40. Then
40
THEN
Jack waited down the hall from the dean’s office for Brooke, the minutes absolutely slugging along. His knee bounced and his heart raced.
Sacked . He’d never been sacked before; perhaps those were the perks of nepotism. His stomach clenched at the thought of returning to the family business, but what other choice did he have? His dad needed him. Neil shouldn’t have to hire some fancy MBA when he’d already financed one that Jack had set on fire. Jack had irreparably humiliated himself.
He steepled his fingers together and pressed them against his mouth. His parents were going to be shocked. Mhairi was going to be so disappointed.
A small part of Jack wanted to blame his aunt for this—he wouldn’t have disclosed his and Brooke’s relationship if it hadn’t been for her prodding. But if he was honest with himself, he’d been looking for any reason, so desperate to love Brooke out loud and in the open, that he’d barely thought this through.
His heart had been halfway in the right place—never want ing to stand in the way of Brooke’s fellowship—and halfway bloody fucking selfish.
What a fool he’d been, not even talking to Brooke about this first, not giving her any warning. He’d jumped on his white horse like some gallant knight she didn’t need. She was in that office getting blindsided right now.
The dean had refused to discuss Brooke. As far as he could tell, they were worried about sexual harassment and seeing as how that wasn’t the case and Jack had been terminated from his program, Brooke shouldn’t face any consequences. It’d been Jack’s fault, his lack of restraint. He was the one in a position of power. Or he had been.
But a small part of him worried that the dean’s long-winded recounting of a sexual harassment case from the previous year meant they were coming down on this hard, and that it wasn’t out of the question that Brooke would face some repercussions. Jack blew out a long breath through his nose.
Footsteps echoed along the hall and Brooke turned the corner in a flurry. Jack stood, stopping her with his hands on her arms. She shrugged him off, tears spilling out of her eyes. “What the hell , Jack?”
His heart pounded hard with regret and guilt, a steady staccato of you absolute wanker.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorr—”
“Why would you do that?” Brooke said on a desperate breath, her eyes pinning him in place.
“For you. For the fellowship.”
“Forget the fellowship, I’m not even graduating,” she said with a decisive scoff.
His pulse whirred in his ears. “What, why?”
“I have to retake the class.”
It would add to her workload next term, but she’d already learned everything. It didn’t mean she couldn’t graduate. She was so clever, she’d be able to make it work. He’d do whatever he could to help her—obviously not the coursework, Jesus , but make her dinners or carry her books to and from classes. He’d find a way to fix this. “That seems punitive, but doable.” And much better than the worst-case scenario that’d been rumbling around in his mind.
“I’m here on a scholarship.” She looked at him like he was an absolute child, not understanding what was at play.
The light flickered above him like the lightbulb that should’ve been going off in his brain.
“To keep that scholarship,” she said slowly, enunciating every word, “I have to be a full-time student. Which I no longer will be since I’m being forced to drop this class. Thanks to you.”
Jack felt like sinking to the floor, his joints going loose, his head light. A shout from a student a long way off echoed through the empty corridor. A door slammed in the distance. “Brooke, I never meant—” He’d been trying to do the right thing. Not destroy everything. “I can help you pay for it.” He’d make decent money at The Heart. He could move home, get an extra job—
“I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?” Those blue eyes were the shade of the deep sea, dangerous with fury.
“I was trying to protect you,” he said on a desperate plea as she pulled away from him with a look of icy indifference he’d never seen before.
“You were protecting you .” She stabbed a finger in his direction. “You betrayed me. You finally figured out what you wanted and fucked up my life to get it.”
Christ, he had fucked this all up, but she had it wrong. It’d never been about him. He would give it all back to fix this. “It was never like that—”
“I lost everything because of you.” Her voice was harsh and ragged.
Panic burst through him at the errant thought—or maybe premonition—that this was the end. Cheeks flushed, loose tendrils of hair curving over her shoulder, necklace straining against the deep V of her throat where she sucked in angry breaths.
“Brooke—” He reached out to touch her, to pull her back, to grasp what he felt vanishing from his life.
She knocked his hand away before he touched her shoulder.
“I never want to see you again.”