2
I’ll be back, baby...and you better be ready.
The pounding in Jake’s head wouldn’t let up. His brain felt like it was pushing through his fucking cranium. How could he spare her a trip back to a painful past, which was a given if he told her how bad Maddelyn actually was. He wanted Eve, but he had to take care of his daughter first.
“Is it someone else?”
Eve’s cracked voice jarred him out of painful thoughts and he spun towards her. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Please, at least tell me that you didn’t betray me that way. Tell me you wouldn’t have risked me by sleeping with someone else and not telling me.”
“Come on, baby. No. Only you, from the second I found you again.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
All he wanted in that moment was to hold her—pull her back to bed, burrow under the covers and make all the pain go away.
“Then I don’t understand,” she whispered, staring out over the balcony. Jesus, she couldn’t even look at him. “I believed in you—in us. I trusted you, trusted that you meant the things you’ve said to me. I should have known better.” She turned, her bloodshot eyes meeting his. “I’ve never been good enough for you, Jake. Not when I was younger and not now that you’re actually officially free to try.”
He caught her arm and turned her around to fully face him. “Don’t ever say you’re not good enough. You know how I feel about you. Shit, I came back for you, Eve.”
“And you stopped looking for me. Jesus, Jake! Nobody ever told me you tried to find me. That you came by the house, and then you just gave up.”
“It was better for you.” He shook his head. “Your mom was just protecting you. I was in a bad place when I got back from that first tour. She could see it. Shit, Eve. I think I even showed up drunk once. You’re lucky I didn’t find you. You couldn’t have handled what I’d become. Trust me.” Memory lane definitely wouldn’t help things here. “Look, I found you now and I don’t want to lose you again.”
Eve went limp and slipped her arm out of his hold. “You’ve already lost me by not talking to me. You know the sad thing? I’d have understood. If you would have talked to me like the friend you claim I am to you, I’d have known about Maddelyn and I’d have walked away if that’s what you needed.” Her shaky voice began to even out. “And I would have never come here and allowed you to flip my entire world upside down worse than you already have.”
“You think I don’t know that? Yeah, I should have told you. And I’m very familiar with you disappearing when you think it’s best for me, which it never fucking is, by the way. It’s you protecting yourself and I get that. I put you in that space a long time ago. That’s on me. But you deserve a chance to be happy, Eve. I can’t give you that with what I have to deal with right now.”
She lifted her hands and dropped them to her sides. “You’re talking in contradicting circles. What exactly are you dealing with Jake?” She laughed, a little unhinged. “Talk to me—please. Say something!”
“You don’t understand.” The knife twisted in his gut with every word out of her mouth. How could he tell her without hurting her? But he was hurting her. He knew his silence triggered Eve’s insecurities, her doubts about how he felt about her. She wasn’t used to anything but full disclosure from him since they’d reconnected. He’d gained her trust, her love, by being uncharacteristically open and giving with her...until recently.
Disappointment and heartbreak all took turns playing across her beautiful face. Tears consistently slid down her cheeks.
“You recently told me, I’d regret not telling you how I feel if anything were to happen to you, Jake. You were insistent that I talk to you. Made it comfortable and safe to express how I feel about you—and you’ve just shut me out.”
Her eyes appeared to look straight through him and a chill shot down his spine. Tears still trailed down her pale cheeks, but she appeared unconscious of it. And that was the frightening part to him. There was no sobbing, just tears—tears that fall when you become numb. When you’ve suffered too much.
The energy escalated as she stalked from one side of the room to the other searching for the rest of her things.
“Pieces of you.” She stopped and faced him. “I’ve only ever had pieces of you. All I’ve asked of you is to tell me the truth no matter how much it might hurt me. I trusted you when you said if the time ever came that you had to say goodbye, that you’d tell me yourself. Do I not deserve at least that? Do I mean that little to you?”
The throbbing in his temples double-timed and he dropped his head. Trust wasn’t something Eve gave easily. That ex-husband of hers had emotionally fucked her up to the point she didn’t trust men at all—mentally or physically. It’d taken him a long time to gain her trust in both areas. Their history had given him an edge no other man would have had with her, even though he’d been no saint.
