Chapter Twenty-One
Jess
I eat slowly, despite being so hungry it feels like my stomach is devouring itself. I want to enjoy these last few moments with Nick, where everything is calm and peaceful and the hurt feelings are far in the past.
I have a feeling once he explains why he chose to break up with me that those hurt feelings will be back in full force. Because what could he possibly tell me, what could possibly justify cutting me off and breaking my heart? Destroying everything we had together, right as our dreams were coming true?
We make small talk as we eat, jibe at each other and crack jokes, the sting softened by a wide smile and the squeeze of a hand.
Nick charges the meal to his room and then pushes back his chair. “Should we head upstairs?”
I shake my head, pushing back my own chair and leading him out into the lobby. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be in close proximity to a bed when we are meant to be talking about the serious things.”
He wraps his arm around my waist, tugging me closer and planting a kiss on the top of my head. “How could I take that in any other way but the best way? It means you can’t resist me.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t pull away. “I think we both know you are the one who can’t resist me.”
“Yes, but I would never dare say otherwise. You know I’ve never been able to deny you anything, Jess.”
Except for a satisfying explanation of what broke us up.
I take him over to the quiet corner of the lobby I discovered earlier in the week, though the entire lobby is much quieter now that the hotel’s occupants have been able to head home. With how badly I wanted to get out of here, it’s hard to believe I voluntarily turned down a ride to the train station.
That’s the power of Nick Matthews, I suppose.
We settle into our armchairs, the two of us still close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from him, but with enough space that I should be able to think clearly.
Nick leans forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about we start with the why? Did your feelings for me change? Were you concerned about me dragging down your career somehow? Did you feel like you’d outgrown me, that I was no longer enough for you?” The questions come spilling out of me, and I didn’t realize how much I was still holding in. Before this week, I would have told you I was well and truly over Nick, that our breakup was an unfortunate incident firmly in my past. But the rush of emotion rising in my chest and the wetness springing up in my eyes would tell the truth.
“No, Jess. God no. None of that.” He scrubs his hands over the thighs of his jeans and looks at me, his hazel eyes full of a hundred emotions. I want to separate them all out and dissect each one.
“Then why?” I whisper, swallowing the tears before they have the chance to trail down my cheeks.
“I need you to know, first and foremost, that my feelings for you were real and true. I saw a future for us.” His voice drops and he turns his gaze away from me. “I went ring shopping and I talked to your parents.”
I suck in a breath. All of that is news to me. “They never told me.” I know them well enough to know it’s not a betrayal; they just didn’t want me to suffer any more than I already was.
He nods. “I’m not surprised. I asked them to keep it a secret and then, well, then everything changed.”
I’m sick of asking for further clarification so I just sit in silence until he works up the nerve to speak again.
“There’s no way to put this that doesn’t make me sound like the asshole that I was. The asshole I would like to think I no longer am.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
A small smile tugs on his lips. “Fair enough.” He sits back in his chair. “At the time, I pretty much talked myself into breaking up with you for your own good.”
My mouth drops open, but I don’t bother speaking, letting him continue to dig this hole all on his own.
“I had a conversation with Marcus, about how our relationship might come off to readers. I don’t think he ever meant me to take it so seriously, but it really got in my head. This idea that if we stayed together, people might think I was the reason you got your book deal.” He runs a hand through his hair. “The last thing I wanted at that point in time was for anything having to do with my deal to overshadow yours, or to take opportunities away from you. I asked Stacy for her perspective, her professional insight, and she confirmed everything Marcus told me.”
I purse my lips, my head shaking back and forth.
“But the worst part, Jess, the part that makes me feel like you would be justified to never forgive me, is the other part of what Marcus told me. That I would be much more marketable, would sell more books, if I were single.”
“So you broke up with me because your best friend—who, by the way, does not work in publishing, and as far as I know has never read a romance novel—came up with a marketing idea?” I don’t sound as angry as I want to, maybe because a huge part of me can’t believe what I’m hearing. He gave up the supposed love of his life so he could sell more books?
He grimaces. “That was the start of it.”
I cock my head to the side, as if that can help me see inside his brain. “And what was the rest of it?”
He lets out a long sigh. “Like I said, Stacy reinforced what Marcus said, about both of us. How it would be better for both of our careers if we weren’t involved with one another. I didn’t see it at the time, but maybe her motivation had more to do with me selling more books rather than protecting you.”
I know him well enough to know he’s still holding something back. “And?”
His eyes meet mine and they are layered with sadness. “And I heard you talking to Alyssa and Kennedy, in the kitchen on our last Christmas together.”
It takes a minute for the conversation to come back to me, but I don’t have to rehash it in my mind because Nick seems to remember the whole thing word for word.
