Meant to Be Yours: New Adult BBW College Romance (Derek and Jaike Book 2) (5 page)

Marcy sighed over the phone. “I get you. I really get where you’re coming from. It’s a big step, you just broke up, you’re one of those irritatingly independent girls who hate having a guy spend money on you—”

Jaike choked out a laugh. “Are you really trying to comfort me?”

“I made you laugh, didn’t I?” Marcy retorted. “Take deep breaths, Jaike. I just want you to relax and calm down before you end up fainting like you did in our freshmen year—”

Knowing Marcy had a point, Jaike forced herself to take deep breaths, concentrating hard on calming herself down.

“Calm now?”

“Kind of.”

“Then…listen to me first. I just want you to listen, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Derek did a bad thing, not asking you first. But – can you blame him? We both know he’s wanted you for a long time. Now that he has you, he probably wants to make sure that you’ll be his forever.”

“I get that, but…”
 

“Can’t you just be happy about having a guy like Derek wanting you so much? Don’t you think it’s great that he doesn’t even care if people find out how much he wants you?”

Jaike tried to speak, but instead she found her mind assaulted with a memory from the past, a nightmare she had once lived and wished she could forget. But she never could.

****

Jaike was seated alone at the dining table, trying to pretend she couldn’t hear anything.

“Please, not with my child around.” It was Diana, her mother, begging. Her voice sounded nervous and eager to please at the same time.
 

It was a tone Jaike was now used to hearing, a tone she hated because it meant her mother wasn’t happy. These days, Uncle Tony always made her mother unhappy – even when he wasn’t around, he somehow had the power to make Diana sad.

“If you really love Tony, you’ll do what I asked. Remember what he said? What I command is his command.”

Jaike shouldn’t be able to hear those words. In all fairness to the man who was with her mother, he was doing his best to keep his tone down. But it was pointless. Their kitchen and dining room had an open layout, with the breakfast counter where Diana and the man was only a few feet away from the table. And even if they had been standing farther away, that wouldn’t have made a difference either. It was as if her ears had become extra sensitive with everything that had to do with Diana.

“Let me just get my daughter out of here—”

“I want her here. It makes things more exciting, don’t you think?”

Jaike squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the telltale sound of fabric ripping. Was it her mother’s skirt? Was it her mother’s panties? Did it even matter? She knew what would happen next.

“Please…” Diana’s gasp sounded like it was torn out of her.

The man grunted, as if relishing the sound of her mother’s pain. It was followed by swooshing, rhythmic sounds, signifying something that Jaike shouldn’t have understood…but she did.

It was another man having sex with her mother. And her mother was doing it because of Uncle Tony. That was what she couldn’t understand at all. Why did Uncle Tony want other men doing this to Diana? Why did all the men think they could get away with what they were doing to Diana? Why did they never bother to ask Diana for permission? Why?

“Do you want it, bitch?”

Now, Jaike could hear their bodies pounding hard against the counter.

“Please, my daughter…”

Jaike squeezed her eyes shut, but it was no use. The tears started to fall. Opening her eyes, she forced herself to eat her cereal. She didn’t want Diana to suffer more.

“See? She’s still eating. She can’t hear us. Now say you want it.”

Diana started to choke loudly.

Jaike’s hold over her spoon tightened. The other man was trying to strangle her mother. She wanted to cry, wanted to run to her mother to make it stop, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. If she did, that was what would kill Diana.
 

The knowledge that Jaike knew what was happening, from the very start.

“You’re tough, bitch. That’s what I like so much about you. So much spirit. But in the end, you’ll do what I say. We both know that.”

Another gasp from Diana, this time filled with even greater pain.

“If you don’t say it, I’ll tell Tony that you don’t love him anymore. That you don’t want him as your Master—”

Silence.

Jaike’s tears ran down faster on her cheek. Please don’t say it, Mom. Please, please, please.
 

But then she heard it.

“I want this.”

The pounding resumed.

Slowly, Jaike forced herself to continue eating.

****

“Are you there, Jaike?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” She wasn’t surprised when she realized she was crying. Remembering that always made the tears fall, and she doubted there’d ever come a day it wouldn’t. Even now, it hurt. Even now, it terrified her. She used to think she would never be like Diana, letting a man like Anthony Carras rule and ruin her life as he pleased, but since she met Derek Christopoulos?

She knew now.
 

She was her mother’s daughter.
 

“I don’t want this, Marcy. I don’t want him moving in with me. I don’t like that he didn’t ask – I hate it. I hate the way he’s taking over my life and that…” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t make herself admit out loud that she was
happy.
She was stupidly happy that Derek Christopoulos wanted to move in with her.
 

“I wish he was like Angelo,” she burst out. Guilt nipped at her as she said the words, but she ignored it. “Angelo would never do something like this. He always respected my wishes, he was always considerate. If I said ‘no’, he wouldn’t push. He was a much better man…” She trailed off as the hairs on her nape stood up all of a sudden.

