Dirty Sexy Sinner (22 page)

“What do you mean,
here
?”

“With you,” she said as those tears gathering in her eyes started rolling down her cheeks. “Brynn is right. You deserve someone better than me. I don’t fit into this world of yours and I never will.”

“Tara, that isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. Don’t you see? I’ll never be free of my past. The terrible choices I made and the consequences I’ll live with forever. You deserve better than someone whose actions will come back to embarrass you in front of your colleagues and your boss. Someone who
belongs
in your world.” She choked out the words and hit the button to call the elevator once again.

The doors slid open a second time, and a blinding desperation clawed at him. “Tara—”

She stepped into the elevator just as Georgia came out of the office appearing genuinely contrite that she was interrupting him. “Jackson, I’m really sorry, but the call from Giles Patterson that you’ve been waiting for all morning is on line two.”

Fuck
. Jackson clenched his jaw in frustration as his gaze locked with Tara’s as she stood inside the elevator, leaving him torn between what he
wanted
to do and what he
had
to do. It was an important phone call, potentially worth a fifty-million-dollar contract, and he couldn’t blatantly ignore Patterson or put him off. It would be career suicide to blow off a man of his caliber. Hell, even if Jackson had gone to lunch with Tara, he would have excused himself to take the call.

“Jackson?” Georgia said from behind him, forcing him to make a decision right then.

His gut churned at the choice he knew he had to make. As the doors to the elevator started to slide closed and he saw the anguish in her expression, Jackson prayed he wasn’t about to make a huge mistake he’d come to regret later.

“We’re not done, Tara,” he said gruffly, and then she was gone.

He meant what he’d said. Jackson wasn’t giving Tara up without the fight of his life. However, it remained to be seen whether or not she would calm down and come around.

*     *     *

Tara didn’t know
where to go or who to turn to. She drove away from the office building where Jackson worked, her eyes blurry from her uncontrollable tears and her heart feeling as though it had just been cracked wide open and she’d never be the same again. Finding out that Brynn Howell worked at the same firm that Jackson did had been a definite shock to Tara’s system. The loathing and contempt that the other woman still held toward Tara for Michael’s death had been crushing.

But it had been Brynn’s harsh words that had slapped Tara in the face and validated all her greatest fears—that she’d never be good enough for a respectable, honorable man like Jackson. Her shameful past wasn’t something she could erase, and it would forever haunt her. She was also well aware that Jackson’s relationship with an ex–drug addict could potentially taint his reputation for making such questionable choices in the women he dated. She wasn’t the socially acceptable choice, she never would be, and there was no way she ever wanted to hurt Jackson or the career that meant so much to him.

She was an emotional mess and needed someone to talk to so she could clear her head and get a fresh perspective on the situation. She considered going to see Samantha, but she didn’t want to risk running into Clay on her day off, so instead she drove to Mason’s tattoo shop in hopes that Katrina was there.

Parking her car in an empty slot in front of Inked, she wiped away the moisture still on her cheeks and tried to gather her frayed composure. She glanced into the rearview mirror and cringed because she looked like crap. Her eyes were red and swollen, her skin ruddy since she’d smeared away most of her makeup. But it wasn’t as though she was trying to impress anyone, so she got out of her vehicle and made her way inside the shop.

As soon as Katrina saw her, the other woman knew something was wrong. Her brows furrowed in concern as she grabbed Tara’s hands and asked one simple question—
what’s wrong?
—and Tara burst into a fresh batch of tears that left her sobbing and all her insecurities bubbling to the surface all over again.

“It’s . . . it’s Jackson,” she finally managed to say, embarrassed that a few of the clients in Inked had seen her meltdown.

Katrina opened her mouth to reply, but a deep, terse, masculine voice beat her to it.

“What did the asshole do?” Mason demand to know as he came out of his cubicle and walked toward the two of them. His shrewd gaze took in Tara’s tear-stained face and her devastated expression, and his entire body tensed.

“He didn’t do anything,” she said, defending him before Mason could leap to all kinds of wrong assumptions. And that was the crux of it all. None of this was Jackson’s fault. It was truly on her.

Mason jammed his hands on his hips, a fierce scowl shifting across his features. “Doesn’t fucking look like
nothing
to me.”

Katrina pursed her lips in annoyance. “Back off, He-Man,” she told her husband. “She doesn’t need you going all caveman on her behalf. Sometimes a girl just needs another woman to talk to, no violence necessary.”

Mason didn’t look completely convinced, his protective stance not relaxing one bit. “I already warned Jackson that I’d kick his ass if he ever hurt Tara, and the fact that you’re crying and upset is enough to tell me that he did something stupid.”

“I swear he didn’t hurt me,” Tara said adamantly so Mason would calm down. If anything,
she’d
hurt Jackson or, at the very least, had embarrassed him in front of his bosses. By now, she was sure the entire firm knew of her involvement in Brynn’s brother’s overdose and death, and she just hoped that the bad decisions she’d made in the past didn’t do any damage to Jackson’s career or reputation.

“It’s what
I
did, not him,” she admitted quietly.

Mason shook his head, looking utterly perplexed. “I don’t get it.”

“You don’t need to get it,” Katrina said, because clearly, she
did
understand.

He rolled his eyes at his wife. “Women are so fucking confusing,” he grumbled, and stalked back to his workstation.

“Come on,” Katrina said gently as she looped her arm in Tara’s. “Let’s go to the office, where it’s quiet and private and we can talk without a certain someone butting in and adding his two cents to the conversation.”

