Jack cursed himself for not thinking before speaking.

Solana lurched to her feet. "Did you check up on me?" Her hand swung in the air as she paced before him.

Not sure how to diffuse the situation, Jack slowly rose. "It's not as bad as it sounds. My investigators did a basic background check." She opened her mouth, probably to yell at him, and he held up his palms. "It's standard protocol to vet anyone I get involved with."

Her mouth closed, but she still resembled a scared rabbit, ready to bolt. Hazel eyes flitted to the door and the collar of his shirt itched again. Jack denied the compulsion to secure her to him. "I have to be careful. There's the company's reputation to protect. My team had to make sure you weren't scamming me." Also, he was searching for an angle to convince her to sleep with him, but Jack decided not to mention that at this particular moment.

She froze in place. "I'm not like that." Fire laced the hazel eyes he adored.

This fire he had to quell before it got out of hand. "I know." He inched closer to her, his fingers brushing against the edge of the dressing gown's cuff. "I trust you."

His words had the desired effect, the flames receding, her face softening. "You do?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

Now her eyes searched his. "No, you wouldn't."

Certain she wouldn't run, he gave her space, shuffling back to the couch. "How did..." Jack didn't know how to ask this question without insulting Solana.

"The usual way." Her jaw jutted forward as she plopped down beside him, close enough their arms touched. "They had sex."

The hurt rolling off Solana made Jack's teeth ache. What he wouldn't give to have a time machine and go back and change whatever happened to Wendel, give Solana the upbringing she deserved. "How did your parents meet?"

He'd said something right because her chin no longer resembled stone. "My mother met my father at his yacht club. His family didn't approve of the heir to the Wilde fortune dating the staff." She side eyed him, like she knew Jack's family would have been the same.

The inference sat like a hot stone on his chest, but she wasn't wrong. Growing up, his uncle had drilled into Jack the importance of finding the right person to date, to marry, to bear him an heir. With James gone, Wolfe tried to fill the void, assessing anyone who lasted longer than a night with Jack. Wolfe would be drilling into Solana's kindergarten records by now, given the interest Jack had shown in Solana.

On Monday, he'd tell Wolfe to back off. Solana was not a product to be inspected. She was a woman to be adored.

"My... grandfather," Solana continued, "forbade him from dating her. Apparently, they were in love and continued to see each other, ignoring the advice of everyone around them."

She stared at him, and Jack had the distinct impression she was drawing the same conclusion about them. Did she suspect Wolfe wasn't pleased at Jack's involvement with her? They'd only met the one time in his lobby weeks ago and had barely spoken to each other. If she was making assumptions, Jack decided she needed clarity now.

"In our world, those around you, especially family, mean well." Jack felt like he was walking a tightrope. One slip and they'd both fall. His fingers dug into the leather of the couch cushion. "It doesn't mean they're right. Your father must have felt the same way."

The tension in Jack's shoulders eased when the corners of Solana's mouth twitched. "Yes. My mother insists he was the love of her life, and my father felt the same. They refused to be separated and decided to marry. Not telling anyone, they eloped to Vegas."

Vegas, where Solana landed when she ran away from LA three years ago. Was she chasing the ghost of her father? He knew something about holding on to the places loved ones lived. An hour away from this condo, on a cliff by the ocean, sat an empty mansion, once inhabited by a loving couple and their only son. Even though he couldn't bring himself to live there, Jack kept the property, maintained the house, held on to the emotional attachment. His ex-wife had wanted to move in, but he bought her an estate in Beverly Hills instead, insisting she have everything new and shiny.

"His parents flipped out when they discovered the deception." Solana spat the words out. "They tried to make him leave the country to separate them."

"Did he go?"

Sadness draped Solana's face, and it was hard for Jack to breathe. She shook her head. "Didn't get the chance. The morning he was to leave, his parents found him unconscious in bed. A brain hemorrhage, according to the coroner. Something he probably had his whole life, a ticking time bomb in his head." Glassy eyes blinked. "My mother wasn't allowed to attend the funeral, the family refusing to acknowledge the marriage."

He couldn't stay away anymore. She might refuse him, but he had to try. The robe crinkled, exposing more skin as he drew her close. "I'm so sorry." This didn't excuse Valentia for abandoning her daughter, but Jack knew a little about the lengths one will go to in order to avoid hurt, reopening old wounds.

Solana curled into him, her head resting against the hollow below his neck. "Later, when she found out she was pregnant, Valentia insisted they know. The family denied my existence as well, refusing to believe I was Wendel's daughter." Jack crushed her to him. He'd known Michelle's father most of his life, met him in social circles. Wealth and power went together like gin and tonic, and the patriarch had both in spades. The thought of him denying Solana anything made his chest burn.

"They claimed I was an attempt to extort money." Her body shuddered. "Didn't want their bloodline tainted."

Jack closed his eyes, soaking up the pain in Solana's voice. Her tough exterior, her sassy attitude, all made sense now. Part of what he loved about her was born of being shunned by the very people who should have loved her. He swore there and then he'd move heaven and earth to make things right for her. Whatever she wanted, he'd do. Take down Wilde industries if necessary.

He branded her forehead with the silent promise and a kiss. "Why didn't your mother get a paternity test?"

"She didn't have to. They were legally married. She'd never been with anyone but him. She knew I was his child. They should have believed her." Solana's muscles turned to steel. Jack longed to do something to take away the pain, if only temporarily. But he came up empty, cursing he was no good at this. Ethan would know what to do, what to say.

"When I was born, my mother put his name as the father on my birth certificate. The Wilde's pulled strings and had it reissued, taking any connection to the Wilde family away. My mother insisted I use the name, refusing to let her love for Wendel be obliterated by their ignorance."

Solana had to pay the price for their love her whole life. Jack squeezed her to him like he could wring all the wrongs out of her.

"I met him once. My grandfather." Solana's body tensed. "Valencia dragged me in front of him at your friend's place, The Diamond Club. He had us thrown out. I swore that day I'd never ask them for anything. Michelle was just another rich friend of yours until she told me the story of her grandfather's boat. The Wilde's are obsessed with yachts and I didn't want to believe the woman I was talking to, the woman I liked, was one. Then she confirmed it. I... I promised myself if I ever met one of my family members, I'd give them a piece of my mind. Make them regret treating my mother that way." She buried her face in his chest. "Instead, I panicked. Ran. Just like my mother."

"Hey, you're not like your mother." Jack searched for something, anything, to say. "I don't know the woman, but I've witnessed you take on more responsibility than any one person should. With your grandmother, Luc, Abraham. You hold your family together." He stroked her back. "The Wilde's are fools for not including you in their family dynamic."

"She has my life," Solana whispered.

"Believe me, you don't want her life." Mathew was a good enough fellow, but Jack knew Michelle didn't love the man. She'd married him because her father pressured her into settling down, carry on the family name. The same pressure Jack had felt for a Blackthorne heir to honour his uncle resulted in a failed attempt at manipulating his ex-wife into having his child, even though they'd hated each other at that point. "It may look pretty on the outside, full of opulence and extravagance, but Michelle's so bound up in strings she can barely move."

Solana shifted out of his arms, and watery eyes found his. "Like you?"

How did she see this?

"You have all this pressure on you, Jack, to perform, trying to be the ideal head of the corporation. But what kind of life is this?" Her fingers cupped his cheeks. "Are you ever happy?"

"I'm happy right now. Here with you."

Hey D.L. here. Now you know what's been hiding in Solana's heart. Does her dislike of weathly playboys make sense now?

Do you think she trusts Jack?