Chapter 9 Jake
Jake
He found her sitting on his kitchen floor. His FBI badge lay beside her on the tiles. The shattered whiskey bottle was exactly where he'd left it, amber liquid still staining the wall.
Hannah didn't look up.
"Tell me this isn't real." Her voice was raw, like she'd been crying. Or screaming. Maybe both.
Jake's throat closed. She looked small against his cabinets, her arms wrapped around her knees like she was trying to hold herself together. This woman who danced while she baked, who filled every room with warmth, who'd trusted him with her whole heart—now she could barely look at him.
"Hannah." Her name felt like glass in his mouth.
"Just tell me." She finally raised her eyes to his, and the devastation he saw there nearly brought him to his knees. "Tell me there's an explanation. Tell me you're not—" Her voice cracked. "Tell me you didn't—"
"I'm FBI." The words fell like stones between them. "Special Agent Jacob Cooper. I've been investigating your father."
She flinched. Actually flinched. Like he'd struck her.
"How long?"
"Hannah—"
"How. Long?"
He forced himself to meet her gaze. She deserved that much. "Since the beginning."
The sound she made—God, he'd never heard anything like it. Part laugh, part sob, part scream. "The beginning." She pressed a hand to her mouth. "So everything... Everything we talked about—"
"I needed to get close to you." The truth felt like acid on his tongue. "To watch you. Your father."
"Watch me." She swayed slightly. "You were watching me."
"You were supposed to be a job." Jake took a step toward her, then stopped when she jerked back. "Just a way to get information about Richard's operation. But Hannah, what I feel for you—"
"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. "You don't get to do that. Not now."
"I never meant to hurt you."
Her laugh was horrible—raw and wounded. "Never meant to—" She gestured and it took in his crappy, anonymous life, his whiskey-stained wall. "What did you mean to do, Jake?" Her face crumpled and she closed her eyes. "I mean… Jacob."
"I go by Jake." As if that mattered now. As if anything mattered except the way she was looking at him like he'd ripped her heart out.
"Was any of it real?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Or was it all just... research?"
Jake's chest felt like it was being crushed. "Hannah, please—"
She pushed to her feet, unsteady but determined.
"Did you laugh about it? With your FBI friends?
About how easy it was to make the baker fall in love with you?
About how I trusted you? Gave you everything?
Let you into my life, my home, my—" She broke off, pressing her hands to her stomach like she was going to be sick.
"No." He moved toward her, desperate to touch her, to make her understand. "God, no, Hannah. I love—"
The slap caught him across the face, snapping his head to the side. The sting was nothing compared to the gut-punch of her next words.
"You don't get to say that." Her voice shook. "You don't get to pretend you loved me while standing in this... this set you built. This lie you constructed to destroy my family."
She was right. This apartment, this life—all of it had been carefully crafted to gain her trust. To make her fall in love with a man who didn't exist.
Except somewhere along the way, the lie had become real. He had become real.
But it was too late.
Hannah pushed past him, her shoulder barely brushing his as she moved toward the door. She paused in the doorway, and when she spoke, her voice was steady despite the tears on her cheeks.
"I loved you." The past tense gutted him. "I would have given you everything."
"Hannah—"
"I hope it was worth it." Her voice finally broke. "I hope destroying my life was worth your paycheck, Special Agent Cooper."
Then she was gone.
The door slammed with a finality that shook the walls. Jake stared at his badge on the floor, at the whiskey staining his wall, at the empty space where Hannah had sat.
He didn't stop her.
He had no right to stop her.
He'd lost that right the moment he'd chosen the job over the only woman he'd ever truly loved.