Chapter Twenty-Five
Jane
My chin trembles, but I hold back just short of letting the tears fall. I won’t let him see me break down. He doesn’t deserve it, and he sure as hell isn’t worth it. I put everything out there for him. Told him my darkest, most personal secret...and then I find this.
His jaw is slack. Of course it is. He doesn’t know what to say because I have him cornered. For once, he can’t charm his way out of something. The thought makes me hate him. I hate him for making a fool out of me, for making me regret giving him something so important to me. Not just my virginity, either. My trust and my faith and my heart.
What’s worse is that I know better.
“If you can’t tell me what it is, can you tell me when it was?” I ask, jerking my thumb in the direction of the laptop screen and that vile, nasty picture with its terrible headline.
Part of me is hoping that he’ll say the picture is from months ago, before we met. If that’s all it is, I’ll have my own issues feeling insecure about how gorgeous that woman is, but that’s completely different than if it’s more recent. My gut tells me that’s not the case, though.
“I know it’s the club you go to all the time because I recognize it. I found you there that one night, the night we…” I can’t make myself finish. I’m not sure I want to remember sleeping with him that first time.
He nods as he runs a hand over his tousled hair, then over the stubble that covers his chiseled jaw. Normally I find all of that sexy. Not this morning.
“Yeah. Yeah, it was the club.” He pauses, takes a deep breath, and adds, “It was that night, too. The same night.”
My heart shatters, and so does my relative calm. “You were with her that same night? What, before I got there? Did she shut you down? Is that why you kissed me back? Is that why you—”
I can’t say it, but I also can’t keep myself from thinking it. Thinking that maybe he didn’t choose to be with me because he cares about me. I’m just...easy.
His eyes fly open wide. “Hey! I didn’t go looking for you that night. You came there looking for me. It’s not like I was trolling around.”
I stare at him, unable to believe that things are falling apart so fast. “You’re defending yourself?”
“I shouldn’t have to, for fuck’s sake!” he practically shouts. “You walked away from me, remember? You said we should forget what happened between us. So that’s what I was trying to do! Forget! Dammit, Jane!”
He’s right about that. I’d been the one who ended things before they really got started.
“Don’t forget, Jane, you’re the one who ran off and wouldn’t acknowledge me for days. I didn’t know what you were thinking, or if you would ever even set foot in the office again!”
“So, you just found some random girl to make out with?”
“She’s my ex,” he admits. “All right? It didn’t mean anything. I was miserable and trying to forget, and she was there. Besides, you and I weren’t together yet. This was before—”
“Before I walked in and kissed you,” I finish for him, my voice is flat, devoid of emotion. “But it meant nothing, right? Just like she meant nothing.”
“Come on, Jane...”
“No, Anthony. You pushed her off your lap to make room for me. It’s how you are. It’s how you’ve always been. Don’t think I never heard rumors about your social life.” My hands are shaking, but my voice is still steady. “I was interchangeable. Just another body in the long line of women you’ve gone through. I wasn’t the first, and I won’t be the last.”
“You have no right to say that. My past has nothing to do with this.” He’s deadly calm now, his voice like ice. “You of all people should know that what’s in a person’s past shouldn’t be held against him.”
“I trusted you,” I whisper. I thought nothing he said could break me more than I already was. Now I know better.
His shoulders fall. “Jane, I didn’t mean...let’s not do this. Don’t you see what’s happening? Things were going so well, but here we are, letting something stupid get in between us.”
“You think it’s stupid? My feelings are stupid?”
“You know that’s not what I mean! Why do you insist on twisting my words around?” He points to the laptop, still sitting there between us. “What happened between Trinity and me means nothing. It’s stupid. A huge mistake. And we’re better than this.”
I shake my head and stand. “We’re nothing, Anthony. If what you felt for me was real at all, you wouldn’t have been able to go back to her like that. I know that it’s my fault for running away and hiding, for not telling you what was wrong. I thought it didn’t matter when you didn’t come after me, because when I came to you, you kissed me back. But it matters now.”
“Why? Why does it matter now when it didn’t before?”
I can’t look at him. “Because now I know that you didn’t come after me because you already had someone.”
Tears fill my eyes and this time, I don’t bother trying to hold them back. I was afraid to give someone my heart, but I took a chance on him. And he’s destroyed me.
“What that picture doesn’t show is that I stopped it. I told her that it wasn’t going to work.” He takes a step toward me, and I fold my arms across my chest. “And that’s because of you. I couldn’t be with her because I didn’t want anyone but you. I don’t want anyone but you.”
I want to believe him. To brush it all aside and go back to the happy place, but the bubble’s burst and reality is back. A reality where a poor orphan from rural Pennsylvania can never be with her billionaire CEO boss.
“You only think you want me.” The words are quiet, but I know he can hear me because I see him stiffen. “I’m something different. New. And pretty soon, you’ll get bored, and you’ll want to go back to your old life.”
“I won’t,” he insists.
My smile is sad. “But you already did. As soon as things got tough, you went straight back to your ex. It wasn’t cheating, I know that, but you didn’t fight then, and you won’t fight in the future.” I swallow hard. “It’s better this way.”
He looks aghast. “But I love you.”
Tears roll down my cheeks. Nobody’s ever said that to me before. Damn him for saying it now.
“I don’t believe you,” I say in a voice choked with tears. Before he can add anything else, I continue, “I quit. I never want to see you or speak to you again.”
And I mean it. Every word. My heart won’t be able to handle it if I do anything else.