“Your silence speaks volumes.” Eve got up, hauled her purse over her shoulder, and shifted the pillows on the couch as if searching for something. She stopped and faced him. “How do you do this to someone you claim to love?” Shrugging her shoulders, she shook her head. “More importantly, someone you call a friend? You’ve known me, my family, the vast majority of my life. Do you have any idea, do you even care, what it is you mean to me?”
“I know you love me, baby. I don’t doubt that at all.”
She walked up to him, her face inches from his. It was the closest she’d been to him in the past half hour.
His blood surged under his skin, the need to touch her almost uncontrollable.
“At least one of us is clear on that.” Cold, ice blue eyes studied his face and his chest contracted. Eve was never cold with him. Ever. “Have—I just been a diversion from whatever…” Her voice cracked. “…You’re going through and refusing to tell me about?”
“Eve—”
“No,” she seethed and turned away from him. “What is it you always say to me, Jake? ‘I’m always good, hon. Don’t worry about me.’ I have no doubt you’ll be just fine without me. You were for twenty-three years—I wish I could say the same.”
Jake clenched his fists. This had all gotten way the fuck out of control. Letting her go was the right thing to do, he got that, but he also couldn’t let her keep thinking he didn’t give a shit.
“I care about you so fucking much, baby. I need you to remember that.”
Eve scoffed, walked back to the couch and picked up her phone.
“Why? So, you can haunt me for another two decades and end up with someone else? Not this time.” Striding past him to the bed, she shoved her things into her bag, left it open and heaved it over her shoulder, before swinging back around to him. “I’m not perfect by any means. I’m intense and there’s a part of me that’s still broken—I acknowledge that, but I now know my capacity to love and my love is unconditional. You helped me see that...and you’ve just proven you don’t deserve it. I trusted the wrong man. Again. The fact that it’s you...” Her voice became barely audible “...is soul crushing.”
Jake’s adrenaline skyrocketed and his breathing became shallow. The one woman who could genuinely make him happy, who’d never judged him, was always there for him day or night, was about to walk out the door. She was the most loving woman he’d ever come in contact with. He felt it every time she held him, smiled at him, kissed him. He was more relaxed and comfortable with Eve than anyone. Stupid, mundane, everyday shit was just better with her—coffee, doughnuts, Duck Dynasty reruns, meals, talking. They didn’t even have to talk...they were just content to be in each other’s presence and that was rare.
When she walked past him to the door, that fresh, beachy, fruity scent that clung to her drifted to him and his lungs stopped working all together.
Fuck me. Can’t do it.
“Eve, stop.” He lunged at the front door. “Please.” Wounds she’d attempted to heal a long time ago were about to rip open, because he was coming clean. He wouldn’t lose her twice. Not like this. He’d told her when they first started talking that he couldn’t think of his life without her again and goddamn…if that wasn’t the case.
Eve stood staring at the closed door, tears falling down her cheeks.
Motherfuck—no other way.
On a long exhale, Jake put his hands on her shoulders. When she jerked to wrench away from him, he gripped her tighter.
“It’s not another woman.”
Finally looking up at him, she haphazardly dropped her bags to the floor and fully faced him.
“One chance. Tell me now. Whatever it is.”
What he was about to do to her felt like a knife to the abdomen. She’d trusted him with a very traumatic and sensitive past and he was about to put her right back into it.
“We’re taking Maddie to a psychiatrist tomorrow. She’s hurting herself over this whole divorce situation.”
Eve’s shoulders tensed under his hands. “How?” Her voice evened out and the tears at last stopped falling. “Exactly how is she hurting herself?”
“She barely eats, unless I’m there. She’s lost about fifteen pounds. You’ve seen pictures of Mads—she can’t lose that much weight. She’s emaciated. Her friends come to the house, Kelly says she won’t see them. The only time she comes out of her room is when I’m at the house.”
Eve’s muscles began to quiver under his hands, but her voice was steel. “What else?”
He gazed down at the floor. “Kelly’s worried about an eating disorder. I don’t think that’s it—shit, I could be wrong. She has lost weight. We’ve tried everything, so we’re getting outside help. You know Maddie’s a gifted swimmer, already nationally ranked. She refuses to go to practice. Kelly’s loving. A damn good mother, but she’s too soft. It’s like Maddie has given up. I won’t allow my little girl to give up on her life.”
When her eyes met his, tears pooled again. “She’s refusing to wear a swimsuit,” she whispered more to herself than to him. “Has Kelly checked her? Arms, inner thighs, stomach?”
