Chapter 68 Chapter Sixty Eight
Jace’s POV
The knock on my door hit like a fucking grenade.
I was still half on top of Lena, my heart hammering, my mouth an inch from hers, when Mom’s voice floated through the door.
“Who is it?” I barked, voice rough as gravel.
“It’s me, sweetheart.” My mom said in a bright, cheerful tone.
I sighed heavily, of course I was getting cock blocked by my own mother.
“Martin just finished his homework and he wants Lena to see it. Is she in there with you?” My mother asked.
Lena’s eyes went wide under me. I slammed my hand over her mouth before she could make the mistake of responding yes.
Her lips were still swollen from where I’d been kissing her just two seconds ago, and the feel of them against my palm made my dick twitch like the traitor it was.
Don’t you fucking dare make a sound, I thought, staring straight into those big, brown, panicked eyes.
“Yeah, Mom, just… just give me a minute.” I called back, forcing my voice to stay level. “I’ll be out soon.”
There was an awkward pause for a second there, and could hear her pacing a little in the hall, probably already smelling the bullshit.
“Jace, I also need to speak with you about something urgent. So I would appreciate it if you came outside now.”
Fuck. My. Life.
My jaw locked so tight. Noah. It had to be about Noah. That smug prick was already moving in like he owned the place, and now Mom was here to deliver the final “be nice to your cousin” lecture while I had the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about half-naked on my bed.
I jerked my head toward the sheets. “Hide. Now.”
Lena blinked. She whispered, “Huh?”
“Get under the sheets. My mom sees you looking like this and she’ll… just do it!”
She scrambled, yanking the comforter over her head as fast as she could.
I watched the lump that was Lena Hartwell disappear under my blankets and felt something savage twist in my chest. She looked ridiculous. And hot. And mine.
And I’d be damned if I was about to lie through my teeth to keep it that way.
I cracked the door just enough to block the view with my body so she wouldn’t see inside.
“What’s up, Mom?”
“I thought I heard some strange moaning noises coming from your room. Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” Jace sighed, “Just tell me what you want.”
“Noah will be moving into the room next to yours,” she said pleasantly.
“The one at the end of the hall. I’ll need you to be understanding about this, Jace. And I expect you to show better manners than you did last time.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
Her words punched straight into my gut. Noah. In the room right next to mine. Sleeping barely ten feet away from Lena every single night while I tried not to lose my goddamn mind?
My fists curl at my sides. “Are you serious right now?”
“Very serious. He’s family, and he’ll be living here for quite some time. I won’t have you making this house uncomfortable for—”
“Yeah, I got it. Message received.” I cut her off before I said something that would make this end up in another screaming match. “Can we talk about this later? I’m busy.”
“Busy doing what, exactly?” She asked confusedly.
“Homework.”
She gave me a look,the same one she always gave me when she knew I was full of shit. “You? Homework? Since when? And it doesn’t look like you’re doing homework.”
She tried to walk past me and enter my room, but I stepped in front of her. My shoulder tensed, blocking the gap harder.
“Is that… is that someone on your bed?”
Shit.
“No.” I shifted, closing the door a little more. “Nobody’s in here.”
“Jace Dawson, don’t lie to me.” Her voice went full mom-mode. “Is that another one of your girlfriends?”
“What? No—”
“Because the last girl you brought over nearly drank all of my vintage Bordeaux collection. Do you have any idea how much those bottles cost?”
“Mom, it’s not—”
“I thought you liked Lena,” she continued, and my stomach dropped straight through the fucking floor. “She’s such a sweet girl. Good with Martin, respectful, hardworking. I was hoping you two might—”
“Jesus Christ, Mom, not now. I don’t like her that way,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
The words tasted bitter on my tongue, and I hated them the second I said them.
Because they were a lie.
A big, ugly, necessary lie to keep Mom from barging in and seeing the Lena. But she was right there under the blankets, hearing every word.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“But you said—”
“I was wrong, okay?” I managed. “Look, Mom, Lena’s just here to tutor. That’s it. That’s all she is.”
“Then why are you being so defensive?”
“I’m not being defensive, I’m trying to get you to leave so I can finish what I was doing—”
“What were you doing, Jace?” Mom’s tone went ice-cold. Suspicious. “And why won’t you let me see inside your room?”
“Because there’s nothing to see!”
“What are you hiding in there? Let me in.”
“No!”
Silence stretched like a wire about to snap. She sighed then turned to walk away.
I gave a sigh of relief, but it was short lived, because she turned back and faced me again.
“Jace, I’m going to ask you one more time, and I want you to be honest with me as your mother. Do you have feelings for Lena?”
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack them.
Say the right thing, I thought. Say the thing that keeps Mom out. Say the thing that keeps this, whatever the fuck this is, safe.
“No, Mom. Jesus Christ. I don’t have feelings for her, okay?” The lie burned like acid. “She’s not my type. At all.”
“Not your type? But she’s lovely…”
“She’s not,” I forced out, each word feeling like I was carving it into my own chest.
“She throws herself at guys because she’s so starved for attention. Did you know she was all over Noah today? In public? After knowing him for only two seconds?”
I wanted to vomit. I wanted to punch myself in the face. I wanted to drag Lena out from under those blankets and kiss her until she forgot every single word I was saying.
But Mom was still trying to look past me, and if she saw Lena right now, her zhirt half-unbuttoned, hair wrecked, lips swollen from me, she’d lose her mind and fire her on the spot.
And then Lena’s family would lose everything. Again.
“That doesn’t sound like Lena…”
“That’s because you don’t know her like I do.” My voice grew cold, to make the story believable. “She’s always trying to get close to me, always finding excuses to touch me or be alone with me. It’s pathetic, honestly. I’ve tried to be nice about it because you hired her, but she doesn’t take a hint.”
Every syllable felt like I was stabbing Lena.
She’s going to hate me. She’s going to hate me so fucking much.
“But your grades have been improving, surely that means she must be doing something right.”
I laughed bitterly “It’s not because she’s a good tutor. It’s because I found her notes and I’ve been using them. She leaves them all over the study. Half the time she’s too distracted flirting to actually teach me anything useful.”
She gasped “Jace, that’s enough…”
“You asked, Mom. You wanted to know why I don’t like her? Because she’s clingy and inappropriate and honestly kind of pathetic. She’s so desperate to fit in that she’ll do anything for attention. Hell, she probably only agreed to tutor me because she has some weird crush and thought it would make me like her back.”
The second the words left my mouth I wanted to rip my own tongue out.
Mom was quiet for a long beat. Then, cold as steel:
“Well. I guess she isn’t as wonderful as I thought she was.”
No. No, no, no…
“Finally, you get it. Can I go now?”
“If what you’re saying is true, and best believe we will be having a serious conversation about this later, young man, then I don’t think she can continue to remain employed here.”
Fuck. That wasn’t how that was supposed to go.
My stomach twisted so hard I thought I might actually throw up. “Mom, I didn’t mean—”
“If she’s been behaving so inappropriately with you, then she cannot continue working in this house. It’s a liability. And poor Martin has gotten so attached…”
“Mom, wait—”
“We’ll discuss this later. Martin’s waiting for you both downstairs.”
Her footsteps retreated down the hall.
The door clicked shut.
I stood there for half a second, my heart pounding like I’d just run a suicide drill, before I turned around.