After a moment or so, Jennifer rolled off of him. "So we talked to my father and told him about our engagement. What about your family?"
Jonathan put his hands behind his head, stretching a little. "Max already knows we're engaged," he told her.
Jennifer cocked her head curiously. "Max is your only family?"
He hummed in confirmation. "Max and now you." He couldn't look at her just then. He knew this conversation was coming. Knew he couldn't postpone it indefinitely. And Jennifer deserved to know. Most people didn't know the whole story, and he wouldn't ever tell them. It was no one's business. But Jennifer should know. She would know all of him one day, and this was how they would start.
She reached out and placed her hand on his bare chest in the gap of his robe, slowly rubbing him comfortingly. "Did…?" Her voice was slightly strangled. Like maybe there was a lump of emotion in her throat. Jonathan really couldn't look at her now. Couldn't bear her being upset.
And so Jonathan told his story. "I was three when I was taken to the Mission Street orphanage in San Francisco. There's no real record of my parents. I only know they died. I don't know how. But I was at Mission Street until Max found me when I was fifteen."
"Found you?"
This was about the part where he'd want to get up and shrug it off and make some off-handed remark to brush it all under the rug. But Jennifer deserved better. "I was an orphan and no one cared about me. Including me. I was headed down a pretty bad path at the time. Max made me finish school. He helped me get my first job and open my first bank account. I probably would have been in prison or dead before I turned twenty if it weren't for him," he said candidly.
Jennifer shifted on the bed again, this time moving closer to where Jonathan lay. She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his cheek. "He certainly raised you right."
He smiled at that. "Everything I've ever done in the world, I owe to him," Jonathan mused aloud. "Even my name."
"Your name?"
"They called me Charlie at the orphanage. There was an older boy called Jonathan, and he didn't like having another Jonathan around, so they used my middle name, Charles, instead. I never liked it. So when Max first asked me my name and I grumbled saying Charlie, he asked what that was all about. I told him my first name was Jonathan, and he always called me Jonathan after that. First person who ever listened to me about what I wanted or needed."
Jonathan's voice cracked at the end there, and he couldn't just lie still anymore and pretend like he wasn't affected by it all. He sat up and scrubbed his face in his hands. Normally, he could keep his cool just fine. That was who he was. Jonathan Hart, titan of industry, calm and cool and charming no matter what, smiling and happy and kind to everyone he met. It had taken a lot of years to build up that image and to live the truth of it. He'd come a long way from the mixed-up, angry, hurt kid he used to be. That was all behind him.
At least, he thought it was until it came welling up like this, and he was painfully aware that he was still that kid far more than he wanted to admit. He still didn't have anyone who really knew him or cared about him besides Max. He still didn't want to get close to anyone because then he might disappoint them. He still couldn't bear the thought of loving anyone in case they left him all alone once again.
But here he was, going against every single survival instinct he'd built up over the course of his whole life. He was getting close to Jennifer and loving her like crazy. He was telling her the truth of his past and laying his heart bare. She had told him that she trusted him, despite what reason might say about accepting a marriage proposal after knowing a person for two days. And he believed her. And he trusted her, too. That's why he had proposed to her. That's why he was with her now, telling her all this.
Jennifer sat up with him and took one of his hands in both of hers. She brought it to her lips, reverently kissing his knuckles. He finally looked at her, and the expression in her eyes behind unshed tears was so tender, it almost broke him in two.
"So you've got a family," she said. "Max and me. And we aren't ever gonna let you go. I know we both love you very much."
Jonathan didn't have words. He couldn't say a single thing that would have any depth of feeling to tell her what it meant to him to have her accept and understand him this way. To tell her, yet again, that he loved her, just wasn't enough.
And so Jonathan did not say anything. He just gathered her in his arms and held her, pressing his face to her neck and breathing her in. Jennifer held him tight and rubbed his back.
Jennifer had been the one to end their embrace after a little while. She told Jonathan to call Max and tell him that he'd stay at her apartment with them in New York so they could all get used to living together. And she said that she was going to take a shower while he did that.
Really, she just needed to have a few minutes to herself to process all that had happened in the last fifteen minutes between her conversation with her father to the things that Jonathan revealed to her.
She turned on the faucet in the shower and pulled the pajama shirt off over her head. Jennifer took a moment while the water heated up to look at herself in the mirror. She had blotches on her neck and chest as well as bruises forming on her hips. That must have been from when Jonathan held her down before they ate breakfast today, keeping her from bucking against him too aggressively. She'd been out of her mind with what his mouth had done to her. It was absolutely incredible, and she couldn't wait for a repeat performance.
Jennifer vaguely wondered if she should feel something different, seeing the marks he left on her body. But all she felt was pride. Pride over knowing how delicious it had felt for him to make all those marks and pride over inspiring even-keel Jonathan Hart into such an erotic frenzy that he'd do all that. They'd only been engaged for about twenty-four hours, but Jennifer was already convinced that they'd have a long, happy marriage. How could they not with passion like this?
