The Blackmail Bride

Chapter 12

Phobia

I never believed good girls always fell for the bad boys.

To me, that was absolutely ridiculous. Like, why? What kind of nonsensical thinking would prompt a "good" girl, or person in general, to specifically chase after a person the complete underside of their beliefs and moral code of conduct. Or, in my setting, why the hell would I want to be with a guy that's slept with everyone within a hundred-mile radius, who's made clear from the beginning of his lack of respect for me and would most probably go out of his way to get under my skin from now and into the farthest future?

It made no sense. None whatsoever.

If I honestly ran through my thoughts since puberty, I didn't believe I'd actually ever established a type. I generally talked to boys in my own school, did obligatory greetings to my daddy's business partners, had that occasional run-through with that boy-next-door, maybe even aesthetically admitted to myself that the guy in front of me was attractive...

And that was the end of it for me. I mean it was cute in movies and rom-com never failed to make me feel gooey. But I'd also seen enough divorce cases, and domestic battery to believe reality is far too dysfunctional from the big-screen portrayals.

I was okay with that.

Plus knowing how my life was actually planned out, arranged-marriage and all, I'd told myself to set up realistic standards. While love seemed really beautiful, mutual respect was enough and I would live with happily.

Then there was Jace Ezekiel Black.

Who basically was labelled a bad boy in his own right. A stereo-type supposed to be.

Yet in this moment, right as we re-entered the revolving doors and into the safety of their building, I was actually thinking things that maybe should never cross my mind to avoid confusing myself.

Jake Black is bad as general as the term is.

However, he was contradiction after contradiction. For where his gray eyes were always cold, his arms around me were warm this second, seeping steadily into my system. Where I found he always spoke callous words as if deliberately to get a reaction out of me, his actions were unconsciously careful, responsible in their own right. And that while the general consensus of him was irresponsible, I found myself leaning into him for support... at this very moment. There was an air of carelessness surrounding him, but he was easy to pick on people with just a look and judge their character as if with propriety except for where I was concerned.

It was foolish on my part, but those traits somehow was pleasing to a sixth-sense I didn't know I had.

He appealed to me in a way that I didn't think was healthy to actually allow.

As he directed me into one of the waiting elevators, his hold was steady, his pace set to accommodate mine, I couldn't help transferring a little more of my weight into him and he accepted it in stride.

It was fright, I told myself as I did what I was doing, just a natural reaction to the scare, that irrational phobia that I couldn't handle by myself and he just happened to be available.

I repeated that in my head as a mantra.

He was just available.

That was all.

There was nothing remotely special about him.

We got in the elevator, and the doors shut in front of us.

And I saw our reflections on those steel doors.

The view of his coat around my shoulders, his arm around my waist, my hand that I didn't know was gripping his sleeve and generally just how close we were to each other... it scared me more than reporter did.