Oh God.

Slowly, Jaike made herself turn around, and her worst fears were realized.

Derek stood behind her, and he was not alone. His friends were all with him, and it was clear on their faces they had heard every word she said.

Chapter Three

Jaike waited for Derek to say something – do anything that would give her a clue about what he was thinking and feeling. There was a crippling, sick feeling in her stomach, and she felt like throwing up.

I wish he was like Angelo.

He was a much better man…

The words repeated itself inside Derek’s mind, and all of it left an acid taste on his tongue. She wished he was like Angelo?
Bullshit.
If that was true, she would never have fallen apart so easily in his arms last night. If that was true, she would never have let him call her his. If that was fucking true, this passion between them – this drugging, all-consuming, obsessive passion – it would have died the moment she said ‘yes’ to another man and turned her back on him.

Angelo Valencia III might be a better man than Derek, with the way he was so fucking correct at all times, but he sure as hell knew Angelo could never be the man Jaike wanted and needed.

Derek, and only Derek, could be
that
man.

His hooded gaze went to Jaike, and his chest squeezed at how pale she looked. Stubborn, stubborn woman. It was so fucking clear what she wanted to do. Her eyes were begging him for forgiveness, her body quivering in her effort not to go to him. Why was she so damn stubborn?

Around him, his friends were silent, all of them able to read between the lines and patiently waiting for their cue from him.

Your call,
his friends’ stances were telling him. Did he want them to forget this? Remember this? Make it awkward for the girl standing so stiffly in front of them?

Finally, Derek said, “Jaike.”

Tears stung Jaike’s eyes as she heard Derek say her name. Why did she feel so damn happy just because he had said her name? Slowly, she clutched her chest, not liking the way her heart throbbed so painfully against it.
 

She had just shamed him in front of his friends. Didn’t he know that? Shouldn’t he be punishing her now? Shouldn’t he be leaving her now?

When Derek no longer said anything, she couldn’t help it. “What is it?” Oh God, she sounded so militant – so irritated when she knew she was the one who was wrong.
 

He said quietly, “Just take it back.”

She stared at him, stricken.
 

“That’s all you have to do, baby. Take it back and admit the truth.”

Desperately, she searched his gaze for a sign of deception. He couldn’t mean it. No man could be as forgiving as him. No
Master…
no
Dom
could let her mistake go just like that.

But when she looked into his blue-gray eyes, all she could see was the truth.
 

And something else, something she was too terrified to name.

Jaike tried to make her throat work, but the words just couldn’t come out. Anytime now, she thought numbly. Anytime now and he would punish her, would shout at her for being fickle, would hurt her—

But Derek did
none
of those.

Instead, he simply turned away.

She started to cry silently. She wanted to call him back so badly.
I’m sorry, please, come back, forgive me. I’m begging you. Please come back—

But memories of Diana were playing in her mind again, working like a cage that kept the words locked inside her throat, never to be spoken.
 

“Jaike?”

When she looked up, she found herself staring up at Christien di Luca. She expected to see judgment or even disgust and fury in his gaze, and she wouldn’t have blamed him. But instead, she saw…sympathy.

It made her cry harder.

Behind him, she saw that Derek was too far away to hear her now. She would have to shout if she wanted him to hear her. His other friends were with him, Reid Chalkias and Nick Christakos, and both of them were as silent as he was as they walked away.

When Christien saw where Jaike was looking, he asked quietly, “Do you want me to call him back for you?”

She shook her head, still crying. No matter how much she wanted to say yes, she knew that it was something she alone should do.

“If it makes any difference…I had never heard Derek happier than when he called us last night about moving in with you.”

The words made Jaike want to sink to her knees and bawl her eyes out.

“I don’t know exactly what he feels for you, but one thing I am certain of – you matter to him, more than anything else.”

****

“And you haven’t heard from him since then?” Marcy whispered, wide-eyed. Both of them were seated at the bleachers, having finished doing their laps.

Jaike shook her head. “Not a peep.” She, too, whispered, knowing that everywhere she went, there were always people looking and trying to listen in on her conversations. It was something she was slowly getting used to.

“You’re not going to apologize and take it back?”

“Why should I?” She shrugged, trying but failing to sound indifferent. “It’s his fault for eavesdropping.”

Marcy only raised a brow.

The look made her feel even more defensive, and she huddled more deeply under the terry robe she wore over her swimsuit. “What am I going to apologize for?” Jaike couldn’t meet her friend’s gaze as she uttered the words, knowing it for the lie it was.

Below them, the other students in their class were starting to leave, with only a handful left in the pool. Even their swimming coach was gathering her stuff from the front-row bleachers, and the sight of it made Jaike feel depressed. This was her last class for the day, and after it she had nowhere to go back to except home.

Funny how her home no longer felt like hers now.