35. Jackson
Ifollowed her in an instant.
I wasn’t letting her walk away, not this time. Not when I had a say, not when I was present and could do something about it. I jogged toward her, catching her hand as she stepped out the doors of the grand office space. She turned, her eyes filled with flames, and before she could say a word to me, I pulled her into the private office that branched from the hallway.
Shutting the door behind me, I leaned against it, blocking her exit. “Talk to me.”
Her nostrils flared, her fisted hands twitching to fight me. The knee-length emerald-green dress she had on did nothing for her if she was trying to look dangerous. “Let me out, Jack.”
“I’ll let you out when you actually have a conversation with me instead of running away,” I hissed, taking one step toward her. “If you have something to say, say it. Don’t bite your tongue.”
“I have too much to say to you, Jack. That’s the problem.” She crossed her arms over her chest, a tiny, angry tear breaking free. She wiped it away with a flick of her finger. “I don’t have the time to say it all.”
“You do. We’re alone. I have nowhere to be.”
“You have interviews to do,” she said, an irritated laugh escaping from her. “You have a lot of work to do, apparently.”
“Fuck the interviews. Fuck work,” I seethed. My body had a mind of its own when it came to her, gravitating toward her, taking another step closer. “If you genuinely think that’s more important than this moment right here, right now, then I don’t know what to tell you, Mandy.”
I could see every part of her go tense at my words. “It’s sure seemed more important for the last month.”
“It isn’t.” Another step toward her and she retreated again. “It never has been. Do you think that’s been an active choice I’ve made? Do you genuinely believe for one second, that I would rather have spent my time fucking working?”
“How else am I supposed to take that?” She snapped, her arms flying out, taking up more space. “That’s all the information I’ve been given, Jackson. Work. Work. Work. Beat up Harry. Don’t say you love me. That’s all you’ve been doing.”
I’d realized how she’d picked up on that back in the grand office space, but I didn’t know how to explain that away. I wanted to say it to her, wanted to mumble it over and over against her fucking skin, but I couldn’t. Not when everything was on the line, not when it could cost her her life, not when my affection for her that had never for a second gone away put her in harm’s way. “I just… I need you to trust me. That’s all I’m asking for, Mandy. Just trust me, please.”
She cackled as she turned around, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. I watched as she glanced around the mostly empty office, bare except for the necessities. It hadn’t been assigned to anyone yet. “I’m all out of trust for you, Jack.”
I could feel the air leaving my lungs. “Don’t say that.”
“Do you want me to lie?”
“No, never, but please. There has to be some left. Just trust that I’m doing what I have to.”
“Tell me what’s going on and I’ll consider it,” she said, one shoulder lifting as she looked back at me. “Give me a good reason for snapping and breaking Harry’s nose. Give me a reason that you’ve built me up just to tear me back down again.” I winced, her words almost parroting those from Harry’s mouth before I’d let my knuckles collide with his face. I wanted to tell her, desperately, but if this stupid fucking threat was real, I couldn’t drag her into it. Not until we got to the bottom of it, not until we got that CCTV back from the library. It had been hell waiting for it, and I couldn’t let this happen, not when we were so close— “Yeah, I didn’t think you would.”
I didn’t know how to deal with this. I never had, never grew the backbone I needed to be the bigger person. I should have. “So, what? You’re going to go back to hating me and pretending there is nothing between us anymore? You’re going to make me break down all of those walls again?”
She stared me down, her stare unwavering, her jaw set. “I’m going to cut myself off from you completely.”
I blinked at her, rage making my muscles quake, my chest ache. “You can’t do that.”
“I can.”
“You don’t want that,” I said.
Her lower lip quivered. “I do.”
“You’re lying,” I said through my teeth, my feet carrying me forward before I could tell them not to. She backed up, spine hitting the floor-to-ceiling window as my hands landed on either side of her head. Thank god I’d installed strong glass. “You’re lying to me, and you’re lying to yourself.”
“I’m not,” she breathed, her flared eyes searching mine as she tried to catch her breath. “I’ll move away from Boulder. I’ll get as far away from you as possible, stay off the internet. You won’t find me.”
