Page 39 of Intrigued By Love

“I hope you’re happy. You got what you wanted.” The venom-filled words spoken behind me as I set my hand on the door handle had my back stiffening.

Fuck. Thirty more seconds and I’d have been home free.

I’d managed to avoid Jennine Burton since she’d arrived with her husband, and hoped to keep avoiding her. Now it looked as if my luck had run out.

I turned to face Jennine. She was beautiful, with barely a trace of her age on her skin, but nothing could change the ugly under the surface or the hatred in her eyes as she glared at me.

I guessed I’d have to get used to it, since Jax and I were planning a future together. It still made me cringe to think she’d be my children’s grandmother one day.

Bracing myself for whatever was wrong in Jennine’s world, I said, “Mrs. Burton, I have no idea what you are referring to.”

“Don’t act so coy. I lost my son because of you.”

I will not take the bait. I will not take the bait.

With as much of a smile as I could fake, I said, “Let me repeat. I have no idea what you are referring to.”

She cocked a hand on her hip. “I find it hard to believe you don’t know that my son hasn’t come home or had anything more than a surface relationship with us in the last two years. Because of you, he’s turned his back on his legacy and his responsibilities to Burton Productions.”

I stared at her, not understanding what she was saying. Jax had mentioned he had nothing to do with his parents but I hadn’t thought past the statement.

It also meant she had no idea we were together again. Well, Jax and I still had to figure out the details.

“Until a little over three weeks ago, I hadn’t seen or heard from Jax in years.”

“You think I didn’t see your exchange during the wedding. Hell, everyone saw it. He isn’t the type of boy to say his feelings so publicly unless it was something long-term.”

No, it was because we’d never gotten over each other. But that information wasn’t going to help this situation.

“As you said, you have a surface relationship with him. How would you know the way he thinks?”

“God, he’s such a man. Shake your big tits and ass in his face and you’re leading him around by the dick again.”

Her vulgar words had me speechless.

She continued, saving me from finding a response.

“I saw those pictures in the tabloids. They got clear shots of you and your classless family dancing.”

Heat and anger rushed into my body, and I gritted my teeth.

Taking a step toward her, I said, “Let me make something clear. You can say what you want about me but never, and I meannever, put down my family.”

Knowing a dramatic scene was what she wanted, I took a calming breath and continued, “You have this need to label anyone who isn’t in your perceived social standing as lower class. I will not put up with it anymore. We don’t have diamonds flowing out of our pockets or a household staff to cater to our every need, but we are good people who have worked our asses off for everything we have.”

“How dare you? We work just as hard, probably harder.” Jennine cocked a hand on her hip and waved a finger in my face.

It took all my strength not to swat it away and punch her.

How could countless documentaries and Hollywood legend stories get it so wrong? She was nothing like the American sweetheart they’d made her out to be, but then again she hadn’t starred in a film since before Jax was born. And any recent role she’d taken encompassed small cameos playing off her former fame.

“God, what happened to you? Where is the woman once known for her kind heart and soul?”

Something flashed in her eyes that almost resembled pain, but disappeared just as fast.

“You have no idea what it takes to make it in Hollywood.”

Hollywood was known for chewing up the innocent until there was barely anything left of the original person before spitting them out. It was hard to imagine Jennine Burton as one of them. But the woman before me wasn’t the one whose movies my mother and aunts loved watching.

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