“I don’t understand how he ended up that way. You and Mom have the perfect marriage. He should be settling down and starting a family, not sticking his dick in every open hole.”
The thoughtful look on her father’s face gave no reassurance. If anything, his expression held an air of sadness. Then he dismissed her without a single explanation or affirmation that what she said was true.
“You’re going to have your hands full, Doctor Jones.” Grant turned and walked away without giving Jessica a second look.
Her jaw dropped to the floor.
“Don’t.” Luke pressed two fingers below her chin to close her mouth.
She batted his hand away. “I’m tired of everyone saying ‘don’t’ before I have a chance to say anything, like I’m so fucking predictable. You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“True. But I know what you’re thinking and your words only have a two-second delay from your thoughts.”
Jessica planted her fists on her hips. “Funny, I thought you were a psychiatrist not a psychic. But please, by all means tell me what I was thinking.”
Luke waited to speak because his words had more than a two-second delay from his thoughts.
“And don’t you fucking smirk at me, Jones!”
His lips pulled tight, fighting said smirk. As only total-control Luke could do, he took a deep breath, composed himself, and channeled his inner shrink.
“I was in the middle of composing a speech to yet again reassure you that we are Luke and Jessica, not Grant and Sunny and not Jude and every woman he’s used to suppress what’s really going on inside him. But you’re so mad at me I now think this is not about you doubting our future, I think …”
She leaned in, dying to hear his brilliant explanation. “You think what?”
Then it appeared. Fucking smirk.
“I think you’re jealous Jude has it anywhere and anyway he wants. He doesn’t abide by any set of rules or moral expectations.”
“W-what? You think I’m jealous … of him?”
“Are you not? You’ve been undressing me with your eyes since I put on this suit and tie. You’re rarely censored anyway, but tonight you’ve been dropping f-bombs like marbles rolling off a table. I know you want to take me in the men’s restroom and have your way with me. I bet you’d use this red tie to restrain my hands behind my back before riding me, whip in one hand, a fist full of my hair in the other.”
The only man who could render her speechless, did it again. He was right. She had an anger inside that festered, but the real reason for it had not seeped into her conscience. It wasn’t PMS. It was just a feeling, an undefined feeling. Her emotions were an effect without a cause. Jessica hated that feeling.
However, her inability to define what it was did not hinder her ability to know what it was not. And it was not the need to take Luke into the hotel restroom and sexually dominate him. She knew it and so did he. Luke Jones was so much more than a doctor and a man. He was a phenomenon—someone who simply existed in life for Jessica. Destiny was real and it stood before her in a sharp black suit, red tie, and argyle socks.
The anger evaporated, giving way to a smile meant only for the man who saved her from her own insanity by drowning it in his love. “I worship the ground you walk on.”
A blinding smile grew along his face as he pulled her into his arms and whispered in her ear, “Impossible. When I’m with you my feet don’t touch the ground.”
*
Luke played it cool like he wasn’t counting down the days—to the exact second—until Jessica would be his wife. Holding her together to get to the altar seemed to be his biggest obstacle. Every day she fought the demons that threatened to steal their happiness, the ones that haunted her with self-doubt that happily ever after existed.
It didn’t really take a degree in psychiatry to see that Jude was all kinds of fucked-up. Why? Luke didn’t know, and Jessica didn’t seem to have any clue either. However, her parents seemed to be hiding something. He’d seen it in Sunny’s eyes the day she and Jessica had their infidelity argument. Grant confirmed it by not reassuring Jessica, his precious baby girl, that he and Sunny had the perfect marriage. The coward didn’t even look at her. Luke knew she saw it too, but denial buffered reality from her heart.
“Hi, sweetie.” Sunny hugged Jessica before everyone took a seat at the large round table adorned with cranberry topiaries alternating with votives and cylinder champagne flutes with a single evergreen sprig.
“Mom, everything looks amazing.”
Luke pulled out her chair then leaned down and kissed her exposed neck as he scooted her forward. “That smile looks much better on your lovely face,” he whispered.