Chapter 31 – pippa #3
“No,” Ryan argues. “I just don’t like strangers putting their hands on what I—” He cuts himself off at the look of horror on my face and clears his throat. “On people I care about.”
As if.
I roll my eyes.
Cat leans over, interrupting the conversation. “Want to brave the bathroom line with me, Pips?”
I breathe a sigh of relief at the perfect excuse to get away from my perfect date and as far from Ryan as I possibly can.
We excuse ourselves, and I flag Nate on the way past, telling him with my eyes to get Ryan away from my date. He picks up on the hint and wraps an arm around Ryan, dragging him away while I let Cat pull me toward the restroom.
We have a tough time navigating through the tight crowd of partiers, especially since Cat only comes up to most people’s shoulders.
Midway through, we have a momentary freakout when Cat thinks she’s spotted The Hemsworth.
It ends with us accosting some poor Sequel executive just trying to enjoy a nice date with his boyfriend.
After some profuse apologizing, we giggle our way into the bathroom line.
“I’m so glad we came,” I tell her. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in years.”
She sighs. “I know, there’s been so much travel recently. I love it, but I miss you.” She tilts her head suddenly, peering curiously at me. “Is everything okay with you?”
Something clenches in my chest. Am I that transparent, or is there some best friend radar that lets them peer into your brain and see all the emotions that you’re trying to suppress spilling out of their little box? “I’m fine, Cat, why?”
“I don’t know. You just seem a little guarded. Maybe I’m reading too much into things, though.”
Okay, best friend radar is definitely real. In a second, Cat’s going to start telling me that she knows I’ve been keeping a secret from her, and that I’ve obviously had a bunch of orgasms over the past week.
“Work has been pretty stressful,” I tell her. The truth, albeit a teeny, tiny part of it. “New promotion, big expectations. And lots of being on for dates, you know?”
“I get that.” Cat leans her head against my shoulder. “If you need extra support, call me any time. I’m jet-lagged half the time I’m in another time zone, anyway.”
“I will. I promise.”
We’re stuck waiting to pee for another twenty minutes, and it takes another ten for us to make our way back through the crowd.
When we get to the table, Jacob is downing what’s left of his champagne.
By the slight glaze in his eyes, the servers have been able to bring him a few more. He smiles when he sees me.
“There you are! I’m so sorry, but I have to go,” he says.
I frown. “You’re leaving?”
“God, no. Beau and Luke signed us all up to sing some One Direction song in the karaoke room. I don’t know any of the words, but those two are hard to say no to.”
“Sounds right.” I laugh. “Go, I’ll be watching from the audience and cheering you on.”
Jacob reaches down and brushes a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’ll be watching for you.”
Why does it feel so wrong when he touches me? Why am I so overcome with relief when he walks away? My heart pounds in my throat as I instinctively turn to search the crowd for dark messy hair.
Ryan has made it clear that he only wants me in a physical way. So why does it feel like I’m betraying him, even though there’s nothing to betray?
The rest of the night goes by in a blur.
I drink more wine as I watch Jacob fumble the words to “What Makes You Beautiful.” I catch flashes of Ryan in the crowd, always with a woman, always looking back at me.
I let Cat and Brinley pull me onto the dance floor to sway under the disco ball.
The music is so loud, I don’t have to speak or think.
Then, in the middle of “Toxic” by Britney Spears, Ryan’s body collides with mine. He looks down at me, his expression dark and forceful.
For a second, it feels like we’re the only people in the room. When I nod and walk off the dance floor, he follows me. Even though there are only ten minutes to midnight, I find a door off the main room. I take Ryan by the elbow and yank him through.
We walk into a thin hallway lit by emergency lights, lined with more doors, each with a window and a name plaque.
Offices, clearly. The noise from the party dampens as the heavy door swings shut.
I think I see a flash of movement from one of the offices, but before I can investigate, Ryan whirls toward me.
“You’ve been looking for me,” he says roughly.
“So were you,” I snap.
“Your date bored you already? You needed me to step in and give you what you need?”