Grabbing her by the biceps, Jake held her away from him. “Why would you ask me that?”
Eve opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. If her chest wasn’t moving up and down at record speed, he would doubt she was even breathing.
Tears let loose all over again and she slowly shook her head. “She’s a fourteen-year-old girl, Jake. Transitional age. All the angst, changes in her body, boys, friends, school, the pressure and expectations of being a nationally ranked athlete and now her parents divorcing. It’s too much for her. Your daughter needs you.” Eve’s eyes skirted around the room and her breathing came hard and fast. All color drained from her face just before she bolted into the bathroom.
Rushing after her, Jake’s heartbeat doubled at the sight before him. Her long hair skimmed the ground around her as she dry heaved into the toilet. He reached out, collecting her hair.
“No!” Eve gagged and jerked away from him. She crawled backwards to the wall. “Please, don’t touch me.”
Jake put his hands up and backed away from her.
The light always there in her eyes was gone. Her expression looked so broken, so lost.
He felt as if he were about to vomit too.
Give me strength. I don’t fucking deserve it, but I need it.
He placed a hand towel next to her without touching her. “I didn’t want to tell you, because—”
“I know why you didn’t want to tell me.” She choked and cleared her throat.
Jake rested his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t want to bring you back there, baby.”
“So you were just going to let me leave, thinking you don’t care or that it was someone else?”
Paying close attention to her reactions, he tried to determine where she was at. “I wanted to spare you this.”
Inching her hands up the wall, Eve stood, walked to the sink and rinsed her mouth out with water and Listerine. She splashed her face before turning heartbroken eyes to him. Wiping her face with one hand, she held onto the counter for balance with the other.
Jake closed the lid on the toilet and sat on it, not knowing what to say to her.
Eve wrapped her arms around herself. “This isn’t happening.” She walked unsteadily from the bathroom.
Following her into the main room, he leaned against the wall opposite the bed where she sat. Trauma from the past replayed across her face. Witnessing her try to stay composed, he was reminded of when she was fifteen, before he’d left for his first tour and told her not to wait for him. But she had waited. She’d stopped her life...for him. Maybe he was being selfish, but he couldn’t lose her again. She’d seen a side of him he’d never allowed anyone else to see. Whether she believed him or not, he was as emotionally tied to her as she was to him.
“Jake.”
Eve jarred him back to the present. “Yeah, baby.”
She furiously shook her head. “Stop! I’m not your baby. I’m not your love. I’m obviously nothing to you!” Eve swiped at her eyes. “How could you keep this from me? From me!”
Fuck me. Inhaling deeply, he approached her. “Hey, Eve. Look at me. Right now.” When her wet, red, eyes met his, he squatted down, so he was eye-level with her and took her chin between his fingers. “Given what you’ve been through, I get this is fucked up for you, but this right here is why I didn’t want to tell you what’s happening. This isn’t you. This isn’t us. The past doesn’t belong here. Deal with me and don’t ever let me hear you say you’re nothing. Ever.”
She brushed away a fresh round of tears and took a few shaky breaths.
He reached over to the side table and handed her a box of tissues. Walking into the kitchen, he dampened a towel and brought it out to her before sitting in the chair across from her.
Eve cleaned herself up, dropped her head, and sat silent for a few minutes.
He gave her time to compose herself, knowing she was filtering through emotions and memories that had been locked up tight. When she finally met his gaze, something glinted there that he couldn’t pinpoint behind her bloodshot eyes, but she was back—present, composed, focused.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Resting his elbows on his knees, he glanced up at her. “That’s not my Maddie. She wouldn’t do that. I’ll get her through this. And you and me...we’ll figure it out.”
The sad smile she gave him made his chest tighten and he watched an expression he’d never seen before cross her face—it was one of steel. Not that Eve wasn’t a strong woman. She was one of the most brilliant, dedicated and willful women he knew, but there was also a darkness to her, one she sometimes had trouble getting under control. This was something different...
Laying the towel beside her, she rose from the bed and approached him. Kneeling between his legs, she sat back on her heels. She lifted the sleeves of her shirt to her elbows before resting her hands at the tops of his thighs.
Jake smoothed her damp cheeks with his thumbs. This face, he loved her face—her smile.
“I once confided in you about a very difficult time in my life.”
