Page 136 of Undisputed Player
I nodded against his skin, heart warming at the image of his childhood. I felt no envy, only insistent warmth for the happiness little Jax must have felt as he grew up.
“He didn’t care who I brought home, what grades I made, as long as I was loyal and strong, and knew how to get up when life put me down.”
He paused for a second, ringed fingers gently carding through my hair.
“He raised Connor and Adrian, too, in his way. Not his blood, but his heart. He taught us to keep our word and to take care of what’s ours. We’re brothers by choice and work together to protect our family.”
I pictured Jax as a boy in a sun-drenched kitchen with Wade Easton himself presiding over teaching, judging no one, and loving fiercely and without pause. The life Leo should have had, the one I’d tried—impossibly—to mimic on my own, forever afraid of failing.
“Was it hard?” I whispered, not totally sure what I was asking, butit had to do with the protecting part, learning to ‘fix’ things, as he put it.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But overall, it was good. Safe. That’s all Dad ever wanted for us. To be safe and capable.”
I couldn't stop the next rush of tears, the ones reserved for orphaned dreams you didn’t know you still carried.
“I wanted that for Leo,” I confessed brokenly. “You gave him that. You gave it to me, too.”
He held me tighter. “You give it to me every fucking day, Estelle.”
The silence that followed was almost magical. The fear faded back into the walls, and all I could hear was the hush of the waves and our uneven breathing. For the first time in my life, I felt the shape of a future.
Jax pulled back a little, tracing the line of my jaw with soft reverence. “You know you never have to go back to the academy, right? I took care of the lawsuit. Damon's connections are gone. You’re free.”
Free. The word made my stomach flutter with hope. “I can’t just quit. I need to feel like I’m making a difference. I can’t just… sit around waiting for you to take care of me.”
Sitting around would drive me mad. I’ve always been on my feet, and that’s what I wanted to continue to do. “I love teaching.”
His eyes hardened with a new seriousness, but his thumb never stopped stroking my cheek. “You’re not going back to a place where you aren’t protected, not after what happened. I’ve already taken care of Leo’s tuition. There’s nothing you guys could want for.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but the look he gave me made me shut my mouth. He wasn’t finished.
“I can build a school, Estelle. For you, Leo, and kids like him. You pick the teachers, the curriculum, the playground. You can run it however you want.”
It was so insane I almost laughed.
But his blue eyes held mine, confident and sure, and somehow the idea didn’t seem that insane anymore. It rooted somewhere secretinside me, a bright impossible seed. “That’s… not real. It’s too much. No one just builds a school for someone.”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “I do. My dad would, if he thought it would keep you safe. I’ve got the money, the lawyers, the land—hell, half the city owes us. Say the word, princess.”
My heart tried to race away, but I reined it in, refusing to let panic spoil the spark of wonder. “Could I design it?” I asked, voice so tentative it felt like a secret.
He grinned, that slow, devastating grin that had leveled me from the moment we met. “You can do anything, princess. Anything and everything.”
I wanted to resist the fairytale of it all, but when he looked at me with that radiant pride, my resistance broke. I slid off the edge of the couch and into his lap, curling into the safe harbor of his chest. He gathered me close, his hands roaming my back, his mouth pressing kisses to my hair and forehead.
I thought back to theiradventurelast night, the questions I definitely wouldn’t be asking, and how Jax literally took my life and spun it into a fairy tale.
“I hate how much I like this,” I murmured, running one finger through his golden hair. “How easily I went from budgeting groceries to sitting on my…”
I paused, glancing up at him before I said the word. He cocked one eyebrow, challenging me to say it.
“…My boyfriend’s lap in a thousand-dollar living room like royalty.”
He grinned slowly, voice dark. “You're not just sitting on my lap, princess. You’re on your throne.”
I leaned in, brushing my lips along his jaw until he tilted his head for me, greedy and excited. “That’s the dangerous part,” I whispered. “You gave me a taste of power, and now I don’t think I can give it back.”
“Don’t,” he replied huskily.