“Are you even ready for that?” I demand. “You’ll have to give me more than some dirty talk and kinky sex. Because that’s what I need, Ryan. I need more.”
He glowers down at me, his thick brows furrowed and doesn’t say anything.
“So?” I prompt. “Can you give me that?”
His lips part, and he sucks in a breath. My heart stops, the world suspended as I wait for him to say something. Anything.
Instead, he just shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down at his shoes.
Tears of frustration burn at the edge of my eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me, Ryan.”
He laughs, low and cold. “You don’t.” I don’t know if he’s saying it as admonishment or in disbelief.
“No, I don’t!” I shove him, my hands on his unmoving chest. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here, Ryan.
You kiss me, then you give me the silent treatment.
You take me to Puerto Rico and buy me the exact shoes I broke, then you tell me to go out with somebody else.
You’re messing with my head.” I shove him again, because I don’t know how else to get out the storm of emotions inside me.
“I don’t know why I expected anything different from a playboy like you. ”
“How do you think I feel?” he hisses. Suddenly, he’s inches away from me, crowding me against the other side of the hallway.
“I have to watch you go on all these dates with these guys you picked at random off the internet. I have to watch that fucking dog put his arm around you all night, like you belong to him. It’s not exactly my idea of a good fucking time, Pips. ”
“That’s not fair.” My tears are threatening to spill over, and I’m afraid to blink and make them fall.
Ryan shakes his head, making a messy strand of hair fall over his forehead. “I can't do it anymore, Pips. If you’re going to keep dating other guys, then whatever we’re doing, it’s done. It’s over.”
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of my lungs. I’m in some kind of vacuum, where everything is cold and dark and unforgiving. “What, so you’re giving me an ultimatum?” I ask quietly.
Ryan takes a step away from me and leans back against the other side of the hallway. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
A few tears fall, and I brush them away. My make-up’s ruined, just like the rest of my night. “So you just want to sabotage my chances of finding real love. Because you don't actually want me. You just don't want anyone else to have me, either.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter if I want you,” he says bitterly. “It’s not like I could ever have you.”
“Why not?” The words tear out of me before I can decide if I even want to know. The land of denial is so much more tolerable than the land of reality.
Ryan shakes his head. “You fucking know why, Pips.”
Silence falls. In the distance, I hear glasses clinking as everyone gets champagne for the new year. A few overzealous people have already started counting down from three minutes. Somewhere out there, Jacob is probably looking for me.
“I should go,” I murmur.
Then Ryan’s standing right in front of me, his hands on the wall on either side of my head, caging me in with his body. He stares down at me with an emotion in his eyes that I’ve never seen before.
“You want me to say I care?” he hisses. “Fine. I do. So it’s time to make a choice, Pips. Him, or me.”
You.
All I have to do is say one word, and I’ll have the only man I want kissing me at midnight.
But that’s all I’ll have. Ryan already told me, this is just sex. Saying he cares is a far cry from what I actually need—someone I can plan a future with. Someone I can make a life with, like Cat and Nate. Someone who isn’t afraid to have a real relationship with me.
Ryan’s head dips closer, and I can smell the whiskey on his breath. His heated gaze drops to my lips, and I hate how desperate I am for him to kiss me. I know how good it would feel. For a few amazing minutes, every thought in my head would be gone, consumed by his touch.
I can’t. Ryan still hasn’t given me what I want—he can’t.
“I choose myself, Ryan,” I whisper, a few hot tears dripping down my cheeks. “Because someone has to.”
My traitor eyes go to his beautiful lips. Maybe I could let myself have just one more taste of him. A goodbye. I tilt my chin up, waiting for him to press his lips to mine.
Instead, he steps back, his eyes almost black. “Don’t waste your midnight kiss on me, Pips. Your date is waiting.”
“So what, you’ll just go kiss one of those models from the party, then?”
He scoffs. “As if I could even consider touching one of those women after I’ve felt what it’s like to have you.”
It should be a compliment, but the way he says it is cold and cutting, because between the lines is an accusation. He may not be able to touch another woman, but I can certainly go in there and kiss Jacob at the midnight bells.