“I know you did, Eve, but this is diff—”
“I know it’s different, Jake, but you need to listen to me, please.” Her eyes searched his as she gripped his thighs. “I didn’t tell you everything.”
While his gut dropped out, he at least owed her the respect of listening, since he was the one who just ripped open those scars.
“Okay, honey. Say what you gotta say.”
With shaky hands, she slowly twisted both forearms on top of his thighs, exposing her pale inner wrists.
“Look closely, Jake. In the direct light.”
Taking her wrists in his hands, he examined her pale skin. The sunlight streamed in through the window, highlighting two very faint but long scars, and his eyebrows drew together. Cradling one wrist, he traced a line close to around four inches in length down her wrist with his finger. It had to be at least a decade or so old, judging by the faded scar. And his fucking senses heightened as if he were in the field. Everything stopped around him, like a record screeched inside his head, and he tuned specifically to her. Switching hands none too gently, he did the same to the other, finding an identical scar. His eyes jumped to hers.
“Eve...”
What the hell was he supposed to say? He dropped her wrists as if he’d been burned, stood, and backed away from her, leaving her kneeling on the floor.
“You told me you used to cut.” He stalked back to her and shackled her wrist, moving it in front of her face. “I know a fucking suicide attempt when I see one.”
Steely blue eyes met his. “And did you ever think that’s something I’d do?” Her voice was faint, but clear.
“No! You’re—fuck. No, never.” He could not wrap his brain around the reality that a woman as intelligent, loving, and talented as Eve could ever even think of ending her life. “You’re stronger than that damn it! You always have been.”
Calmly, she rose to sit in the chair he’d just vacated. “I haven’t always been. I was a lot older than Maddelyn and I am not saying this is what’s happening with her at all. In my case, the abuse, the damage over the years took a toll. Cutting is one thing—what I did is another. While it’s in no way a healthy or safe coping mechanism, the thing about cutting in most cases is we’re rerouting pain nobody else understands. It’s not usually a gateway to suicide as people assume, but it can be in some cases.”
Turning on her, he knelt down. “Don’t say ‘we.’” He grabbed her wrists. “This isn’t you!”
Eve rotated her hands, clutching his forearms. “It is. You don’t want it to be, but I am a part of that ‘we.’ I was lucky. They found me in time. I agreed to get help, but if someone feels alone and has nobody to talk to about what they’re going through—the options limit. If they think they’ll be judged, told they’re crazy or weak, they’ll disconnect. I did. When the isolation gets so consuming and there’s nobody to help sort out what’s going through our heads, sometimes the need for everything to go away, for silence, is too tempting. Self-harm has many faces.”
He stood back up. “I know you went through hell, love. I can see it’s much worse than you ever let on. But that’s not Maddie. She’d never hurt herself that way.”
Looking up at him, Eve stood from the chair. “What you just described to me are all signs of depression, isolation and not being understood. I’m not saying that’s what Maddelyn’s going through, but make sure it isn’t. Encourage her to talk to someone. Even if it’s not you or Kelly. She may not want to say how she’s feeling, because she might be afraid it would hurt one of you, in which case, she’ll hold back.”
“I do talk to Maddie.”
Eve’s head cocked to the side. “Do you know what my parents’ first words to me were when I came around in the hospital? ‘Why didn’t you talk to us?’ Why? Because by that time, I was already too isolated. I couldn’t tell them what was happening that early in my marriage. My thinking had already been rewired. The feelings of self-hatred, of being unlovable, of having no self-worth overwhelmed me. I re-routed pain in an unhealthy way. I allowed myself to be beaten down so low, I saw no escape other than digging deep for the courage to press down harder the next time.”
She never took her eyes off him. “One day, I found it. I wanted it all to stop. I’ve dealt with it, yes, but I still have bad days. Do I want to kill myself now, even on my really bad days? No I don’t. I want to live. I want to love. I want to know what it’s like to be loved for who I am. But ask me if some days I still want to cut, Jake. I don’t, but do I want to? More than you’ll ever be able to comprehend.”
The walls closed in around him as he processed everything she was telling him and all he could do was stare at her like an ass. He felt helpless when it came to her past and helpless was something he’d never been. But he’d been on the phone with her through difficult times. “No. You talk to me. I’ve been on the phone with you through bad days.”
