Jackson was just adding tomato to his massive turkey sandwich when he heard the front door open.

“Hey, babe,” he called, licking mayo from his thumb. “You eat? I can make another sandwich real fast.”

Mollie didn’t respond. When he glanced over his shoulder, he froze. Something was wrong. No, “wrong” didn’t even cover it. He didn’t think he’d ever seen someone as pale and angry as his girl looked right now.

He forgot all about the sandwich and moved toward her. “Mollie, what happened?”

“You’re moving to Texas?”

Jackson’s head snapped back as his heart seemed to stop beating.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuucccccckkk!

How had she found out? The only people who knew were Coach, a handful of the guys, and . . .

God damn it. How the hell had he not seen that coming? He’d been so wrapped up in making sure Mollie didn’t tell Madison about them that he’d never once considered that Madison would tell Mollie about the job.

Jackson closed his eyes. “You talked to your sister.”

“Yeah, she’s in town,” Mollie said, dropping her purse to the floor with a careless thud. “Which I’m surprised you didn’t know, what with her being your confidante and all.”

Jackson fought down the surge of panic. “Mollie, look, I know how this must seem, but—”

“No, I don’t think you can possibly know how it seems, Jackson. I’ve been in absolute hell, trying to figure out how to tell my sister about this thing between us. And just when I finally manage to break it to her, I learn that the joke’s on me. That I’m the clueless idiot, not her.”

And there was the second blow: finding out that Madison knew about him and Mollie.

Jackson waited to feel something: guilt, relief, confusion. But his brain didn’t even seem to want to bother with that little fact. And his heart definitely didn’t. His heart was too busy sounding a red alert over the devastation on Mollie’s face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her voice breaking.

God. He stepped forward, but she took a pace back.

“No, actually, you don’t have to answer that. I can guess why you didn’t tell me. Maybe you were putting it off, trying to figure out how to let me down easy. But Madison? Was all this talk about how she was dead to you a lie?”

“No. Of course not.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “But I didn’t know she’d even gotten involved until Coach told me.”

Mollie stilled. “So she did this without your involvement? Went behind your back to get you the job?”

His throat hurt at the sudden hope he saw on her face. For a horrible moment he wanted to lie to her—to make this all go away by telling her that the coaching job had been all Madison’s manipulation.

But when he opened his mouth to tell the fib, he found he couldn’t. He cared about her too damn much. She deserved the truth. And she deserved a man who was a hell of a lot better than he was. A man who would stand by her—one whose future didn’t involve a football field in Texas.

He couldn’t be that man. He wasn’t cut out for the life she wanted, with the parties and the Central Park walks and the suits. What place did a rough-around-the-edges cowboy have with a woman poised to pursue her Ph.D.?

He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I told her. That day she came into my office, I told her that I’d been talking to Coach. That I wanted the job.”

She bit her bottom lip so hard it turned white. “How long? How long were you trying to get back to Texas?” He said nothing, and she took another step back. “The whole time? This whole freaking time? Why did you even come to New York in the first place?”

“Coach didn’t want me,” he said gruffly. “No one did. Every last contact said that with my rep, I’d bring a bad name to the team, that the guys wouldn’t listen to me. That the media would be focusing on me instead of the players. I was NFL kryptonite.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “And Madison was able to fix that for you. One phone call confessing her sins to Jerry, and you had your dream job.”

“Not my dream job,” he said before he could think better of it. “Never my dream job.”

She snorted. “Right. There is no dream job other than being a star quarterback, right, Jackson? That’s the only life worth living?”

“Don’t,” he commanded, angry now. “Don’t belittle my entire life.”

“Your entire past life. You had to have known it couldn’t last forever.”

“Of course I knew!” he shouted. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell when it was taken too early.”

“Fine,” she said, holding up her hands. “You wanted your football life to last a little bit longer. I can respect that, even if I don’t get it. But why not just tell me? All those late nights we spent talking?”

He held out his hands, feeling helpless. “I was trying to avoid this. I didn’t want to see that hurt in your eyes.”

Mollie lifted her chin. “Why? Why didn’t you want to hurt me?”

Jackson clenched his teeth. He wanted to snap that he wasn’t an animal—that he didn’t want to hurt anyone if he could help it. But he knew that wasn’t what she was asking. What she wanted him to say.

She was asking why he didn’t want to hurt her in particular.

He could tell her that he cared about her, and it would be the truth. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not for Mollie.

Mollie wanted love. It had been written all over her face last night. And while he could probably take the cheap out that they’d only been a thing for a few weeks, that wouldn’t be the full answer.

The full answer was that he didn’t believe in love. At least not the lasting kind that Mollie was looking for. Not after his disastrous marriage. He’d loved Madison Carrington with everything he had, and it had turned his life upside down in the worst possible way. He couldn’t survive something like that again.

His silence stretched on too long, and the hope in her eyes extinguished altogether.

“Do you still love her?” Mollie asked in a small voice.

“God, no,” he said savagely. “Is that what you think this is? That I’m still hung up on Madison?”

Mollie pressed her hands to her head. “I don’t know! I don’t know what to think! You guys were together for so long, and she says these things—”

Jackson reached for her again. “Forget her. This isn’t about her. I don’t know when it happened, but I want you. I want to figure out what this is.”

She stared at him in misery. “And yet you’re moving to Texas. You’re leaving.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted them both. Mollie and the coaching gig. His old life back and Mollie.

Jackson swallowed. “Can’t we just . . . we can figure this out. Maybe try long distance, or . . . Fuck, I don’t know what you want me to say! Football’s been my entire life, Molls. You know that better than anyone. And this thing with us, it’s new, and—”

“It’s not new to me!” she shouted.

Jackson took a step back, unnerved by the blazing passion in her eyes. “What?”

“You’ve been seeing me as more than a friend for a few weeks,” she said. “I’ve been seeing you that way for years.”

He felt joy mingle with disbelief and panic. “Mollie—”

“Don’t,” she said wearily. “Please don’t tell me it was just a crush. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to convince myself that it would pass, but it didn’t, and it hasn’t, and—”

Her voice broke off on a hiccup before she drew a deep breath and forged on.

“I’ve always been in love with you, Jackson.” Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “I love you.”

Her words tore through him, leaving Jackson feeling like someone had ripped his heart out. He’d suspected that her feelings had run deep these past few weeks, as his had, but she was saying . . . the whole time. The whole damn time.

Holy hell.

He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to say.

He knew what he should say: that he loved her back. It was the expected response.

But he couldn’t.

Couldn’t risk that he and Mollie would end up like him and Madison. That he would lose her and go through the darkness again. Because if that happened, there’d be no Mollie to pull him out of it, and he needed her . . . he couldn’t risk losing her.

“Shit, Mollie—”

The fire in her eyes slowly faded to flatness. She shook her head tiredly as she bent to pick up her purse. “It’s okay, Jackson. My heart’s a pro at handling unrequited love.”

She headed toward the door, and he moved to stop her. “Don’t. Don’t go like this.”

“You know,” she said, spinning around, her eyes snapping with anger, “I should actually be thanking you for your whole secret Texas job. I think it’s exactly what I needed.”

“What do you mean, it’s what you needed?” he asked, already dreading her answer.

“We are not the Schistosoma mansoni worms. We are not mates for life, or even a year.” She lifted her chin. “You’ve finally given me exactly what I need to get over you.”

Mollie opened the door and was gone.

And by the time he heard the door close with a final click, Jackson was hit with a searing, awful realization.

He didn’t want Mollie Carrington to get over him.