The Forgotten Heiress novel Chapter 42

Jessica nodded and did just that. She told them about Nick's return, her mom remembered him from months ago, and his first encounter with Shane. Riley helped her recount yesterday's altercation between them and Shane. Upon hearing about it, her parents became furious and Christian and Axel assured them that Nick had taken care of him.

Jessica made a note to ask them what they meant by that at a later time and continued with her retelling. She glossed over the details of their bathroom stay, Nick spending the night and the way he'd marked her.

Thinking about the mark, she itched to run her fingers over it but she didn't dare for fear of drawing unwanted attention to it. She no longer felt pain but she felt it there, solid like the weight of a necklace lying around her neck. She felt as if a piece of Nick was with her and would never leave her.

Jessica divulged everything she learned from Nick about shifters; Danielle and Riley made sounds of amazement but otherwise stayed quite, like everyone else in the family they'd had months to get used to the idea that shifters were real, and Jessica finished with his wish for her to live with him.

"Live with him?!" Her mom shook her head "No, you are too young."

Jessica sighed. "Mom, you were my age when you met my father."

"No, I was older."

"Only by a couple of months." She retorted and then took a deep breath to calm down.

"You don't know him," Her mom continued to argue; "we don't know him."

"Mom, you didn't know my father that long either, you told me so."

Lauren gave her husband a sideways glance and fidgeted nervously in her seat. "That was different." She confided with finality in her tone.

Lauren didn't feel comfortable talking about Cade at the moment. She didn't know how to explain her relationship with Cade to her daughter and the rest of them without hurting her husband's feelings. She just couldn't explain the deep and never ending love she felt for Cade to her husband and children.

Jessica looked over her shoulder at Christian and Axel. "I need a minute alone with my family, mind stepping outside for a couple?"

"Why?" Christian asked her, "We'll still hear you." He pointed at his ears to remind her of their superior hearing.

Jessica groaned, slouched back on her seat and closed her eyes, trying to figure out a solution. "Did you mean it?" She finally asked after a couple of seconds of thinking and failing to find an answer to her dilemma.

"Is that really how you feel?" Her mom jumped in, leaning forward in her seat, "like you have no other choice?"

Jessica sighed. "Mom."

"Because if you do," her mom continued, "then we will do everything we can to get you out of this. You don't have to go anywhere."

Jessica got up, went to kneel in front of her mom, and reached for her hands. "Mom, this is it." She whispered with conviction. "This is my chance. What I've been looking for this whole time. There is no way I am going to let it slip away. Living with you and getting to know you has been great, it helped me learn about myself" She placed a palm over her chest, "but there is still another half of me that is closed off from me. I have to go."

For the last couple of months they'd been looking, to no avail, for anyone who could answer all her questions about her gifts and she'd finally found him. Like she'd just told her mom, there was no way she was letting her chance slip away. She would do it, even if it meant putting up with the egotistical maniac.

"Living with some guy is a small price to pay," Jessica continued, "and when I think I've learned everything I need to learn I'll find a way out of the deal." She shrugged, making it sound easier than she thought it really would be, as if the thought alone wasn't splitting her in two.

Axel and Christian looked at each other, wondering if they should tell her that Nick was too possessive to ever let her go. Christian raised an eyebrow in question and Axel shook his head, as her bodyguards they had to do what was best for her and he believed that was Nick. No need to scare her into running from him.