Eve heaved a soft sigh. A sad, almost haunting sound that felt like a left hook to the jaw.
“You have, but your answer to me lately, is ‘handle your business,’ or ‘you’re stronger than this’ or ‘I can’t have you weak.’ You can’t power me through bad days, so I’ve learned not to share those with you. You pull away from me when I have bad moments. You never used to, which is one of the reasons I trust you as I do, but now I understand why you’ve been emotionally distant. My best friend helps me. It hasn’t been you for a while. You don’t save me from myself...if anything, you’re my trigger. But you can help your daughter.”
Jake’s mouth fell open and he wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve only ever wanted the best for you—I want you to succeed in everything you do. You know that.”
“I do.” She kissed his shoulder.
Jake held her away from him and searched her face. “If I’d have known I put you there, I’d have taken myself out of your life immediately.”
While he was furious that she’d kept this from him, and a little shocked she would suggest this could happen to Maddie, he realized she would be the one to recognize any signs. Not only because of her chosen profession, but her own experience. She’d confided something extremely personal to him today for the sake of his daughter. Ever since they were young, the one thing Eve feared the most was him not wanting her. That admission took courage, because she was chancing his rejection. He didn’t think he could possibly love her any more than he did in this moment.
“Why did you still see me? If my being in your life hurt you, why would you risk that?”
Eve shrugged her shoulders but kept her eyes on his. “Because, I’ve always loved you and you’ve never judged me. You make me want to be a better version of me. You make me want the world and believe I have a shot at getting it. You’ve shown me I’m not entirely broken and that I’m worthy. You helped me see me, Jake. Our situation, however, the months without seeing you—I don’t do well when you emotionally detach from me. You know that. A good portion of the last few months has been me waiting by my phone. Waiting for the old you on the other end of the line.”
“There’s never been any distance. You know how I get when I have business to take care of—it’s not you.”
Eve’s shoulders dropped. “Whatever business you had never used to matter—you still kept me close. Why do you think I fell so hard for you? God, Jake, why do you think things moved so fast once we finally did see each other? We’ve seen each other, what? Maybe six times since I agreed to see you in person? We got to know each other again over a phone. Your openness with me, your trust in me allowed me to let you in and trust you as I never would have any other man. But recently, something changed. When you were physically in front of me, you were you. When you left, there was a distance that wasn’t there before.”
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and smiled sadly at him. “I’ve waited for you to come back. Now I know why you couldn’t...and why you can’t. I feel like all I’ve done since I was too young to know what it was I was actually doing is wait for you in one way or another. I handle it now, because I thought we might finally have a chance, but you don’t get the worst of me.”
Running his hands through her hair, he bent to kiss her neck. “There’s no distance and I never wanted to hurt you. I want everything for you. I want you strong.” He dropped his hands to her wrists and turned them back up. “This kills me—it fucking kills me.”
Eve shimmied out of his hold and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I am stronger now. I got the help I needed. I have bad moments once in a while and I know you can’t handle them.”
Nothing pissed him off more than when she said that. “That’s bullshit. I can handle anything when it comes to you.”
“No. You can’t. Your words, Jake—not mine. You need me strong, and I can’t always be strong. You interpret my bad days as weakness, but you never want to talk about the catalyst, which is usually something going on with us. The thing is, we are now irrelevant. Maddelyn needs her parents and you can’t strong-arm her through this, which is your instinct, how you’re built. She’s a fourteen-year-old girl. You need to listen to her. Don’t live in denial of what you think isn’t happening or what you refuse to believe is possible. You can’t will her pain away. If she needs outside help, get it for her. I don’t want any of what I’ve gone through for your daughter.”
“I’ll take care of Maddie, but we can make this work.” He kissed her forehead.
Tears free flowed down her cheeks and she framed his face in her soft hands. Pulling him down to her, she kissed him, her lips moving slowly, tenderly over his.
Yanking her to him, he kissed her hard. He stroked her back, her face, her cheeks. Some strange urgency drove him. In his line of work, sharp instincts equaled survival. He trusted his implicitly and right now, they were screaming at him to somehow get inside her, mark her, keep her.
Pulling away from him, she took his face in her hands. “No, Jake. We can’t,” she whispered.
He gripped her shoulders. “Eve. You know what I do. You know what I’m capable of and what I handle. I won’t lose you.”
