Page 72 of Bully's Second Chance
He walked away, his eyes never once pulling away from our little angel baby. “I’m good with anything you throw together. I’ll be down in a bit.”
As I watched him walk her back inside, I thought about all of the things that had changed over the past couple of years. Jax’s company was now number one in their industry. He had found wild success after the absolute blunder that was the Shanghai contract. And after his tell-all book hit the market a couple of months ago, people were clamoring for interviews and quotes and photoshoots for magazines. In his book, he documented everything from his childhood. He talked about his father and the things that happened with his mother. He talked about how his father’s business originally came about and how he changed things up a bit once he took over.
He even talked about losing his dad and how he had slowly rekindled a sort of friendship with his mother, even after everything she had said, even after everything that had happened.
And he dedicated every bit of the proceeds from the book to a new foundation we had established to help grieving parents who had lost children slowly get back up on their feet again.
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered into the wind.
As I made my way into the kitchen to deal with the idea of food, thoughts of his mother circled throughout my mind like water circling a drain. It astounded me how far they had come despite the phone call that day. She had been so heartless and so disgusting, and yet Jax had reached out to her after we had Angel in an attempt to bridge the gap so our daughter could have as much family as possible in her life.
And they had gotten to such a good place that we were in the stages of talking about introducing Angel to his mom.
“She’s down,” Jax said as he came into the kitchen.
I slathered mustard on our sandwiches. “Have you given any more thought to bringing your mother over one of these days?”
He opened the fridge. “You want water or juice?”
I giggled. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Water, it is.”
I peered over my shoulder. “Could you put some lemon in mine? I’m craving a nice, cool citrus drink.”
He walked over to me and reached over my shoulder for the glasses. “Craving, huh?”
I shook my head. “No, Jax. I’m not pregnant.”
“You sure about that?”
I looked up at him. “Do I look like I’m vomiting everywhere?”
He shrugged as he took two glasses out of the cabinet. “Hey, I’ve read that every pregnancy is different.”
I finished making our sandwiches. “Well, I’m not ready for another child yet. Are you?”
He poured our drinks. “It’s been on my mind, but executing it is a different story.”
“Exactly.”
“And I want you to know,” he said as he squeezed lemon into my ice water, “that whatever you decide to do with the spa, I’ll support.”
I smiled. “Good, because I’m almost one hundred percent positive that Ma and Pa are coming back over tonight for dinner, and when they do, I’m going to let them know that I’m going to take the spa off their hands.”
I felt his eyes on the profile of my face. “Really?”
I placed our plates at the dining room table and sat down. “Really, really. It just feels right. So, why not? I was made for this. My degree prepared me for this. I mean, hell, I worked there for years, so I know how things operate. And if there’s anyone who should take it over, it should be someone in the family, right?”
He blinked. “Can you wait here for just a second? I’ll be right back.”
“Uh, all right?”
I’d never seen Jax move so quickly in all my life. He bounded up the stairs before his footsteps fell into the background, and I snickered as I reached for my drink. I took a few long pulls, enjoying the refreshing taste of the tart, yet satisfying, drink. And when I heard his footsteps rushing back toward me, I turned to face him before he dropped to both of his knees in front of me.
“Jax? What are you—”
He held up a little black box and cracked it open, revealing the most outstanding diamond ring I’d ever seen in my life. My jaw hit the floor as the sunlight streamed through the windows, catching it at every angle and casting beautiful shimmers across the entire room. Tears rushed my eyes before barreling down my face without so much as a warning. And as Jax took my left hand within his, he started talking as quickly as possible.
