Keep driving. Keep your foot on the gas and don’t stop.
I tell myself over and over. Don’t look in the rearview mirror because it doesn’t matter. It’s behind me. I have to keep moving forward and pretend that I didn’t allow myself to feel again.
One touch was all it took.
One word crumbled the walls I’d rebuilt.
If I’d stayed there he would’ve broken me down. I could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t going to let me go. So I did as I promised myself before I went—I let him go first. I protected myself from yet another round of heartbreak. Which is all that seems to come from Jackson and I. We hurt each other whether it’s intentional or not. The damage is still the same and I’ve had enough to last me a lifetime.
The drive to the house in Scotch Plains is shorter than if I had to head back to my apartment, so I brought an overnight bag since Mark and Ashton made arrangements for her to get home. As soon as Jackson let me go, I had to get out of there. I needed to get the hell away from him because he’d consume me. The pain remains though.
I wipe the tears that continue to stream down my face. I can still feel him around me, his scent clings to me and I inhale it. I’d give up everything to go back in time and never have given in to him. If I’d saved myself then it wouldn’t hurt so damn much right now. There’s nothing more I want to do than turn this car around and run back to him. His touch sent my entire world into a tailspin. In his arms I felt it all. The love, the hurt, the agony of our reunion, knowing it was the finale too. It was the last time Jackson would ever hold me, ever touch me, his lips, his face will never be mine again.
I look in the rearview mirror wanting to go back.
Keep driving.
Pushing the accelerator faster, I fight my heart’s wants. It doesn’t change the circumstances we’re in. My clean start is in California and I leave in four days.
Keep your foot on the gas and don’t stop.
I pull up to what was my father’s house and drop my head on the steering wheel. Now what? Drawing a deep breath I lean back while the ache washes over me. I remember how it felt to find out everything. How devastated I was during that press release and what it felt like to find out the love I thought we shared was built on lies.
Removing myself from the car, I open the back door and grab my bag.
“I wasn’t done,” I hear Jackson’s voice.
My entire body freezes at the sound of his deep voice and my legs go weak. I grab on to the frame of the door to stay upright. “What are you doing here?” I ask on the verge of sobbing.
He takes a step closer, gripping my wrists, and his voice softens. “No more running. We’re going to talk. Now.”
I look into his eyes and the storm rages across his face. Allowing myself a minute to take him in. He’s dressed in his dark blue uniform and if I ever thought he was sexy in a suit, this just put that image to shame. I watch as he smirks when he catches me looking him over.
That sexy grin infuriates me. “You don’t get it,” I say exasperated.
Jackson’s hands move up my arms slowly. I start to draw short breaths and shake. Why does he do this to me? Why can’t I fight him? I’m weak against his touch.
“I know that I love you,” he says as his fingers move against my neck. “I get it, but I don’t care about giving you space anymore.”
“You don’t care?” I push him back and he leans forward, trapping me in his arms. “God, do you hear yourself? Why are you here if you don’t care?”
“If we’re really done. Why the hell should I care?” His lips graze my ear. “If you don’t love me and you’re done with me, then I have nothing left to lose.” The heat of his breath against my neck causes me to shiver. “So, we’re going to talk because I,” his lips touch the skin of my neck, “Don’t,” another kiss, “Care.”
He pulls me against him and presses his lips to the base of my neck, lingering and moving slowly while he holds me close.
I melt into his embrace like always. But this is our dance. He breaks me down, and I break more. Only I’m not sure I’ll be able to seal the cracks from this one.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say pulling out of his arms. “None of it matters anymore. You should go.”
“I’m sure I should, but I won’t. Please, come home. Let’s talk.” Jackson looks around and takes in the street we’re standing on. “Or have you found a new home?”
My eyes close and my heart pounds against my chest. “Not that I owe you any explanations, but no, this was my father’s house. Tomorrow I’m selling it,” I say as I walk to the door. I need him to go now. “I have a lot I need to do, so please get back in your car and go. Goodbye.”
Jackson grabs my arm and I turn to face him, but before I can say a word he slowly presses his lips against mine. His hands grip my neck and hold me at his mercy. Every part of me comes to life. The heart that has been beating out of rhythm just found its cadence. My breath comes easier from one solitary kiss. Needing to be closer, needing this feeling to remain, my hands grip his neck as I pull him closer. Jackson pushes my back against the door and I give myself over to him for a moment. I allow myself the feel of his weight against me. The way he ignites my body because this will be the last time.
Jackson pulls back and his blue-green eyes are solid and he struggles to catch his breath. “There are no goodbyes between us.” He grabs the keys and I stand here dumbstruck.
This is not going according to plan.
Jackson fiddles with the keys until he gets the door open. Standing off to the side with his arm outstretched he waits for me to enter.
“You’re not staying,” I say defiantly.
“I’m not leaving, so either you’re coming with me to New York, or I’m staying here until you hear me out. You pick.”
