Chapter 38
When Jill didn’t come outside, Brian headed into the house to look for her. No one had seen her recently. They thought she might have left with Mac, but couldn’t be sure. Peg, Tanner, and Meredith were all gone too. He took out his phone to text Jill.
Where are you? I have news.
He hung out with some old high school friends, still scanning for Jill. After thirty minutes without a response, he called her again and was bounced to her voicemail. The party was in full swing, but he didn’t want to be there anymore, so he gathered his cooking utensils and left. He couldn’t wait to tell her what had happened.
When he arrived at Jill’s, all her lights were on. The first thing he saw when he walked inside was a tower of boxes in the hall. His already acid stomach burned when he caught sight of his own handwriting. They were his. Something was so not right.
His legs turned rubbery as he walked the short distance to the family room. Jill sat on her orange couch fully dressed, a pillow clutched in her lap. Her face bore the traces of tears.
“Hey!” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you to get out,” she ordered. “Mere, Tanner, and Peggy helped me pack everything up. If we missed anything, I’ll leave it for you at my shop.”
Her cold tone was a slap in the face. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you with her,” she whispered. “We’re—”
Oh Jesus. “I don’t know what you think you saw,” he said, knowing exactly who she meant. He flew across the room and sat beside her, meeting her tear-drenched gaze. “But you’re jumping to the wrong conclusion.”
“I saw you kiss her. Embrace her.” Her words lashed out like a whip.
Jill edged away when he tried to touch her arm. Shit, he thought, thinking back to his final moments with Simca. Yeah, it probably had looked bad. “Listen. I was saying goodbye to her.”
“Bullshit!” she cried.
He held out his hands, desperate to make her see. “It’s true. We both ended up deciding we couldn’t work together. I’m with you, Jill. I love you. Simca still has feelings for me, and I told her it wouldn’t work.”
She punched him in the arm. “And you still have feelings for her too, or you wouldn’t have touched her. I saw you!”
“No!” The feeling of sinking in quicksand came over him. He wasn’t sure how to dig himself out of this hole. He yanked out his phone and pulled up Simca’s interview. “Read this. Seriously, Jill. She talked to a major culinary magazine about our affair, and how Andre set me up. She texted some major chefs in New York, and some of them are willing to interview me. Don’t you see? I was grateful. I was saying goodbye to a friend.”
She threw the pillow aside and stood, not reaching for the phone. “We tried your experiment. It failed. I can’t trust you.”
Oh God, it was his worst nightmare. He rose in a flash and gripped her shoulders. “Don’t say that. I love you. I swear to you nothing happened. Please, Jill.”
“You just said people want to interview you in New York. I think you should go for it. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
His anger suddenly exploded. “What the fuck! I can’t believe we’re here again after everything we’ve shared.”
A tear slid down her cheek.
“You think you see something, so you come home, pack me up, and kick me out? What the fuck kind of relationship is that?”
She scrubbed her face. “One that’s not working.”
He punched the air. “That’s bullshit. It has been working. I can’t wait to come home to you each night, and I’ve never been happier than these past couple of weeks. What more can I do to convince you I love you?”
Her lip trembled, and seeing it, had him fisting his hands at his side so he wouldn’t reach for her.
“Clearly you can’t.” She inhaled a jagged breath. “You broke my heart again. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
He grabbed her hand and slapped it against his chest. “Fucking yes. You’re breaking my heart right now.”
The muscles in her face tensed. A fresh onslaught of tears crested over. “We don’t have what it takes, Bri. I just can’t trust you after what I saw.”
He strode across the room and kicked one of the boxes, had the sudden urge to hurl it across the room. “You’re throwing everything away between us because of your insecurities. This is that stupid Kelly Kimple shit all over again.”
She fisted her hand to her ribs. “It’s not stupid to me. How do you think you’d feel if I’d done the same thing?”
“I don’t fucking know. You’re the saint. I’m the sinner. Am I ever going to be redeemable in your eyes?”
“Please.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “Don’t make this any harder than it is.”
A laugh snorted out. “Harder? What the fuck does that look like, Jill? From where I’m standing, I’d pretty much say you’ve gutted me as clean as a fish.”
“I thought you were going back to her when I saw you touch her. That you wanted her again. That you didn’t want me anymore. I don’t want to ever feel that way again.”
“So you cut me out. No discussion. No nothing. Well, maybe you’re fucking right. I guess we don’t have what it takes. I’m tired of having to prove myself to you. I thought we were past all this.”
“You shouldn’t have put yourself in that situation!” she cried, sweeping her arms out.
He shoved his hands to his waist. “I didn’t mean to. I was waiting for you to meet me by the sleigh. Simca found me because she had exciting news. I thanked her. Maybe not as ‘purely’ as you would have, but goddammit, I have history with her. I was saying goodbye. I waited outside for you for half an hour! I couldn’t wait to tell you I’d been vindicated, that my career looked promising again. And you left without a fucking word.”
She strode across the room and shoved his chest. “I cried the whole way home, damn you! What was I supposed to do? Intrude on your tender scene?” Her hand dug under her shirt and before he had time to process what she was doing, she yanked her necklace off and flung it at him.
She might as well have thrown his heart on the floor as well. He grabbed her fists. “Okay, that’s it! You want to toss everything away, fine. I’m done trying to convince you how much I love you. When I head to New York this time, you can be goddamn sure it’s your fault.”
Her sharp intake punctuated the silence as he grabbed a couple of boxes and started to load his car. When he finished, his heart was thundering in his chest. Kneeling down, he picked up the broken necklace. He stood and strode down the hallway to her bedroom after not finding her anywhere else. For a moment, his hand almost couldn’t turn the doorknob. He pressed his forehead against the wood, the necklace heavy in his hand, and reached deep for courage. Then he let himself inside.
A single lamp shone on her bedside, illuminating her in the fetal position, crying into a pillow. A searing pain shot through his heart. Nothing had ever hurt this bad.
“Jill,” he called.
She jerked back and turned her flushed face toward him.
He held up her key in his other hand. “I’ll leave this on the kitchen table. If you find any more of my stuff, throw it out.”
A sob rushed out of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
His throat thickened. “Me too,” he said and left, unable to hurl the necklace across her yard in the snow and let it go.