I had woken up to Jax's alarm at 6am. I sat up and rubbed my eyes and looked around the room to see Jax with a pillow over his head.
I lean over him and switch his alarm off then sit up leaning against the headboard.
Jax sat up and looked at me with a soft smile on his face.
"Good morning." He says making me smile back at him.
"Good morning." I say and he yawns before climbing out of bed.
"You should go back to sleep Lara." He says as I start to yawn.
"Hmm." I say and lie back down on his bed.
I didn't end up falling asleep, I instead after about 20 minutes I went on my phone in bed until Jax came back.
"Did you get anymore sleep." He asks as I yawn.
"Nope." I say and he sighs.
"Do you still want to go to the Miller's house today?" He asks and I nod.
"I get it if we can't though." I say and he walks over to me and puts his hand on my cheek.
"We're getting new number plates this morning. I was going to go to the warehouse but we can go tonight after we put Alannah to bed." He says and I nod.
"Thank you." I say and scrunch my nose up.
"What?" He asks confused making a wide smile spread across my face.
"You stink." I say pushing him back playfully. He laughs and steps even closer so I fall back on the bed making him laugh even more before he heads for the bathroom.
"Your welcome to join me." He says and I prop myself up on my elbows.
"I'd rather not." I say playfully.
I then decided to get ready for the day myself. I had a shower, got dressed and did both my hair and makeup. I was half way through doing my makeup when Jax and Alannah came in.
Alannah came over to me and climbed into my lap straight away.
"What's up bub?" I say putting my mascara down.
"I missed you." She says and I kiss her forehead. I continued to get ready then with Alannah in my arms.
I held Alannah's hand as we headed down for breakfast. When we got into the dining room she immediately sat in her chair and began eating.
After breakfast we wished the boys a good day at work as they headed out the front door. Jax was going to come back at around noon to go to the Miller's house.
I take Alannah up to her room and help her brush her teeth and clean her face. Once she was clean I chose out her outfit with was a green denim skirt with a white t-shirt.
"Where are we going today?" Alannah asks as I sit her between my legs and brush through her hair.
"We're going to see James, but it's a surprise." I say and a massive smile spreads across her face.
"I've missed James so much." She says and I smile.
"Me too." I reply.
We waited in the living room. Amara was keeping us company whilst Alannah coloured in a colouring book.
I couldn't imagine how lonely it was for Amara here before me and Alannah came here.
Even though since we arrived they've been working in their home office its extremely quite around the house. There isn't really anyone to talk to, except for the butler really. Us girls are grateful to have each other to talk to now around the house but I couldn't imagine how lonely Amara was before.
At precisely 12:01 Jax walked out of his office and into the living room where us girls were laughing.
"Are you ready?" He questions making us look up.
"Yeah." I say putting my phone in my back pocket.
"See you later Amara." Alannah says running over to Jax and taking his hand.
Jax puts Alannah in her car seat and then gets in the car himself. He began driving out of the gates of his house and I take a deep breath.
"You alright?" He asks and I look over to him and nod.
"What exactly am I allowed to tell him?" I ask and he furrows his eyebrows and glances at me.
"Lara, you're supposed to take over in a few weeks for your father. You should tell him what you want to but most importantly what you trust with him. We can't come here often because if they figure out the Miller's are connected to us, it puts us at risk. But you're a big girl Lara, you can make your own decisions." He says making me smile.
Jax pulls up on the street outside of their house. I take a deep breath and look back at Alannah.
"You ready?" I ask and she nods. I climb out of
Jax's car and Jax makes his way across to Alannah and helps her out.
I stand on the path at the bottom of the steps up to the all to familiar house and take a deep breath.
"They don't know we're coming do they?" Jax says coming beside me and I shake my head no.
I walk up to the door and ring the doorbell and we wait anxiously. I know James hasn't gone back yet, he is probably getting ready to go though.
The door flings open to reveal Nicole on the phone.
"I'm going to have to call you back." She says and puts the phone down before pulling me into a bone crushing hug.
When she pulls back from the hug she looks between Jax and Alannah before looking back at me confused.
"I'll explain everything." I say and she nods inviting us in.
"Is James here?" I ask once Nicole and David had both hugged Alannah.
"Um no he's gone to get a few things for when he leaves on monday.'' She says and I nod.
"I guess I'll explain then." I say glancing at Jax who then took it upon himself to distract Alannah.
"Let's go in the kitchen." She says and I nod.
I sit at the island in the kitchen with a glass of water and took a deep breath and needed to get on with what I was going to say.
"So you know when I left here I went to live with my dad in Brazil and how he was part of the Brazilian mafia.'' I say and she nods. I tell them about Alannah getting kidnapped well because that's all they really needed to know. I then told them about Jax's involvement. Obviously David already knew this but it didn't stop him from listening.
I was obviously worried about disappointing Nicole though. She had pretty much been the mother figure in my life for as long as I can remember and I didn't want to ruin that. But thankfully she wasn't annoyed she was reassuring and understood.
We went back into the living room and David and Nicole were making small talk with Jax. But in the meantime my nerves were growing. I was going to tell James everything, he's my best friend and I need a not so biast view point.
"Mom whose car is parked outside?" I hear James shout as soon as he opened the front door. We all stood up to acknowledge his present.
"James." Alannah squeals and runs into the hall and into his arms whilst I was just stood there. He is a million percent going to kill me.
He turned into the living room and put Alannah down and caught ran his over me.
"Oh thank god." He says taking a breath of relief and opening his arms.
I immediately rushed into his arms and hugged him straight away.
After David let out a cough signalling that we weren't the only ones in the room we break away.
"Where were you? I was so worried something bad had happened." He says and then his eyes widen.