“I know what you’re going to have to handle. You don’t. I know your job, or the parts you’re allowed to tell me and I’m not unaware of the risk. Your job is dangerous, life threatening. Your focus right now, when you’re not there, has to be exclusively on Maddelyn.”
“I know that. You think I don’t know that?”
“Not to the extent that you realize. You don’t need another distraction and you worrying about me in New York would be a distraction.”
“Give me some time with this. Let me get Maddie straight.” There was a set to Eve’s eyes and he finally realized what that earlier look had meant—resignation—Eve was leaving him.
How the fuck had this happened? When did this turn on him? He told her he didn’t need to leave her to take care of Maddie.
“Eve—”
When she framed his face, digging her fingers into back of his head, he covered her hands with his.
“I’m not stupid, babe.” Eve squeezed a little harder. “My gut says you’ve been struggling for the past...” She glanced behind him at the clock. “Nineteen or so hours, trying to decide whether to let me go or try to make this work. Now, I at least know why...and I understand.”
Dropping her eyes, she sniffled before meeting his gaze and smiling at him. “One of the things I love most about you is that you’re such a loving and caring father. You talk about your girls when you’re with me and your entire face lights up, the love you have for them is beautiful for me to see. It reaffirms that life works in certain ways for a reason.”
“Don’t get all fucking psychological on me right now.” Afraid to let her go, he threaded his hands through her hair just to keep her in front of him. He inhaled the familiar scent of her hair. He rested his cheek on top of her head, then moved back to kiss her forehead. “I can do both.”
“You only believe you can right now, because I’m leaving.” Eve gently pushed him away.
“Don’t do this to me, Eve. Not now.” How could he go on without talking to her? Without hearing her voice? Sometimes the nightmares, the stress of the life he led was too much and the only thing he wanted was to hear her voice. She eased something unsteady and unstable, in the subterranean depths of his being.
Eve slowly removed her hands from his, anchored her bags on her shoulder and clutched his fingers. “Jake...you know this is right. You need this break to concentrate on Maddelyn and work. I’m giving you that.”
This is NOT fucking happening.
“I’m leaving, so you can take care of what’s important.”
“You’re important—you’re everything to me.”
She smiled and touched his cheek. “I’m not everything. And I’ve never needed to be. I just needed you. But I can’t do this anymore. You want me to be strong? You want me to succeed? I can’t wait by a phone for you. I need the emotional pendulum to stop—that’s what I need to be strong and what Maddelyn needs is her father. You need to let me go.”
“Fuck no. No!” Grabbing her shoulders, he tried like hell not to shake some sense into her. “I found you again after sixteen years. Can you really walk away from me this easily?”
Eve’s face went even paler than normal and her eyes blazed an arctic blue. She knocked his hands away from her.
“Don’t think for a fucking second this is easy for me! I’ve loved you from the second I saw you across that damn parking lot at thirteen, Jake. Thirteen. When everyone said you’d hurt me. That you were a player and I still believed in you. Even when you told me, I was too young. I still waited for you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve compared every man I’ve ever met to you. When you showed up married, I moved on. I settled. So, don’t you dare stand there and act as if this is easy for me. I love you, but don’t forget, I know you very well. You’re alone a lot, yes, but your track record has proven you don’t want to be alone. And I don’t want that for you. Once Maddelyn is better, I want you to find happiness.”
Jake backed her up against the wall, so angry that everything blurred in front of him.
“What about you, Eve? Is this your excuse to go find someone else? Are you going to let someone besides me touch you, be inside you, love you as I have?” He put both hands on either side of her head. If he didn’t love her so fucking much, he’d hate her. How could she take herself out of his life when he needed her the most? The answer to that question was a hard reality—because she knew that while they may need each other, Maddie needed him more. Her wet eyes reflected a deep sadness and his fucking chest concaved, the muscles spasming.
“You know what you are to me. I’ll never love another man the way I love you. Ever. I’ve come to accept that. What I won’t do is stop my life. Again. The reality is I am stronger now. I don’t need you to keep me steady. Maddelyn does.”
He pinned her body to the wall with his. “Know this, Eve. When this is all settled, when Maddie’s straight, when she’s healthy, I’m coming for you. I don’t give a shit who’s in your life. I’m coming.”
