A Grand Romance-8

by Venus

Here is my latest installment. As always any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks again to all of you who encourage me to write.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~8:20am -- the cottage

Brenda, turned in the bed and rolled over. Stretching her arms out across the bed she reached for Jax. He wasn’t there. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked over the room, no sign of Jax. Oh, god tell me it wasn’t a dream she said to herself. She raised herself up onto one elbow and pulled a pillow tighter beneath her head. She noticed the charm on the nightstand, and smiled. She picked up the charm and clutched

it close to her heart. Jax was real, he was there, but where is he now, she wondered.

Brenda leaped out of bed, threw on her robe, and was just about to the bottom of the staircase when Jax came through the front door, his ice skates hanging over his left shoulder, and carrying his laptop in his right hand. Their eyes met, “Good

morning” he laughed through his smile.

Brenda ran towards him and threw her arms around him. She hugged him tightly and replied, “Good morning,” as her eyebrow arched.

Jax guided Brenda over to the loveseat. “I thought you would probably sleep longer so I went down to check on the Rover, to see if I could do anything to get it out of the ditch, but no luck. So I brought back my lap top and figured I’d get some work

done while you slept and I waited for the tow company.”

“I woke up and you weren’t there. For a moment I thought I had dreamed the whole night, until I saw this.” She opened up her palm to show him the charm. “Then I knew it was real.”

Jax turned to her on the loveseat and laid his hand on her leg that was draped over his. “Brenda, we need to talk about last night. You have to know that I didn’t want anything more than to check on you and make sure you were okay. It’s just when you kissed me, I lost all control.” Jax paused and brushed a strand of hair from Brenda’s face. “I’m sorry if I took advantage.”

Brenda looked at him confused. “Jax you didn’t take advantage, We both just let our guard down, and finally released all those pent up feelings we had buried so deep,” she drew in a breath and continued cautiously, “You aren’t having any regrets are you?”

Jax shifted on the loveseat and took a hold of Brenda’s hand. “I don’t regret what we did, it was beautiful, pure, and honest emotion. Expressing our feelings or knowing we have them has never been our problem Brenda. The reason we aren’t together as

husband and wife now is simple, you didn’t believe in my love enough to stay, to marry me. You left me for another.” He choked on his words, he couldn’t even say his name.

Brenda held his hand a little tighter and clenched her jaw, slightly shaking her head. “Jax I know I made mistakes. I know I should have trusted our love, your love but I didn’t know how. No one had ever accepted me for me. Accepted me without reservation, faults and all. I was never the top prize. When Miranda showed up at our wedding just moments after I had declared my love for you, and you ran to her side, comforting her in the garden, I

knew who you chose. You didn’t hesitate, you just went. Then I heard you tell you mom at the hospital that she was the love of your life. In the days after that as I felt my world come crashing in, feeling alone and abandoned you pulled further and further away from me. You didn’t want to discuss your past. You didn’t offer any explanation for not telling me about her during the time we were together other than it was just to painful. Then when

I found out that I wasn’t legally your wife, it was as if I had lost everything. You seemed more concerned about Miranda’s feelings, than mine. You didn’t seem to need me. You wouldn’t even really discuss your family with me, how you felt about the betrayal and the lies, you just closed off, acting almost as if the whole thing wasn’t affecting us. Then when I found Sonny shot up with heroin, and almost dead, I knew he needed me. With you I felt

like I was on the outside looking in, especially in relation to Miranda. All I could do was wonder what happened to our once happy life. With Sonny I saw him struggling to have a life, to pick up the pieces. I knew Miranda wanted you, and I was uncertain if you wanted her. Even after you divorced her, you kept defending her, talking to her, seeing her. Then came the whole thing with Harry and being trapped in the cave, and I didn’t know what to

do. I had betrayed you, our vows, our trust. ” Brenda had rambled rapidly, the words spilling from her, trying to explain, clarify, all the events and emotions that had led her away from Jax to Sonny.

“Brenda, I’m not laying all the blame on you. I know I had my secret, a secret that destroyed the very foundation of our relationship, our trust. I had waited since the day we had married on the yacht for you to tell me you loved me. When you did that day

of our wedding at the Quartermaines, I knew we had already communicated that to each other the evening before in New Orleans. Our hearts finally belonged to each other. I was certain in that moment that everything I had always believed love to be, was, because I felt it and I knew you did too. To have my biggest secret and regret revealed only a few moments later was like having my heart ripped out. The guilt, the betrayal, the relief, the fear,

overtook me. My world was turned upside down by everyone I had ever loved that day, but you. I wanted so much to cling to you, but I was ashamed of the events I had caused, the pain I had inflicted on Miranda, and I knew I had broken our promise of honesty. You’re right I didn’t know how I felt about Miranda, but I did know how I felt about you. There has never been a day since you became my wife on that yacht that I didn’t love you, I just

didn’t know how much or how deeply until I knew you were leaving me for Sonny.” Jax stopped and left out a slow breath, and ran his hand through his hair. “You chose him, to spend your life with, to have his children, to grow old with him. All the things that you had promised me, before Miranda came back.” He lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Jax, I felt I had to choose Sonny. We had been through so much, and then when I betrayed us in the cave, I just felt you could never forgive that. I truly believed Sonny and I could have a fairytale future. I thought it would be so simple for him to

give up the mob and we could live on this large farm upstate. I was kidding myself Jax. The issue between me and Sonny always was the mob. He didn’t have a choice to walk away, to just say, I quit. So I agreed to give up everything, was willing to leave everyone, so he could get out, so he could be safe, so we could have a future. I didn’t think it through, I didn’t look long term. I was just caught up in the whole idea of this life that I had

