41. TESSA
TESSA
“You’re not helping,” I said, methodically folding another shirt and placing it in my suitcase with precise, angry movements. Each fold felt like drawing a line between before and after, between friendship and whatever mess we’d created tonight.
Scarlett wandered along my bookshelf, trailing her fingers across the spines. I was glad we’d had plans tonight. It was convenient she’d shown up when she had because now I had someone to vent to.
“I’m sorry, but I find it completely swoon worthy that he came back with bloody knuckles, wanting to defend your honor.”
“You’re missing the point, Scarlett.” I slammed the latest shirt down harder than necessary.
“Oh, I heard the point.” A smile played at her lips. “Especially the part where you said it was the best orgasm of your life.”
Heat crept up my neck. Damn it. I had said that, hadn’t I? In the middle of my rage-fueled pacing session, those words had slipped out. Now they hung in the air like evidence. “Can we not?”
“Right.” Scarlett raised her hands in surrender. “The point. He hurt your feelings.”
“It’s more than that.” I yanked open another drawer, probably with more force than strictly necessary. “He?—”
“He’s a total dick.”
I shot her a look. “Don’t do that thing.”
“What thing?” Her innocence was too perfect to be real.
“That thing where you actually disagree with me, but say what I want to hear in this over-the-top way to point out how wrong I am.”
“I would never.” But her lips twitched.
“You’re totally doing it right now.”
Scarlett sat on the edge of my bed, tucking one leg under her. “Okay, fine. Do you want my honest opinion?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Sounds to me like he’s fighting his feelings for you.”
I threw a balled-up pair of socks into the suitcase. “Don’t romanticize rejection. I’m a strong, independent woman. If he doesn’t want me, for any reason, that’s it. Any possible romance over.”
She studied me.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing.”
“And yet you’re looking at me like you’ve got a doctoral thesis forming in that head of yours, so just spit it out.”
Scarlett leaned forward, her hair falling over one shoulder.
“I’m not romanticizing rejection. You got hurt on that terrace, and that absolutely sucks.
But this isn’t some random guy from a dating app.
This is Blake. Your history together is practically a novel of its own. Of course he’s overthinking things.”
“He wasn’t overthinking when he went down on me,” I muttered, then immediately wished I hadn’t brought it up.
“That’s exactly my point!” Scarlett’s eyes lit up. “His control snapped. And the minute he got an ounce of it back, he started fighting the current again. If you want proof he’s in love with you?—”
“He’s not in love with me.” The words sliced through the air between us.
“Look at the evidence.” Scarlett ticked off points on her fingers.
“When you got sick, he moved you into his penthouse and personally took on your case on top of his already-excessive workload. He gave you your first orgasm.” She paused.
“And now his knuckles are bloody because of whatever your ex did.”
Okay, I felt like a jerk; I told her Blake’s anger was over an ex, but I really didn’t want to be all, Hey, FYI, I was assaulted in college and, you know, complications .
I glanced at the window, where city lights blurred through the gathering darkness.
“I hate you for being rational right now,” I said. “You know I need you to be my shoulder to cry on, not my voice of reason.”
“Have you ever asked him why he doesn’t do relationships?”
I stilled. “That’s not what this is.”
“That’s exactly what this is. My question stands.”
I shrugged. “I have a pretty good guess. His parents died in a car accident, so he’s probably traumatized.”
“You’ve been friends for years and the best you can give me is ‘probably’?”
“What difference would it make?”
Scarlett’s voice softened. “Based on everything you’ve told me, it could make all the difference. If you understood why he runs for the hills, maybe you could stop being so angry with him. Do you really want to lose Blake as a friend?”
The question stabbed me like a sword through the ribs. No. No, I didn’t. Even through all this hurt and rejection and pain, Blake had been a constant in my life, someone I could go to outside of my brother and Scarlett. Too important to lose.
