Jax's Little Obsession

Chapter 8

Maya’s Pov

The dining room is bigger than my entire house, with a table so long I could barely see the other end of it before everyone sat down. Crystal glasses catch the light from the chandelier above us, and everything smells like expensive food I cannot even name. I smooth down the dress Penelope lent me and remind myself to breathe.

I do not want to be here. I want to be back in my small room, far away from all these rich people who look down their noses at everyone else.

“You do not have to be nervous,” Jax says quietly beside me as we take our seats.

“Easy for you to say,” I whisper back. “This is your family. I am just the girl nobody wanted at the table.”

Before he can answer, a woman with sharp cheekbones and cold eyes speaks up from across the table. She introduces herself as Paloma, and her voice drips with a politeness that does not match the look on her face.

“So, Jax,” she says, cutting into her food without looking at it. “Tell us. What exactly made you decide to bring this girl into our world? It seems rather sudden, does it not?”

“Maya is helping with something important,” Jax says evenly, but I can hear the warning underneath his calm tone.

“Helping,” Paloma repeats, like the word tastes strange in her mouth. “Is that what we are calling it now?”

Lavinia, sitting near the head of the table, offers me a smile that does not reach her eyes. “You must forgive us, dear. We simply are not used to Jax bringing home someone so… different from what we normally see here.”

“Different how?” I ask, keeping my voice steady even though my hands feel cold under the table.

“Oh, you know,” Lavinia says lightly, waving her fork in the air. “Different background. Different world. It must be quite an adjustment for you, being here among people who grew up with all this.”

I set down my glass and meet her eyes directly. “It is an adjustment,” I agree. “But I have noticed that money does not automatically make people interesting to talk to. So really, it feels about the same as anywhere else.”

Silence falls over half the table. Penelope chokes on a laugh and quickly covers it with her napkin. Dakota, sitting a few seats down, watches me with narrowed eyes, like he is studying a puzzle he has not figured out yet. He says nothing, but I can feel him paying close attention to every word coming out of my mouth.

Then a deep voice cuts through the tension. Halton, sitting at the head of the table, finally looks up from his plate, though his eyes go straight to Jax instead of me.

“The redevelopment project is still unfinished,” he says, like the conversation about me never even happened. “That mechanic is still refusing to sign over the land. You need to handle it before the investors start asking questions.”

“I am handling it,” Jax says, his jaw tightening slightly.

“Handle it faster,” Halton replies. “Stubborn people like him always cooperate eventually. You just have to find the right pressure to apply.”

My stomach twists into a knot. Handle it. Apply pressure. The words echo in my head, and suddenly I am thinking about my mother, about the contract, about how quickly Jax appeared in my life right when everything fell apart. A cold, sick feeling spreads through my chest as pieces start connecting in my mind that I did not want to connect.

I stay quiet for the rest of dinner, barely tasting the food in front of me, my mind spinning with questions I am too afraid to ask out loud in front of his entire family.

The moment dinner ends, I do not wait. I walk straight out onto the terrace behind the house, needing air, needing space, needing something that is not covered in crystal and cruelty. Jax follows me out a few minutes later, his footsteps slow and careful, like he already knows what is coming.

“Was I part of the project?” I ask, turning to face him before he can say anything first.

He does not answer right away, and that silence tells me everything.

“Answer me,” I say, my voice shaking now. “Was I ever just a piece of some business deal to you? Is that why you showed up when my mother got sick? Because you needed my father’s workshop, or my cooperation, or whatever it is your family actually wants?”

Jax exhales slowly, running a hand through his hair. “Yes,” he finally says. “In the beginning, yes. You were someone I needed to handle for the project. Your father’s land matters to what my family is building, and you were the easiest way to get to it.”

The words hit me like a slap, even though some part of me already suspected it. “So this whole time,” I say, my voice breaking despite my best effort to sound strong, “the contract, the university, all of it, it was just business. I was just another problem for you to solve.”

“That was true at first,” he says quickly, stepping closer. “But it is not true anymore, Maya. Something changed.”

“What changed?” I ask, crossing my arms tightly, like I can hold myself together with just my own hands. “Because from where I am standing, nothing looks different. You still got what you wanted. I am still stuck in a contract I did not choose.”

He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes searching my face like he is trying to find the right words somewhere inside himself. The silence stretches on so long I almost turn to leave, but then he speaks, quiet and certain.

“You did,” he says. “You changed, Maya. After the race, after watching you refuse to back down even when you had every reason to be terrified, something in me shifted. I stopped thinking about the land. I stopped thinking about the project. I started thinking about you.”

My heart pounds so loud I am sure he can hear it. “That is a very convenient thing to say right now,” I whisper, even though part of me desperately wants to believe him.

“I know how it sounds,” he says, stepping even closer, close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him in the cool night air. “I know I do not deserve you trusting me after everything. But I am telling you the truth. This stopped being about business a long time ago.”

I stare up at him, my chest tight with a mixture of anger and something softer that I refuse to name. Everything about this situation is complicated, tangled up in contracts and family business and secrets I still do not fully understand. But standing here, under the dark sky with the whole Worth family somewhere behind those glass doors, all I can focus on is the way he is looking at me, like I actually matter to him now.

“I do not know if I believe you,” I say quietly.

“That is fair,” he says. “But I am not going anywhere until you do.”