pictured for us from the time I was eighteen years old, I had blinders on Jax. In the past few months since Sonny left me standing at the alter, I have realized that we wouldn’t have been happy for the rest of our lives. No, we would have missed our careers, our friends, our families, and our identities. We would have grown to resent each other for the sacrifices we made to be together, and even our love would have been fractured. I am starting

to believe that Sonny realized that too, and that is why he left me, he couldn’t stand to watch us become bitter.” She shook her head and continued, “I know now that love isn’t enough to have a lasting relationship. Maybe that is the greatest lesson I have learned from all of this. I know now that first and foremost you have to be true to yourself, to be yourself, to love yourself in order to be able to give love, and trust to another. See that

is where I have always failed before. I was always trying to be what I thought everyone wanted me to be, and in doing that I lost me. I am just starting to know myself, who I am, and what I want. You have helped me reach this point. Jax you were there when I needed hope to cling on to, a pep talk, a laugh. You never turned your back on me, when it would have been so easy to do. Especially after I hurt you so much. I humiliated you by choosing

Sonny, and I know that, what I don’t understand is why you don’t hate me.”

“Brenda, from the minute you walked into the penthouse and the pinball machine went ‘tilt’ I knew my life was never going to be the same. It was as if you had turned on a switch inside of me, that had been turned off since I killed Miranda. You gave me back something I had been missing for so long. You restored my sentiment, my ability to feel emotion. When I was young seven or eight, my parents always told me I was special because I had a kind

spirit. I would bring home wounded animals, or want to help some one needy, eventhough they probably had more than I did. When I hired Mac to set the explosion to retaliate against our business rivals, and caused Miranda’s death, it was my first attempt at resolving a business dispute. See I believed it was the only course of action to take. So I chose the site, verified no one would be there to ensure no one got hurt. However someone did get hurt

and it changed my life forever. I learned from that, to look at all the options to gain advantage, not just the easy solution, or the violent one. I became cold, calculating, manipulative, and cunning to achieve the desired results. Then I met you. Your zest for life is what drew me to you, but it was the sadness and vulnerability that touched my heart. When you were involved in the hit and run, and I realized that it was deliberate, it drove me

crazy. I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt, to almost die. I guess I have always felt I needed to protect you, to keep you away from harms way. I hated you wanting to be around Sonny because I knew being around him could get you killed. I couldn’t lose someone else I loved to violence. When we came home from our honeymoon on the yacht and found out that Lily had died, I knew it could have easily have been you, and that frightened me. Then the

stalker thing happened and the gifts kept coming it was easier to believe it was Sonny then to believe someone really was after you. I failed to protect you Brenda, I should have been with you, not Miranda that day. Do you know how many times I have replayed that day over in my head, the day Harry kidnapped you?” Jax voice cracked with emotion.

“It wasn’t your fault. Harry was crazy, he was determined to hurt me. I have to be accountable for my actions. If I hadn’t dismissed the bodyguard, or tried to go get the pills, or even opened the door to Harry, or for that matter associated with Sonny

at all after we married on the yacht.......” her voice trailed off. “Jax we can’t continue to beat ourselves up over what if. We can't change the past. We do have a chance for a future if we are willing to risk it, to finally get it right. This charm can be the symbol for us to start working through this, and finding our way back to each other, that is if you want that.”

“Brenda there is nothing more I want than to know we could be complete in each others heart, I'm just not sure we can get there. So much pain and hurt has passed between us, and to have the friendship we have is truly amazing. To risk that for what we might not be able to give to each other would be the largest gamble I ever made. I'm uncertain I want to. I won’t lose you again. I couldn’t. I don’t ever want to feel I’m sharing your heart or our

bed with a memory. I don't want you to be with me just because I’m here and Sonny isn’t.” Jax was curt.

“Jax, I know I’m asking a lot for you to trust me again. I’m not wanting to be with you because Sonny isn’t here, I want to be with you because you are here. You always have been. You kept your part of the promise, you didn’t leave. You unselfishly l

let me go, and it cost you plenty. I understand why you would be cautious, reluctant. I have changed Jax. You helped me change. You have showed me time and time again what true love is, what those vows we made to each other on the yacht truly meant. You have stood by me through my darkest hours, and celebrated with me my accomplishments. You never lost faith in the person I was, or could be. You encouraged me to explore myself, to find what

you so clearly see, and to love what you love about me. I am starting to do that, with the help of Gail, Robin and you.” she took his hand and raised it to her lips.

“Brenda, I’m not sure where we go from here. I don’t know what we should do next. I don’t want to feel uneasy with each other. I want us to be open about how we’re feeling no matter what, okay?” Jax asked hesitantly.

“Well, I’m starving so how about some breakfast, and then a race across the lake? I’d love to try out those new skates you bought me.” she rubbed her stomach and laughed.

“Okay, I’ll fix some breakfast, while you go up and change.” Jax held out his hand and pulled her up from the loveseat. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist. He held her tight and twirled her around. She giggled as he

nuzzled her neck.

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish,” she teased as she kissed him gently.

Jax pulled back and looked at her straight in the eye, “Don’t tempt me Brenda or you’ll never get breakfast,” he joked. He eased her down on to the stairs, and kissed the top of her head. “Now go get ready.”

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Just my thoughts and opinions once again!

Venus

goddess of love

&

"official J&B angel"