“You were talking about how hard it was for you to be by my side at that moment in our careers. You said you didn’t think you could do it.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his head drooping, his eyes avoiding mine. “I would do a hundred things differently if I could go back and change the past, but not if it meant you ended up resenting me. You were always the one person who saw me, who got me, and I couldn’t bear to lose that. Letting you go killed me, Jess, but somehow, I think that would have been worse.”
My cheeks are wet. “So it was my fault?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Nick reaches for one of my hands, and I let him take it. “I should have talked with you first. I should have told you how I was feeling, and listened, really listened to what you were feeling too.” He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “I guess you were right about couples sucking at communication.”
“It’s not an easy thing to do, for anyone.” That truth doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Even though I won’t deny I had some selfish motivations, I really did think about you and your career, and what would be best.” His thumb strokes my knuckles and it’s almost hypnotizing how his touch can soothe me.
“But you should have let me be the one to make that decision.” I release his hand. “And at this point we both know, being single, never being connected to one another publicly, well, it’s worked out great for you. I can’t sit here and say it’s done much for me.”
Would this be easier to digest if my career had soared without Nick? Something tells me it wouldn’t.
“I know.”
At least he doesn’t try to placate me with false platitudes.
“This week, Jess, being able to spend time with you and reconnect with you, it’s reminded me of everything we had. It’s reminded me of how much I loved you then, and I think it’s shown me, more than anything else, how much I love you still.”
I look up just in time to catch him swiping at his own cheeks. “This is all a lot to process.”
“I know.”
“And now, no matter what happens with us, no matter where we decide to go with our relationship, we’ve written a book together.” My stomach spins, just as fast as my brain is tumbling. Everything that has happened over the past few days is swirling around in my head and my heart, and I don’t know how to make sense of any of it.
There’s anger and frustration about our past, and I’m unsure if it’s outweighed by the way we’ve fit so easily back together. Yes, I now know the truth, and know it’s a truth I can find a way to move past, but who’s to say the same thing might not happen again in the future? How do I know Nick has changed?
“If you want the book, you can have it, Jess. If this is where it ends, if you don’t want to see me again after this, you can have the book. I’ll tell everyone we tried to write together and it didn’t work, and you can keep the entire thing.”
I shake my head. “I’m not putting my name on your work, Nick. And besides, we still have to come up with an ending.”
“Is it too hard to see a way for our characters to come back together? Can they have a real second chance?” We both know he isn’t talking about our characters.
“I don’t know.”
“So where do we go from here?” His hand moves, like he wants to reach for me again but is holding himself back.
“I think I need to go home.”
The hurt in his eyes hurts me too, and I realize how far I’ve fallen over the past couple of days. But I can’t think like this, trapped here in this holiday hotel with him, surrounded by nothing but warm fuzzies. I need space, a chance to get my head together without him influencing me.
“Okay. If that’s what you need.”
I nod and rise from my chair. “I’m going to go upstairs and pack.”
“I’ll wait for you here.”
I head toward the elevators, looking back once. Nick has fully sunk into the armchair, his head in his hands like it’s too heavy to hold up. He looks about as broken as I feel.
I don’t have much stuff and so it only takes me a few minutes to throw everything into my bag. I change out of Nick’s sweatshirt, and yeah, I might hold the soft fabric to my nose, breathing in the pine and juniper scent of him before folding it up and leaving it on the bed. Pulling on my slightly smelly sweater, I do one more check to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.
Nick has moved from the quiet corner when I make my way back down to the lobby, waiting for me in front of the massive Christmas tree.
He always was the best part of Christmas.
I ask the front desk to call me a taxi and leave my bag with them while I make my way over to the man I thought might be mine once again. I don’t resist when he pulls me into his arms. I bury myself in his warmth, in his scent, in the strength of his hands on my back.
“I really hope this isn’t goodbye,” he murmurs into my neck. “Even if we’re just friends, I want you in my life, Jess.”
“I don’t know if I can be just friends with you, Nick.” I wrap my arms around his neck, rising on my toes to bring me closer. “I don’t know if this is goodbye, I just know I need some time to think.”
“Take all the time you need. I’m here whenever you’re ready.”
I tilt my head up, and he brings his lips down to mine. The kiss is soft and sweet, gentle and knowing. It’s the comfort of a cozy blanket and the heat of a fire stoking deep in my belly.
At a honk from outside, I pull myself away reluctantly. Leaving him is the right thing to do, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it in this moment. I wave to the cab to let them know I’m on my way. “I should go.”
He brushes a thumb along my cheek. “Get home safely.” He leans down, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch from mine.
He waits for me to close the space, and I do, placing one final kiss, just a breath of a touch, on his lips.
“Have a good Christmas, Jess.”
“Yeah, you too.” I spin on my heel and walk away, forcing myself not to look back.
My brain is a mess, but my heart is cracking in two. This time I’m the one walking away, but it doesn’t feel any better.