it was to see him for the first time since the night at the club. If he didn’t bring it up, I won’t either, I thought to myself.
My friend was sitting in the booth beside me as she promised to support me to the end. She also didn’t want me to fall back on my promise about resisting Jason’s charismatic charm. There was no need for her to worry, though, because I’d finally learned my lessons by the way of Emma-Jay Taylor. In other words, I now saw the light and the error of my ways. Jason didn’t know that Shauntay was going to be at the meeting with us. I saw no reason to tell him that fact. She was here for me and nothing else really mattered.
“Breathe, Serenity,” Shaun said as she saw how tense I was. “Jason loves his brother and I think he will want to protect him from getting hurt as well as you. Trust and believe that he will do the right thing and everything will work out in your favor.”
“I’m trying to keep calm,” I said. “It’s just so hard to not worry about what Jon will do if he finds out about me and his brother. It’s not only the kissing I’m worried about. I feel like Emma-Jay will drop the gauntlet at any given moment.”
“I’m so sorry that you’re going through this, but you have to stay strong. This, too, shall pass,” she reassured me.
I was going to reply when I saw Jason walk through the restaurant doors. I immediately stood to wave him over. A smile split his handsome face, revealing his flawless white teeth. His dreads hung loose once again, which gave him an enigmatic look. His smile almost slipped when he saw my friend sitting at the table. He quickly recovered and held his smile in place, but a look of trepidation entered his eyes.
“Hey, Jason,” I said, retaking my seat.
“Hello, Serenity,” he gave a slight nod towards Shauntay before taking a seat across from us in the booth. He stretched his long legs out to accommodate his tall and muscular frame. “I didn’t know she was going to be here, no offense to you, Shauntay,” he said.
“No offense taken, Jason, but I am here to lend my support to my friend. After you hear what she has to tell you, I think you will understand.”
“What is so important that I had to postpone an important meeting for?” he asked, looking curiously between Shaun and me.
“Your ex-girlfriend called me on my job a couple of days ago. I won’t beat around the bush so I will get straight to the point. I have already told Shaun everything so this will be no surprise to her,” I added. “Emma-Jay saw us kissing in the garden when we were in Las Vegas. Instead of confronting us, she took some pictures with her cell phone so that she could blackmail us, apparently.”
Jason’s expression went from surprise to anger. “What does she want to remain silent?” he asked immediately.
Shauntay cleared her throat and sat back in her seat.
“She wants you,” I said with a rush. “She wants you to come back to her. She said if she couldn’t have you then she will make sure your brother sees those pictures. She wants me to be as miserable as her,” I said with resentment tinged in my voice.
“If it was left up to me, I would go over and whip that ass,” my friend said with anger.
I looked over at Shaun. Her expression revealed that she meant every word of what she said.
“I wouldn’t want to have to bail you out of jail,” I told her. “What are we going to do?” I asked Jason as I returned my attention to him. “Will you take her back to keep her silent?” I bombarded him with another question before he could answer the first one.
“First off, I will not be manipulated or blackmailed by the likes of her. I don’t love her and to think about it, I never did. I will have a serious talk with her but I will not,” he said emphatically, “be blackmailed! I especially won’t allow someone I love to live in fear all because of me. I am so sorry, Serenity,” he said as he reached across the table to gather my hands in his.
I quickly pulled my hands away and folded them beneath the table in my lap. I didn’t dare let him touch me. “How soon will you talk to her?” I asked, avoiding the hurtful look he threw me.
“Soon, I promise.”
“Jason, if it comes back to you getting back together with Emma-Jay for some reason she doesn’t listen to reasoning, you will go back to her, right?”
He frowned at my line of questioning, before answering me with a question of his own. “Would you really want me to be in a relationship with a woman that I detested?”
“If it meant that it will save your brother a world of hurt, then yes,” I summoned the strength to look him boldly in his eyes. “You owe me, Jason. I didn’t want to bring this up, but you tricked me in an awful way last Valentine’s Day. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have been in this position today.”
I could tell by the expression on his face that he hadn’t expected me to go there. He breathed deeply as if trying to gather his thoughts. “I will do what I have to do not to bring the pain that I brought to you and my brother’s doorstep to an end. What you and I did, he will never find out about from me.”
Shauntay was all but forgotten as she sat quietly at the table. I had opened Pandora’s Box and words and emotions that I had built up began to spill forth. “When you violated me, you changed me forever. There was no coming back to the woman that I used to be. You made me unknowingly feel things for you that were beyond my control. You messed up my mind and emotions. It’s your own damn fault that I feel things for you that’s not right.”
My friend rubbed my back as hot tears seeped from my eyes, to comfort me. “But what’s done is done and I know that I can never erase the past. I can only push forward and try to make a better future.”
He looked like he wanted to come to me and hold me close. I knew that look all too well. I held my hand up to hold him at bay. I was no fool to tempt fate. I now knew my weakness… that weakness was Jason Knight.
“I’m so sorry. I love you so much it breaks my heart that I caused this situation. Give me some time and I vow to you that I will fix this. I vow this on my life,” he said with regret.
I was speechless from his confession of love right there in front of my friend. By her expression, she was as well. The ringing of her phone cut into the silence like a knife. “Excuse me,” she said as she went to answer it.
Jason stood like a gentleman until she left, before taking his seat again. His light brown eyes penetrated into mine. “I’ve lost you forever, haven’t I?” he asked.
“Jason, in all truthfulness, you never had me and I never had you. I have only belonged to one man and that is your brother. We crossed a very thin line that should have never been crossed in the first place. We played and we got burned. Now we both have to suffer for it. Your brother asked me to become his wife,” I continued. “I will make him the best wife possible.”
Jason’s eyes watered before he slid one hand down his face. He breathed then released his breath in a rush. “I need to get out of here,” he said. “I need some air.” He stood without even a goodbye and stalked out of the restaurant without looking back. I could see the look of acceptance on his pain-filled face. It was the same pain that mirrored in my own.
“Where did Jason go in such a hurry?” Shauntay asked, coming back to the table.
“He’s gone, Shaun,” I answered quietly. “He didn’t even say goodbye, he just left.” I knew without a doubt, a little of my heart and soul left with him.