“Neither of those works for me. So you can leave or I’ll call the cops.”
He shrugs, “I’ll be right here.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Be my guest, baby.”
“I’m not your baby anymore.”
Jackson takes a step forward and his eyes are steel. “Get in the fucking house. I’m done playing.”
I stand there with my arms crossed. He’s lost the right to boss me around.
“Always have to do things the hard way, don’t you?” he asks before grabbing me around my waist and placing me in the house.
“Put me down!” I yell and he kicks the door shut. “God! You don’t have a clue, do you?”
He laughs, apparently finding this amusing, before he winces and grips his leg. “Did you get my gifts?”
“You hurt yourself, didn’t you?”
“I’m fine. Answer the question.”
“I burned them,” I say completely full of shit, but I hope if I can piss him off enough he’ll take the hint and leave.
“Mature,” he scoffs. “Did you read the cards or did you burn those too?” His brow rises in question.
I blink repeatedly while my jaw falls slightly ajar. I can’t lie to him about this. His heart was bared in those letters. “I read them,” I say softly.
I read them and fell apart. I lost a part of my heart in those letters, but I won’t tell him that.
“But they didn’t matter to you?”
“You lied to me, Jackson!” I say infuriated that he continues to neglect this fact. “I told you my deal-breakers. I gave you every chance to tell me about your wife.” I throw my hands up and start to pace. “I can’t have this conversation with you now. I’m not angry, or upset, I’m not going through this again. You promised me. You fucking promised!” I yell and push against his chest. “You promised. Of course those damn letters mattered, but they don’t change anything!”
“I know.”
“You weren’t supposed to break my heart,” I say, clutching my stomach.
Jackson pulls me to his chest and his voice is thick with emotion. “You weren’t supposed to win mine. I was dead inside. I refused to ever love again, yet here we are.”
I look up and plead with him. “Please, let me go.”
His jaw sets and he releases me. “I can’t. Sit down. No more games, no more lies.”
“Jackson,” I say drawing a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Things have changed.”
“Not for me they haven’t! I’m fucking dying without you, Catherine. My entire fucking world doesn’t make sense anymore. How is that possible? How even after the absolute hell I’ve lived through does that make sense? Because it does matter. We matter, goddammit.” He drops to his knees in front of me.
I look at his face and see it. The bags under his eyes, the pain in his eyes. He’s a mess. So am I. I sink to the couch and we continue to look at each other. I ache. I physically ache for him.
“Love shouldn’t hurt like this,” I say as he grips my hands.
“I was married for six years to a woman named Madelyn.”
“Please don’t do this.”
Jackson continues as if he didn’t hear my request. “I met her when I was active duty. I fell in love with her. She was beautiful, alluring, and I was a twenty-two-year-old idiot who thought he was invincible. The world was at my feet. I was a Navy-fucking-SEAL and she doted on me.”
I close my eyes wishing he would stop and we could say goodbye.
But he doesn’t.
“She was born into a wealthy family. Her parents gave her anything she wanted because she was born with a severe heart condition. I married her after two years thinking it was the next step. Maddie and I had everything even though we couldn’t ever have kids. Losing her was pure fucking torture.” Jackson looks at me and tears fill my eyes.
“I’m sorry you lost someone you loved.” I don’t know what else to say.
“I didn’t lose her. I was the reason she died,” he says as he grips the bridge of his nose.
My jaw falls slack. “I don’t understand.”
“This isn’t going to be easy for me. I know you think you fought feeling anything for me but you have no idea how hard I fought against you. I didn’t ever want to love again. There wasn’t a part of me that ever wanted to feel this again.” Jackson’s gaze bores through me. “If I didn’t love you, then I wouldn’t have to lose you. I wouldn’t have to feel the fucking pain and torment again. You were never supposed to get to me.”
I look at him as he traces his calloused thumb across my palm. “Jackson, we can’t do this to each other.”
“Maddie and I enjoyed our life together as long as I kept her needs first. She hated the deployments, training exercises, and most of all she hated how much I loved it. There were times I had to miss her doctor’s appointments because of the Navy, but I loved being a SEAL. We knew from the beginning we could never have kids. I was fine with it because I was gone so much.” Jackson’s eyes glaze over and he grips my hand harder.
“Her family demanded she take over Raven. The Elliotts built it from the ground up. They urged me to leave the service because I should be home to care for Madelyn. After the mission that went wrong, Maddie demanded it too. I wanted to re-enlist, but we barely saw each other as it was, and now she was going to be in New York. She hated being a military wife and I loved her, so I gave it up. We fought and argued, but ultimately her happiness came first for me.” He looks at me for the first time with tears building in his eyes.
“You don’t have to …” Watching him cry is too much.