But as she got under the hot shower spray to clean the hairspray from her hair, the residual makeup from her face, and the sweat and fluid of lovemaking off her body, Jennifer was reminded of what her father had said. He didn't doubt her, but he was surprised. Hell, Jennifer was surprised, too. It was unlike her to fall hard and fast like this. But she had meant what she told Jonathan. She trusted him. She trusted him and she knew him.
And oh, what he'd revealed to her about his past and his family had just about broke her heart. The idea that he had been such a lonely, unloved boy made her ache. And to grow up to be so warm and kind in spite of all that had happened to him as an unwanted orphan was nothing short of a miracle. The miracle that was Jonathan Hart. People who had experienced cruelty far too often turned cruel themselves. Without love and care, a person could turn hard and cold. Jonathan didn't.
Jonathan had said he turned out like this because of Max, and Jennifer could believe it. She could see now that she owed Max her happiness. Because Max was the reason Jonathan became the man that Jennifer had fallen in love with. She would need to find some time very soon to talk to Max on her own, to get to know him and to thank him for all he'd done for Jonathan over the years. He was even more special than she'd initially thought.
Jennifer also realized that her initial thoughts about Jonathan Hart—that he was a man who did not get close to many people, who used his charm to keep them at arm's length—was entirely accurate. She had seen firsthand the toll it took on him to tell her the truth about being Charlie the orphan until Max had come along and helped him grow into Jonathan the man. He had been so alone and had proved himself a success in spite of the odds being against him.
And Jennifer realized how strange and wonderful it was that they were so very much the same. She had grown up on an estate in Maryland rather than an orphanage in San Francisco, but her father had always travelled so much. And her mother got sick when Jennifer was still a child. When she died, Jennifer was sent away to boarding school. She saw Dad on holidays. She never lived anywhere for more than a couple months at a time before she had to pack up her whole life and go somewhere else. She had friends and teachers and other relatives who loved her, but no one ever really took the time to know her except Dad. And he was never around. Jennifer had spent the last twenty years of her life, ever since losing her mother, being more alone than anything else. It hadn't bothered her, really. She'd made it through life just fine. She was successful and happy.
It struck her, though, listening to Jonathan talk about Max being his family that Jennifer wasn't far off the same boat. Cousins and aunts and uncles that she saw occasionally, Pa being far away. Every home and family she'd ever known had been temporary. What would it be like to move to Los Angeles and have Jonathan as her husband? To have that be permanent?
She shook her head, dispelling the worries. She and Jonathan would talk about it all at some point, just as they'd talked about everything thus far. They had time. The rest of today and tomorrow in London and then a week in New York. They would figure it all out together, just as Jonathan had promised.
Jennifer squeezed the excess water out of her hair and stepped out of the shower. There weren't robes in the bathroom, and she didn't really want to put the same thing back on, so she wrapped a towel around her body and left the bathroom like that. She figured Jonathan wouldn't mind.
He smiled as soon as he saw her. She was never going to get tired of that. "Feeling better?"
"Feeling very clean, thank you," she answered. She didn't know if she was feeling better, per se. She wasn't sure how she was feeling other than the joyful knowledge that they were in love. "Did you talk to Max?"
"I did. He's going to have some food sent up for us along with champagne, since it's already after teatime. I told him we weren't going to leave the room today, but I think tomorrow we'll have to."
She nodded. "I have to go to my apartment and pack some things before we leave on Monday. I don't have any clothes here," she reminded him.
He crossed towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Well, I'll be disappointed if you put on any clothes before absolutely necessary tomorrow. I'm very happy with you just like this."
She put her arms over his shoulders, stepping closer into his embrace. "Oh yeah? You like me in a towel?"
"I like you in anything. I especially like you in nothing. But the towel is good for now," he said. "Because if I recall, you mentioned something last night about dancing."
"Did I?"
"I wanted to take you out dancing, but you said we could dance here in the hotel room. But I don't have a record player up here."
Jennifer remembered the conversation now. "Ah yes. You were going to hum for me."
Jonathan took her right hand in his left and got her in a dance hold. "Someday, when I'm awfully low, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you and the way you look tonight," he sang, swaying her gently. "Sing with me," he requested.
She added her voice to his as they moved in a slow circle around the bedroom. "Yes, you're lovely with your smile so warm and your cheeks so soft. There is nothing for me but to love you and the way you look tonight."
They continued through the old Sinatra song, Jennifer in just a towel and Jonathan in just his robe. It felt marvelous to be in his arms again, to dance and sing like this. And he had a pretty good voice, too.
Jennifer rested her head on his shoulder when they finished the song and sighed happily. Jonathan started kissing her neck again. It took her a moment to realize he'd unwrapped her towel and let it fall to the floor.