Page 40 of The Sandover Beach Billionaire

Chapter Twelve

The tasteof sushi had grown on Jackson slowly, but the way it provided easy conversation made him an instant fan. Turns out that Megan could talk sushi for hours. Her mother, Kim, was just the kind of woman to raise her daughter in pretentious sushi restaurants. But for this one thing, Jackson was glad.

Most of the time, Megan spoke to him in annoyed sounds: huffs, grunts, eye rolls. Okay, eye rolls didn’t make noise. She still did all these things across the table from him at Tsujiki, but she loved sushi so much that her reactions were all tempered. They became affectionate somehow. Like they moved from: “you’re so annoying, I hate you” to: “you’re so annoying; it’s adorable.” She seemed to like Jackson’s questions. And, for this little window of time, she wasn’t just staring at a screen of some kind.

“Tempura … do I like tempura?”

“Yes. Tempura is that fried batter. You know, the little crispy crunchies that come on top of the Spicy Crunchy Yellowtail? There are also some rolls that are put in tempura batter and fried, so they’re warm not cold. Like the Dynamite Roll.”

“I like crunchies. Warm sushi? Pass. Eel sauce—do I like that?”

“You aren’t a fan.”

“Good to know.”

“You do realize that you could write this down. Or put it in a notes app on your phone or something.” She sighed and he smiled.

“I should really do that.” He wouldn’t.

Megan rolled her eyes. “I want to try something new—are you in? Let’s try the Spider roll. It has soft shell crab fried inside it. The presentation is fun.”

“Fried anything is always okay with me. And crab, yes. You got me all excited about the crunchies, so I want the Spicy Crunchy Yellowtail. You pick the rest. New or old, I don’t care. I do want vegetables tempura if you’d like to split.”

“Are these dinners the only time you eat vegetables?”

He grinned. “Maybe.”

Megan dipped her head to write down their selections on the paper sushi menu, but Jackson caught her smile before she did. Just like sushi softened her annoyance with him, it tempered his frustrations over her bossy, precocious attitude. How was she twelve and talking to him—an adult, her father—the way she did? But over sushi, he appreciated her taking charge.

Not for the first time, Jackson wondered who Megan would be if he had been in her life since the beginning. Probably not much different, considering that he had been a mess for a long time. If Kim had told him that she was pregnant, maybe he would have walked through the doors of the church sooner, at least from desperation.

It felt inevitable that he had ended up there, like it hadn’t even been a choice, as though God had been sitting there, looking at his watch, waiting for Jackson to arrive. Maybe that was a blasphemous mental picture, but Jackson didn’t particularly care. He liked the idea that God had just been waiting on him to wise up.

Maybe Kim would have told Jackson and then he would have married her. He wasn’t so much of a jerk that he wouldn’t have at least offered. Even if they really couldn’t stand each other. She put up with him now, the little they texted about Megan’s schedule, because of the money. He knew that. And it was one of the only times that he was glad that he had money. It meant that he could have a relationship with Megan.

He did wish that it had started earlier. That she hadn’t been so fully-formed when she met him. Obviously, Kim had filled her head with a lot of ideas about him, probably some of them true. He deserved a lot of the terrible things people said about him, just as he had endured Jenna’s insults. Then her harsh words changed into something very different.

“Are you still smiling about your new girlfriend?”

“You mean my bae?”

Megan grunted. “Getting trapped in an elevator is a cliché, you know. We aren’t actually living in a Hallmark movie, so the likelihood of you guys ending up together is slim in real life.”

“Thanks for that reality check, I guess.”

“I always appreciate people speaking the truth to me. I’ll do that for you. It’s a sign of affection.”

Jackson stared at Megan. She had never said anything that remotely hinted at the fact that she liked him. He probably should have kept things light, but he couldn’t. “You have affection for me?”

Cue the eyeroll. “Of course, J. We’re blood. Even if you wish we weren’t.”

She said that last part in little more than a mumble as she picked up her phone. Jackson ripped it from her hand and then dropped it, taking her hand in his own. She gazed up at him in shock.

“I would never—have never—wished you weren’t mine. Not one time. Is Kim telling you this? Or have I given you any even a tiny indication that I wasn’t glad to have you in my life?”

He had never seen the look on her face, mouth hanging open. “I—” She closed her mouth and looked down at her hand in his.

“If I have not shown you that I am so happy to have you in my life, then I am so sorry. I will start to fix that right now. It was an amazing day when Kim called to tell me about you. I wish she had done it years earlier. I hate that I’ve missed most of your life so far, but I don’t want to miss the rest of it. That is my commitment to you. I want to be here, be involved. However you’ll have me. I’ll let you choose. But it will never be because of me that we aren’t close. I will do all that I can.”

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