“That last mission happened four months before my contract was up. I was on limited duty anyway, so I said fuck it and I quit. She was happy and I thought that’s all that mattered. She gained complete control of the company and we bought out her brother. I had a lot of money saved from my missions. My only request was that I start the security company. She supported it—I think she knew there was a part of me that felt dead. I hated the messages from Mark and the guys about what they were doing. I fucking wanted to crawl out of my skin staying in New York, so I made Cole Securities bid for contracts so that I could still use my skills. Of course, it meant I was gone from her again.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask as a tear falls from my face. I don’t want to hear about how much he loved his wife.
“Because I should’ve told you before. But I was terrified it would make everything real. It was the only piece of me I had left to give you. If you knew about her then you would see how fucking wrecked I am.” He trembles as he speaks and another tear falls from his eyes. “I would’ve sold my soul to have the rest of this story not happen. I was flying between New York and Virginia constantly. We were trying to make it work. She was getting sicker, so I couldn’t leave as often and she had to resign from Raven. None of the doctors were sure why her medication suddenly wasn’t effective. There was a problem with something in Virginia and I had to handle it … she begged me not to go. She said she felt sicker than usual, but Maddie was dramatic. She said fine, go, that she’d call her mother. So I left. What kind of man leaves his wife whose heart was starting to fail?” he asks rhetorically before beginning again.
“As much as I knew I shouldn’t go, I couldn’t stay. I got on the plane and when I landed, I had thirty missed calls. Madelyn had collapsed and was in a coma.”
I gasp and he looks up. “See, we couldn’t have kids, Catherine. I knew this, she knew this. But she must’ve come off her birth control or I don’t know, but she was pregnant.” Jackson’s hand covers his heart and he grips at his chest. “Her heart failed because she couldn’t carry a baby. I killed her and I killed our baby. Knowing I was the reason she died is beyond anything I can describe.” Jackson’s tears fall silently as he relives his grief.
He looks up at me and I sink on to the floor with him and wrap my arms around him. He’s so broken. My heart drops and I join him with my own tears as I see the anguish on his face. This isn’t what I was expecting. I thought he was divorced, not that she’d died. And he lost a baby too. How much loss can one person handle? He’s lost so many people in his life by some form of tragedy.
“I’m so sorry,” I say with tears streaming.
“The doctors said she was about four weeks, but the increased stress on her heart was too much and she never woke up. Her family blamed me for being careless and hated me for a long time. But no one can hate me more than I hate myself.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Jackson.” A tear falls down my cheek at how much pain and death he’s dealt with. “You didn’t kill your baby or your wife. It was tragic and awful, but you didn’t know. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“In a matter of a year, there was five people’s blood on my hands. I was terrified of failing you too, and I did it anyway. I couldn’t have you look at me like that. It was my job to protect them and I failed every one of them.”
My throat aches and I try to get the words out. “Do you know what I see?” He looks up and then his eyes close. “I see a man who needs to forgive himself for something he couldn’t control. You didn’t purposely put anyone in danger. Bad things happened, but you didn’t kill anyone. You’re not capable of doing that.”
“I can’t lose you, Catherine. I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to see me that way. I left her, and she died.” Jackson’s hands cup my face. “I lost my wife and child and the last words I said to her were how I wished I was fucking deployed again so I didn’t have to deal with Raven. I vowed after she died I wouldn’t ever give myself the chance to hurt anyone else. Then you fell into my lap—literally. I tried not to love you. I tried to keep at a distance, but when I’d see you … I wanted you more.”
“Our entire relationship has been one thing after another,” I sigh as his thumbs rub my cheek.
It’s been a lot of hurt, but we did have good times with laughter, playfulness, and love. I wish there was more of that because the bad times make those feel minimal. Watching our relationship fall apart has been agony, but Jackson taught me a lot. I learned how to love again when I thought I couldn’t.
“In the six years I was married to Madelyn, I never in my dreams imagined loving anyone as much as her—then came you. You make me feel alive. You give me hope that I can be more of a man than I was then. You showed me how to love again. I never felt like I did after you walked away. Doesn’t that say something?”
My heart sinks because as much as I understand him, I’m leaving. I move in four days and here is the man that I loved and still love, but now what? Everything’s different. Those weeks changed the course of my life and I don’t know if I can go back. It doesn’t negate the fact that if he’d told me all of this I wouldn’t be faced with this choice. Or if I was, we could’ve navigated this together. If I give everything up for him, then what? If in four months something else happens and our worlds fall apart, can we handle it then? All of the questions swirl around in my head, but I already know the answers.
He looks into my eyes and pulls me close, pressing his forehead to mine. “Give me tonight. Don’t say anything, just give me tonight,” Jackson says before pressing his lips to mine.
The desperation rolls off of him in waves. He coaxes my lips apart and I allow him entry. Gently tilting my head, he kisses me deeply and reverently. I feel his hand lower to my back and he lays me down. My brain ceases to exist. I want to feel. I want to have him in my body and my soul because I don’t know if I’ll ever find a love like this again. And even with all that was exposed tonight, I can’t give up everything for him. I can’t give up my dreams. So I’ll give him tonight, and pray tomorrow doesn’t kill me.