Isat in Jesse’s car, staring straight ahead with my hands folded tightly in my lap, hoping that if I just stayed still enough, maybe everything that had happened in that house would unhappen.
Logically, I knew it wouldn’t.
Hell, logically, I even understood why itshouldn’t.
Alex wasn’t wrong. Their family—Zach—needed a public spectacle to distract the press right now and Jesse was, in fact, the best brother to provide it. I really did get it, but that didn’t mean my eyes weren’t stinging with tears or that I had to like the things I understood.
My lips parted as I inhaled a deep, shaky breath. All along, I’d known the other shoe was going to drop.
This was it. The shoe had hit the floor. I should’ve been relieved that it’d finally happened, but instead, I felt likeI’dfallen—face first into a vat of misery.
For a while there, Jesse Westwood really had been the dream. I never thought I’d meet a man like him, who shared my sense of both humor and adventure, who was strong enough to handle my moodsandmy career, and who thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated it all.
He and I had hit it off in a way that had fooled evenmeinto believing that perhaps we were meant to be. Our chemistry had rewired my brain and probably ruined me for anybody else, which I didn’t love, but again, that didn’t make it any less true.
The thing about dreams, however, was that we always had to wake up, and in that grand, old house back there, I’d had a bloody rude awakening. For a few minutes after I’d dropped into the car, I just kept sitting there, replaying every minute we’d had together since that first time we’d actually talked at the Roderick Estate, and with every memory, it felt like a fresh cut was being made to the very center of my being.
By the time Jesse finally slid in beside me, his breathing uneven and his strong jawline so hard, the bones might crack, I’d accepted that this was going to really hurt. I’d been wondering where the devastation was after Thomas had left, but I’d found it now for sure.
It’d been here all along, just waiting for me with Jesse.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough with frustration. “I had no idea that was going to go down that way, but don’t worry, okay? It won’t happen again. I’ll talk to Alex and make it crystal fucking clear that we’re not playing a game?—”
“We can’t do this, Jesse.”
The words came out quieter than I’d expected, but he’d clearly heard me because I felt him turn to face me. I felt the weight of his stare, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“What do you mean we can’t do this?” he asked slowly, carefully enunciating every word. “Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, Jacque.”
He turned over the engine and threw the car into gear, pulling away from the house fast, with his tires spinning on the gravel and sending up a spray of it up in our wake. A single glimpse at his hand on the gear lever revealed that his knuckles were white, his grip strangling an object that couldn’t die.
I could relate, but even as my chest threatened to cave in, I knew I had to push through. No amount of fear, rage, or indignation would change our actual situation. “I’m not going to play pretend again, Jesse. I can’t.”
He didn’t interrupt me, which I was grateful for. Even though I knew this was the right thing to do, I was balancing on a knife’s edge with this decision. If he could offer a single solution that actually seemed viable, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
“I’ve done that already,” I said. “I spent almost a decade of my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t for somebody else’s benefit. I made friends with his very boring, academic friends. I nodded along while they debated things I didn’t care about and pretended to be impressed when they all tried to sound smarter than the next person. I laughed when I was supposed to laugh.”
When I finally risked a glance at him, he was staring straight ahead now, his lips pursed and his posture rigid. We were practically flying down the road despite the pelting rain, but I still wasn’t afraid. The trouble was that I trusted him, even with my life, and even when he was clearly livid while driving.
“I moved back to London for him, Jesse. I rented a flat he liked and lived a life he wanted despite the fact that he was rarely even there to live it with me. I builteverythingaround him, and for what?” I shook my head, looking away again as I blinked back the burn in my eyes. “He left, that’s what. He stole my dog and left.” The words still sounded ridiculous out loud. “Now I’m here. I’m living a new life in a new city with a new job and I thought?—”
I cut myself off when the lump in my throat made it too painful to keep speaking.I thought what, exactly? That this was different? Thathewas different? Heis. That’s the bloody problem, isn’t it?
“I thought that maybe we could just have fun,” I admitted. “Honestly, when you first pitched this whole idea to me, it feltlike it would be simple. Easy. I’d get to spend a few weeks with a man I genuinely enjoy spending time with, and after that, I sort of thought we’d just go our separate ways.”
“Is that what you want, Jacque? Do you actually want us to go our separate ways?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I know it was never part of our deal, but I do care about you, Jesse. A lot, and the feelings I have for you are not fake or insignificant.”
His breathing hitched, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I have feelings for you too, Jacque. Nothing fake about that either. So why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?”
“I know you have feelings for me and I know they’re real,” I said without any hesitation at all. “That’s the problem, though. Isn’t it? That’s why it feels like I’m saying goodbye. Because I am. You and I agreed to one thing and had something else happen entirely.”
He frowned. “How is that a problem?”
I blew out a long, slow breath, finally turning to face him fully. “Because of your family.”
His shoulders stiffened, those devastating eyes I would likely be dreaming about for the rest of my life flying to mine for only a split second before they were back on the road. “What? What about my family?”