“I heard that,” Mason shouted from his cubicle.

“I meant for you to,” Katrina shot back without remorse as they walked toward the office.

The exchange made Tara smile, which she needed badly. She was also incredibly grateful for the alone time with her friend. Once they entered the office, Tara sat down in one of the small chairs, and Katrina made herself comfortable on the desk right in front of her.

“So, what happened?” Katrina asked, her tone kind and caring.

The whole incident poured out of Tara, the horrific confrontation with Brynn, the fact that Jackson’s bosses had overheard the entire encounter and now knew all about her shameful and humiliating past, and how she’d ended things because a man like Jackson deserved so much better than what she had to offer.

“Wait a second,” Katrina said, stopping Tara right there. “First of all, what, exactly, are you
offering
Jackson at this point in the relationship? Besides sex, that is,” she added with a knowing grin.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Tara said, trying to follow her friend’s line of questioning.

Katrina curled her fingers around the edge of the desk and casually swung her legs back and forth. “Well, you said that Jackson deserved better than what you had to offer. Is the only thing you have to offer him sex? Or is there . . . more?”

She knew what Katrina was asking, and the ache in her heart made itself known. “Definitely more, at least for me.” She swallowed hard and said the words out loud for the first time. “I love him.” Unconditionally. Irrevocably.

Katrina’s green eyes softened. “Have you told him?”

“No,” she whispered, hating that her insecurities, and the fear of rejection, had kept her from opening her heart to him.

Katrina tipped her head to the side, studying Tara too insightfully. “So, what you have to offer Jackson is love, the one thing he’s been searching for his entire life, yet you’ve decided to withhold it from him. Because he deserves better?” she asked incredulously. “Don’t you think you should put all your emotional cards on the table and let Jackson be the judge of that?”

God, Katrina was right, yet . . . “What if . . . he doesn’t feel the same way?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Katrina said with a soft, knowing smile. “Not judging by the way he treats you and looks at you. But you won’t know until you take a chance and get your feelings out in the open. He’s a good man, Tara. We all know it and see it. Well, it took the guys a little longer to get their shit together in that department,” she said with a laugh. “But even Mason has told me that Jackson belongs in this family not because he was born a Kincaid but because he possesses all those qualities that
make
him a Kincaid.”

Tara already knew what those traits were, even without asking. Honesty. Integrity. Being loyal and passionate and protective. So many of the things she loved about him. Things she wanted and needed from a man in her life.

“But what if—”

Katrina shook her head, cutting Tara off. “No buts. Don’t get so caught up in the past that you can’t see the woman you are today. I almost made that mistake myself, and it nearly cost me my best friend and the man I love,” she said of Mason, her husband and the love of her life. “You’re no longer that defiant, angry girl who took drugs to cope with the shitty circumstances in her life. You haven’t been that person for six years now, Tara, and it doesn’t matter what happened today at Jackson’s office. The girl that Brynn is so bitter and angry at is not the sober, responsible, independent woman you’ve become. And I’m pretty sure
that’s
the woman Jackson wants in his life.”

Everything Katrina said struck a chord in Tara and calmed the chaos that had been swirling inside of her since leaving Jackson’s office. She felt more in control, more . . . like herself. Katrina was right. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life living in the past, not if she wanted the kind of future she’d always hoped for and dreamed about. A future that included Jackson in every aspect of her life—if she had her way.

She’d talk to him and put her heart in his hands. What happened next was up to him.

I
t took Jackson
some time after his phone call had ended, and a whole lot of patience, to find out where Tara had gone after leaving his office. Once that business had been concluded, he’d gone straight to Walter’s office to see if the other man could sit in on the three o’clock meeting Jackson had scheduled with a client. He’d been honest about his reasons for needing to leave, and thank God Walter had not only agreed to handle the appointment but had let Jackson know just how much he liked Tara, and he promised to talk to Brynn and make it clear that kind of attack wasn’t welcome in the office.

Jackson couldn’t have been more relieved or grateful for the other man’s support. Then again, Walter, being a family man, was well aware of how bad Jackson’s previous marriage had been and just how long it had taken him to recover from Collette’s betrayal. Walter’s parting words to Jackson had been,
Every man needs a good woman by his side, so don’t let Tara slip through your fingers
.

He refused to let that happen, and the first order of business was telling Tara how he felt about her. That there wasn’t one thing—her past especially—that would keep him from loving her. Or being with her.

She didn’t answer any of the text messages that he sent, so he drove to the most likely place he thought he’d find her—her house. But when he arrived, she wasn’t there. His second guess had him picking up his cell phone and making a call to Clay so he didn’t run around on a wild goose chase trying to locate her.

“You looking for Tara?” Clay answered the phone without a friendly greeting, his voice gruff and direct.

“Yes.” Judging by Clay’s brusque question, Jackson’s brother knew something was going on, and he pressed him for answers. “How did you know? Is she at the bar?”

“No.” Clay’s voice remained cool as an iceberg. “Mason called to tell me that she came by Inked and that you did something to upset her.”

Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He knew
he
hadn’t caused her to run. The situation had. But he wasn’t going to argue the point with his twin. “Is she still there?”

“That all depends on why you want to see her.”

Jesus Christ
. He didn’t have time for this shit and decided to be blunt. “To tell her I love her,” Jackson replied, unable to conceal the frustration vibrating in his voice. “Is that a good enough reason?”

Clay was quiet for a long moment, then finally answered, sounding much less terse and more understanding. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“So that means I have permission to see her?” Jackson asked sarcastically.