“I don’t get you, Ryan. What do you want?”
He drops his gaze to the floor, and his eyes darken. “It’s funny,” he says, even though he’s definitely not laughing. “I joke that I want to ruin you for any other man, but you, Pippa Murphy, have already destroyed me.”
My mouth falls open. God, I just want to shake him.
“No, Ryan. You’re doing this to yourself.”
I can’t be here with him for another second. I’ll break, and there won’t be anyone to pick up the pieces. So I spin on my heel and storm down the hallway back to the party.
Where I almost run right into James’s broad chest. I blink up at him, confused. When did he get here? How much did he just hear?
“Pippa,” Cat says, right behind him. “I was looking for you, and James thought he saw you come this way…”
She knows. Whether she overheard us or just guessed, Cat knows something happened with me and Ryan. I can see it written all over her face. She never was good at hiding her emotions.
Heat burns in my cheeks. I can’t face her judgment, not now.
I push past them both and run away from the mess that’s my life. It takes precious moments to collect my coat from the attendant at the front, but then I’m outside and the air is cold and crisp and it takes some of the sting out of my eyes.
“Pippa?”
Oh god, not now…
Jacob’s quick tapping footfalls sound behind me, chasing me up the street. “I saw you leaving. Is everything alright?”
When I turn around to face him, he does a double take at the expression on my face and I can only imagine how horrible I must look.
“Pippa?”
All I want is to run away from here, from him, and keep running, but this man has been nothing but incredible to me and I owe him this.
The music is a dull thumb behind the glass of James’s building as Jacob stuffs his hands in his pockets, studying me like I’m a piece of data that stopped making sense.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “Could we, um…could we talk for a second?”
He nods, following me a few more steps away from the noise with a knot between his brows.
I stare at my hands for a second and then meet his eyes. I have no idea how to start, so I’m grateful when he does.
“You’ve looked miserable every time you thought no one was watching tonight…” he muses, gently prodding at my open wound.
“That obvious, huh?”
“Only if you were paying attention.”
And of course, he was.
I take a deep breath that feels like sandpaper. “Look, you’re a really good man, Jacob.”
He flinches. “Wow. Going straight for the ‘good man’ speech. Not a great sign.”
Now it’s my turn to flinch. “You deserve someone who doesn’t come to a party with you only to spend half the night wondering what another man is thinking across the room.”
The admission burns in the back of my throat, but he deserves the truth.
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look surprised and somehow that makes it so much worse.
“I like you,” I add. “I really, genuinely, like you. You’re kind and thoughtful and you rented a freaking limo for a five-block trip because you wanted the night to feel special. You wanted me to feel valued.” A weak laugh escapes me. “That’s the kind of thing most women dream about.”
“But not you?” he asks.
“No, it’s not that. I could be happy with you. Anyone could be happy with a man like you. But the problem is…there’s someone else I don’t know how to stop choosing, even when I’m trying really hard not to.”
His mouth tightens. “Is him, isn’t it? Archer?”
I close my eyes as if I can pretend I didn’t just see and hear him say that.
How fucking obvious was it?
I’m mortified.
“The point is,” I say, trying to change the subject. “I’m not the girl you want.”
He lets out a slow breath and for a second, I can see he wants to argue with me, even now, but he doesn’t. He nods instead. “Thank you for not letting me be your placeholder.”
My throat tightens. “I’m really, really sorry.”
A humorless smile tugs at his mouth. “At least promise me you’ll write a really good article about breaking my heart?”
I huff out a teary laugh. “Yeah,” I promise. “It’ll be the best one, yet.”
“Pippa!” Cat’s tinny voice rings out from down the street and her heels clack as she races toward us. “There you are, I was looking everywhere.”
“Goodnight, Pippa,” Jacob says, taking my hand to press one last chaste kiss to the back of my palm. “And good luck.”
Cat catches her breath as she slows to a walk and looks between Jacob walking away and me standing alone on the sidewalk trying not to fall apart. “Did you just—”
I nod and a sob breaks free from my chest.
Her arms are around me in an instant. “Oh, Pippa. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”