"What's he doing here?" James spits in disgust but Jax doesn't really react.
"Lara." He says and I nod.
"Let me explain everything to you." I say and he nods.
"Come on." He says heading out of the room and I turn to Alannah.
"Stay with dad, we'll be back." I say and she rushes back over to Jax.
"Dad?" James questions as we leave the living room.
"I'll get there." I tell him.
I follow James up to his room where all the packing was going on. I pulled out my phone quickly to text Jax before getting into this conversation with James.
Lara- She normally goes for a nap around now, see of you can get her to sleep.
I put my phone in my back pocket again and look at James who was already staring at me.
"So." I say trying to clear the tension but he doesn't say anything but just keeps staring at me.
"Let me help you pack, I'll explain whilst helping." I say which he agrees to.
"The night before Alannah's birthday, we went to a ball where she was kidnapped." I say folding up some of his t-shirt.
"You what?" He asks shocked looking up at me.
"My dad and Marco host this event every year for all of their Allies. Jax is now an Allie because of what happened last December. These Russian men weren't happy about the alliance so started this war. They uh they kidnapped her and did horrific things to her." I say refusing to meet James eyes right now.
"Jax offered to stay and help which he did. I wanted to help so bad so I agreed to take over from my father when my father retires in a few weeks. I work with them now and well we came back to New York a little while ago. Just me and Jax. Your father knew. We had to adopt Alannah as part of our plan and I begged your father to keep it quiet." I say glancing up to see he wasn't even packing he was just staring at me the whole time.
"We found her obviously and she was in a terrible state James. In Brazil she wouldn't settle for anyone other than me and Jax. Anyone that went near her made her cry. So as good news we told her she was adopted and she welcomed Jax with open arms." I say getting back to packing his things.
"We went to LA. Just me and Alannah. She didn't have these nightmares anymore and she was so happy. I didn't have to be back in Brazil till the twenty of this month. So I decided to come and see Jax with Alannah." I say moving and putting all the clothes I had folded and put it into his suitcase.
"Our flight was ambushed and we were almost kidnapped but Jax saved us as we were half way to Connecticut. We're in this sort of war with the Russians at the moment so to go anywhere really isnt safe. I'm literally so sorry James, I know your my best friend and I should of told you sooner and I shouldn't of shut you out but I didn't know what else to do. I know its not an excuse but I'm so scared that something will happen to you guys. Then when Alannah was taken I didn't know what to do. That was all I did, I couldn't even sleep properly." I say and look down at my hands nervously.
"You've never been able to sleep properly." He says making me look up at him. "I understand Lara. If I were in your situation it would be the same for me." He says and I take a breath of relief.
Me and James then packed away the rest of his stuff whilst talking and getting all the horrible stuff out of the way.
"James." I say making him look up at me.
"I need to talk to you about Jax." I say and he furrows his eyebrows.
"I don't know what to do James." I say making him even more confused.
"Let me start with I love him." I say and he sits down whilst sighing. "I slept with him when I came back the first time." I say causing him to look at me shocked.
"I know I know. I uh ugh." I say trying to get my words out.
"He regained my trust and we told each other we loved each other and then it just sort of happened. I snuck out the next morning and then when we got back to Brazil I had just gotten Alannah back so we haven't spoke about it. But now I've been back I crawling into his bed every night and I'm constantly worried about him." I say and James runs a tired hand down his face.
"Never in my life did I think the tables would turn like this." He says making me laugh and sit beside him.
"Lara if you love him, then you love him we can't change that." He says and I look at him confused as to why he wasn't shouting at me.
"Why aren't you kicking off? Aren't you mad at me?" I ask and he scoffs.
"If you want to be with him I don't see why you shouldn't. Fine okay can you see a future with him?" He asks and I groan.
"Obviously I can. It's a little hard not to when we already have a child who he cares for so deeply." I say and he laughs softly.
"Okay fine let me give you the advice you'd give me. Test the water. If if works it works. If it doesn't, if doesn't. There is no harm in trying." He says and I look up at him confused.
"Funny you say that, Amara said that fo me last night." I say and he just laughs and hugs me.
"I've missed you." I say and a smile spreads across his face.
"I've missed you too." He says making a similar smile sweep across my face.
We head downstairs so Alannah can spend sometime with James. We walk into the living room smiling when I saw Alannah fast to sleep in Jax's arms. "You can take her up to your old bedroom." Nicole says to us and I nod.
"Come on." I say to Jax and he carefully lists Alannah up and follows me upstairs to mine and Alannah's old room.
"Oh my god it hasn't changed a bit." I say as Jax places her on the bed.
"It really hasn't." He says laughing softly.
I head out of that room and into the room Jax and I slept in. The room hadn't really changed either.
"The fun we had in here." He says nudging me softly and making me roll my eyes.
"I seem to think we had more fun in your room." I say and he smirks.
I walk to the bed side units and open the first draw which held a tie. I pulled it out and showed it to Jax.
"Ah my favourite tie, I've been looking for this every where." He says making me laugh.
"You don't even wear ties anymore." I point out and he shrugs.
We ended up rushing into mine and Alannah's old room as she shouted our names.
****
We spent the rest of the evening in the living room just catching up and it was so lovely. I forgot how much I missed David and Nicole. We had dinner here as well for old times sake.
It was currently about 8pm when we were leaving because Alannah was really tired. Jax and Alannah said goodbye first and Jax went to strap Alannah in her car seat.
"I guess I'll see you on Thanksgiving, if I'm still here." I say hugging James.
"Oh wait." I say pulling back and pulling out my keys from my bag. I had two of the keys to my apartment and took one of and gave it fo James.
"Take care of it please." I say and he nods. I bid my goodbyes to David and Nicole and got in the car and headed home.