Scarlett leaned forward, her voice dropping to that gentle tone she used when she was about to say something I wouldn’t like. “And for some reason, it sounds like if he explores a relationship with you, he’s scared he’ll lose you. Maybe you should ask him why.”
I fidgeted with a loose thread on my sleeve. “What makes you think he’s afraid ?”
“Because every action says that he’s in love with you, Tessa.” Scarlett’s eyes held mine, unflinching. “But every time you get too close to the fire, he backs off.”
I blinked, hating that there was a possibility she was right because as I replayed the last several years, that push-pull I’d always gotten from him would make sense. But I didn’t want it to make sense. Being angry at him and feeling rejected was simple, clean, black and white.
“Well, I can ask him some other day,” I muttered, shoving another handful of clothes into my suitcase. “Right now, I need to get all my stuff and move out.”
Scarlett arched an eyebrow. “And go where?”
“Home.”
“I thought you said a preliminary inspector found possible signs of mold?”
I slammed a drawer shut. “Note the two keywords there: preliminary and possible.”
“Tessa.” Scarlett’s voice had that mix of exasperation and concern that only best friends can perfect. “You can’t sacrifice your health over your feelings.”
“You’re just a bucket of advice today, aren’t you?” I snapped, then immediately felt guilty when hurt flashed across her face. “Sorry. I’m just …”
“Come stay with me,” she offered, gracefully ignoring my outburst.
A strangled laugh escaped me. “Your new apartment complex doesn’t even offer parking. I wouldn’t be able to leave for work.”
“What about your brother?”
My hands froze on the pair of shoes I’d grabbed. “You already know the answer to that.”
“He’s going to find out eventually,” she pointed out. “Might as well be now.”
“Asked and answered.” I shook my head sharply. “He would literally drag me to specialists all over the country. I have a wedding to plan, Scarlett. On an impossibly compressed timeline. Or else my business? Kaboom.”
“Then stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
Scarlett’s eyes narrowed. “How have you felt since you moved out of the townhouse?”
The question hit like a lie detector test at the worst possible time.
I frowned. “I felt sick after he rejected me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Aside from that massive emotional moment, how have you felt since you got here?”
I said nothing.
“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought.”
“It’s probably just because I’ve been eating more regularly,” I argued weakly.
“Or maybe because you removed the source that was poisoning your body.” She stood up, crossing to where I stood by the dresser.
“Listen to me. You can spend most of your time in your bedroom and office, avoiding Blake completely. But the most important thing is your health. If you go back to your place and get sick again, you won’t be able to pull off this wedding. ”
“Why did you have to put it that way?” I snarled.
There had to be another option. Something I wasn’t thinking of.
Maybe Scarlett’s apartment could work. I could spend a couple of days setting up a space …
well, I don’t know, at her kitchen table maybe?
And, hey, Chicago was known for its public transportation.
Maybe I could Uber to all my appointments, somehow in a very timely manner?
Ugh. No, that wouldn’t work.
I punched my suitcase.
“Stay,” a deep voice bellowed from the doorway.
My heart did that stupid little jump it always did when Blake appeared. His presence filled the frame, and my eyes caught on his bruised knuckles before I could stop myself. Tomorrow, he’d probably have to explain those to his bosses at the hospital. Another thing I was screwing up for him.
I forced ice into my tone. “Eavesdropping? Yikes.”
Scarlett cleared her throat dramatically. “Oh my God, I am suddenly parched. Like, Death-Valley-in-summer parched. I should … water. Yes. That.” She slipped past Blake with all the subtlety of a tornado in a trailer park.
Blake stepped into the room, and the air seemed to thin. “Tessa, I’m really sorry.”
“Let me stop you right there.” I held up a hand, hating how my voice wanted to shake. “I don’t need the sorry for giving you the wrong impression speech. Message received. You work long hours; you don’t do relationships. Done. See? We never have to talk about it again.”
Something flashed in his eyes. Pain? Pity? So help me if it was pity.
“Don’t leave. We can work something out where you never have to see me. I’ll be like a ghost.”