“I will,” I hissed, leaning in further, my breath fogging the window behind her. “You think I didn’t track every vacation you ever took? Every quick trip to New York? I will always find you. Leaving Boulder is pointless.”
Her breath caught before she spoke. “Then tell me what’s happening.”
I sucked in air as I pushed myself away. I needed to center myself, needed to gather my thoughts. I didn’t want to tell her — I didn’t want to scare her. But if that was my only option, then fuck it. “I got an email.”
She huffed out a scoff, the little ringlet hanging between her eyes flying up from the puff of air. “You got an email? Wow. Revolutionary.”
“Are you going to listen or make snide comments?” I snapped. I was already shaking, already reliving the fucking trauma of ten years ago. I needed her to listen.
With an exaggerated eye roll, she went silent.
“It was a threat,” I continued, flexing my hand to keep from punching the stack of filing cabinets. “A threat against you. They said I should have learned from ten years ago. They knew what happened, why I left. Why I didn’t let myself go after you for years. They have to be connected. Do you understand what that’s doing to me? The amount of past trauma that’s brought up? I can’t fucking sleep. I can barely eat. I’ve tried to create distance because I’m terrified for you.”
She blinked at me, not one ounce of worry in her expression. “So someone emailed you saying that they’d… what? Kill me?”
“It was whoever broke into your house. I don’t know what they want, but they spent a substantial amount of time in there before they left,” I explained. Just the thought of the unknown person laying in her bed, going through her drawers, taking up space in her house made me want to scream. I’d become exceptionally good at holding that in the last few weeks until Harry had come along. “Why do you think I’ve had extra security outside your home? Why do you think I kept asking you to stay with me? Why do you think I lost my goddamn mind when Harry started spewing shit at me? I didn’t want any of that. I didn’t want to hurt him. But he wouldn’t stop bringing up how I’d hurt you before, how what I’d done was horrible—and believe me, I know—but that I was doing it again.”
“We already knew they had been in my house,” she sighed, tapping the bottom of the window with one heeled foot. “It doesn’t really sound like the email stated anything we didn’t already know. And it definitely doesn’t excuse the way you’ve been acting.”
“No, it isn’t, but if me being around you puts you in danger, then I’m willing to back off.” I forced myself to look at the ceiling, keeping myself as calm as possible, fighting back the burning behind my eyes from the admission. “But I’ve been trying to track the email for weeks. We’ve traced it back to the public library, but we’re still waiting on the CCTV. So, yes, I’ve been avoiding you because I’m fucking terrified of anything happening to you because of me. I punched him because I’m a coward, I punched him because I couldn’t handle the thought of all of this, everything I’m trying to figure out, breaking you again.”
“That’s…” She took a deep breath, her gaze bouncing across the room. “That’s not good enough.”
“Excuse me?” I breathed, my head snapping downward so I could look at her evenly. “What does that mean?”
“If that’s true, and I’m not saying I believe you, but if it is — you should have told me. You shouldn’t have hidden that. That’s not an excuse to avoid me for almost a month. Do you know how I’ve felt? Do you even understand the amount of pain you’ve dished out while trying to be this white knight savior? I vomited when Harry showed me what you’d done to him. I nearly fucking drowned myself. You’ve caused more pain than whoever emailed you could have.” She laughed again, the anger boiling over.
“Mandy…”
“No. Don’t Mandy me. It’s not fair, and I refuse to deal with this shit again.” She stepped out from underneath my arms and took a step toward the door, her eyes daring me to move toward her. “You shattered me ten years ago, Jack. Absolutely destroyed me. I’m not letting you do that again.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” I insisted, taking one step as her hand met the door handle.
“I don’t need your protection. What I need is to be free of you, once and for all. The project is done. The deal is done. It’s time to do the public breakup, Jack.”
“No—”
“The press is right on the other side of those double doors. Let’s do it now and get it over with.”
“I’m not doing that,” I breathed. My hand met her arm, squeezing, begging.
She turned the handle. “Then I will.”