This was why he didn’t want to tell her about Maddie. She always thought of him before herself and if that meant she had to extract herself from his life for him to exclusively focus on his daughter, she wouldn’t hesitate.
He pounded his fist into the door beside her head. “I love you, Eve.”
She didn’t flinch. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes but didn’t fall. “And I love you, but we can’t change the past—a past that gifted you with two beautiful daughters. I can’t change that you chose someone else, built a life with her, and you can’t change that I waited and married the wrong man. Life happened.” She peered down at her phone, hit a few buttons and turned it to him. “You once sent me this text.”
How do I tell you that I love you, when you were never mine? How do I tell you?
She glanced at the phone before meeting his eyes again. “That was the first time you ever said that you loved me. Did you know that? The thing is, you’ve never been mine either, Jake, and yet, in my heart, it’s only ever been you for me.” Eve reached over and turned the handle on the door. “I’ll pray for Maddelyn. That she’s in this much pain breaks my heart in ways I can’t express. Now that I know where you’re really needed...I can let you go.”
Kissing him hard on the lips, she spun around, walked out the door and shut it softly behind her.
Unable to process what had just happened, he stood staring at the closed door for a minute or two. Once the shock subsided, he flung the door open and bent over the railing overlooking the parking lot outside their room.
Eve sat in her car, hands over her face clearly sobbing.
He couldn’t let her leave this way. “Eve!” he shouted over the railing.
Her head shot up, determined eyes met his, she instantly threw the car into reverse and drove out of the parking lot.
Jake fought the urge to race after her. The irony that he was the one left watching her drive away this time wasn’t lost on him. A wave of emotion swept over him as he walked back into the room. The door quietly shut behind him and he leaned back against it, sliding down to the floor. Resting his arms on his knees, he lowered his head, completely unfamiliar with the rib-crushing ache about to cave in his chest.
Destroyed.
He’d lost his light. Eve loved him with everything she had—unconditionally and without restraint. He wouldn’t be able to hold her, kiss her, hear her three in the morning bed voice when the nightmares kicked in. Her smile and laugh that turned his world upside down, which he’d hoped to have every day was—gone. A text message interrupted his thoughts. He jumped up, raced over to the counter and quickly grabbed his phone.
Before he even hit unlock, his heart contracted as the message highlighted his lock screen. Maddelyn.
Daddy, you’ll be home for tomorrow, right?
He could read the anxiety behind the text. Wouldn’t be anywhere else, baby girl. Be home tonight. I love you, Mads.
Maddelyn was unraveling and Eve had released him from everything outside of her. She’d loved him enough to see what needed to be done and let him go to take care of his daughter. As he hit send, a disconcerting sense of relief washed over him.
Jake couldn’t give Eve the life she deserved right now. Not when his focus had to be on his girls and her career was just starting. It wasn’t fair to ask her to wait for him—again. Knowing her as well as he did, he knew he couldn’t call her. Couldn’t check on her. She’d need no contact in order to deal with the loss of them and to focus on her work. While the pain of not having her to talk to, to hold, to love was beyond fucked up...he was proud of her and thankful to her. She’d made the hard decision where he couldn’t for once.
If he knew one thing about Eve, it was that she loved totally, selflessly and unconditionally. She wouldn’t get over him easily or quickly. He wasn’t being a dick, it was just fact when it came to Eve. He would have to hold on to her devotion and memories of the year, the past twenty hours until he could get back to her. Her vulnerability, kindness, and genuine care for other people made him violent when he thought about her in New York on her own. Eve would be like Christmas morning to most men. The fact that she didn’t realize how truly amazing she was made her even more attractive and that made him want to lock her in a fucking room. Cave man? Yeah, whatever. It was truth.
In order to give them the chance they’d lost decades ago, however, he had to let her go for now. But he would find her again. Knowing Eve, she would try to make it difficult. Change her number, the email account they shared, and try to stay off the social network radar. But she wouldn’t cut him off completely—she loved him too much. She would leave some avenue open just in case he needed her. That was Eve. She’d made a decision though, and he would respect it...until he took care of his daughter. Once he did, he would find her and he genuinely felt sorry for anyone who stood in his way when he did. No more waiting. A clean slate. She’d promised him a full day and night and he’d been cut short. Wasn’t havin’ it. They’d have the second chance they deserved.
I’ll be back, baby...and you better be ready.
20 hours