I looked at him then, really looked at him. At the tension in his jaw, the shadows under his eyes, the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides. And suddenly, I needed to reclaim some dignity from this mess, dignity that had absolutely nothing to do with living arrangements.
“I want to make one thing clear.” I crossed my arms and approached him, chin up, shoulders back, like I was facing a difficult vendor instead of the man who’d turned my world upside down. “What happened on the terrace was a mistake. Just hormones. Nothing more.”
His jaw ticced, and something darkened in his expression. The words hung between us like a gauntlet thrown, but eventually, Blake swallowed hard—hard, mind you—a muscle working in his cheek before he nodded.
“Good.” I turned back to my suitcase, pretending to reorganize things that were already perfectly arranged. “We’re both adults. Let’s just pretend this never happened.”
“Does that mean you’ll stay?” The hope in his voice made something crack inside my chest.
“No.”
I stared down at my half-packed suitcase, mind spinning through alternatives.
My place with its possible mold. My brother, who would immediately take over my medical care and probably my entire life, and the energy I’d spend fighting with him every second to stop it from happening.
Scarlett’s tiny new apartment with no parking.
Each option felt like choosing between different flavors of terrible and, more importantly, options that would ruin my chance to pull off this wedding.
“I can stay at a hotel,” Blake offered quietly.
A hotel. God, if only my credit lines weren’t maxed out, that’d be the perfect scenario for me to go to.
But no matter how mad I was at Blake …
“I’m not kicking you out of your home.”
He was doing a lot for me, and he didn’t deserve to have to uproot his life even more than he had. Nor did he deserve to be loathed this much.
Goddammit . That inconvenient guilt charged back through my chest like a wrecking ball.
Why couldn’t my heart just pick a team? Team Be Furious with Him or Team Blake Has Done More for You in the Past Few Days Than Anyone Has Done in Their Life.
And even after you were mean to him, he’s still doing nice things for you, so be grateful and kind.
He studied me, and when he spoke, his voice was … God, it was awful, hearing the hurt in it.
“Just … think about it until morning?” he pleaded.
I looked up at him then, and for a moment, I saw something in his eyes that made my breath catch.
Something that made me wonder if Scarlett was right, if there was more to this story than I knew.
His bruised knuckles flexed at his sides, and the gesture was so perfectly Blake—violence wrapped in control, passion hidden behind restraint—that it made my ribs tighten.
“Fine,” I said, the word barely a whisper. “I’ll think about it until morning.”
I didn’t wait for his response, just grabbed my toiletry bag and retreated to the bathroom, but suddenly, I stilled. Turned. And kept my voice softer, void of all the hurt and anger.
“No matter how this turns out, I want you to know that I really am grateful for everything you’re doing for me, Blake.”
I met his gaze, his empathetic, impossible-to-stay-mad-at-him-forever gaze.
“If there’s anything I can ever do to return the favor,” I continued, “don’t hesitate to ask.”
His head slanted into the world’s sexiest tilt.
“All I want is for you to get better, Tess. So, please, stay.”
I bit my lip, then pushed the handle. The door clicked shut behind me with a finality that felt like the punctuation on everything we’d just said.
I pressed my back against the cool wood and slid down to the floor, drawing my knees to my chest.
Seven weeks. Could I survive seven weeks of this exquisite torture, of wanting something I couldn’t have, of living with a man who’d drawn a line I hadn’t even known existed until we’d crossed it?
I let my head fall back against the door and closed my eyes, breathing in the lingering traces of his body wash in the air.
Some masochistic part of me wondered if he was still standing out there, separated from me by nothing but three inches of wood and an ocean of unspoken words.
Like the night I’d been assaulted, I pressed my palm to the door while Scarlett’s voice echoed in my head.
“Every action says that he’s in love with you. ”
God help me, but I was starting to think she might be right.
So, why did it feel like the closer he got to love, the harder he pushed it away?