Chapter 35
Jacob
Jacob straightened his collar, though it did nothing to hide the chaos under his skin.
His pulse was thundering in his ears and his hands were still unsteady as he shoved them into his pockets.
The air in the hallway was thick with everything they'd just done, but stepping back into the ballroom meant pretending it hadn’t happened.
Out here, he was someone’s husband, and he had to play the part.
He pushed through the service door and the noise swallowed him whole. Laughter spilled across the room, glasses clinked beneath soft lighting, and the curated playlist filled the air. Everything gleamed with polish and control, the kind of world where nothing messy was meant to exist.
He spotted Caroline talking to a woman from PR, a glass of wine balanced effortlessly in her hand.
Her smile was bright and her makeup flawless.
When her gaze landed on him, her expression shifted into warmth so easily it could have been rehearsed.
She excused herself and moved toward him with practiced elegance.
Jacob felt his body hesitate before he forced himself forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Something inside him was splintering. He couldn’t stop imagining the way Liam must look down that hallway—flushed and undone, trying to put himself back together after Jacob had wrecked him. He hadn’t just enjoyed that dominance; he had needed it, craved it the way lungs crave air.
“Is everything okay?” Caroline’s brow pulled in the faintest crease, her eyes scanning him as if she were searching for the thing that had slipped out of place.
“Fine,” he said, his voice hoarse and utterly unconvincing.
She didn’t press, only linked her arm through his and drew him closer. To anyone watching, they were the picture of success. Nothing could be further from the truth.
For one agonizing second he wished he hadn’t left that hallway at all. Not because it was thrilling or forbidden, but because it felt like the only real thing he’d touched in years.
Caroline’s voice cut through his thoughts with a mention of the showrunner’s wife.
He hardly absorbed the words, but he let her guide him across the room, nodding automatically as she introduced him.
All the while, his hands still tingled from gripping Liam’s body, and his ears still rang with Liam’s voice—gasping his name like it was both salvation and curse.
He thought of the look on Liam’s face when he’d asked if he still fucked Caroline.
He had tried not to answer, because answering meant naming it.
It meant acknowledging that Liam had stopped being a fixation and had become something he couldn’t live without.
It was not gentle, not romantic, but brutal in its clarity.
This was supposed to be fleeting, something to burn through and discard when reason returned—only reason hadn’t returned. Liam had ruined him, and no part of him could imagine going back to a life untouched by that ruin.
Fear settled into his chest like a weight. He was terrified of the fallout: hurting Caroline, losing time with his children, watching the career he had built brick by brick collapse under the scrutiny of the world.
Yet none of those fears cut as sharply as the thought of Liam walking away. That was the terror that seized his lungs and left his hands trembling.
The realization hit him just as Liam reentered the room, sending a jolt through his chest. His hair looked mussed, his shirt not quite tucked right, and there was a flush across his throat that hadn’t been there before. Jacob’s eyes clung to him helplessly.
“What’s wrong?” Caroline’s voice startled him back. She studied him, head tipped to the side. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just a headache.” His mouth formed the excuse, but his eyes betrayed him.
They kept returning to Liam’s profile—the line of his jaw, the too-bright smile he wore for the benefit of others.
He was trying too hard and laughing too loudly, his tension obvious to anyone who looked close enough. Jacob could not look anywhere else.
The conversation with the showrunner’s wife ended with polite laughter, and Caroline gently pulled him aside. She led him toward a quieter spot by the windows before turning to face him. “You keep watching him.”
“What?” His voice faltered.
“Liam,” she replied. “You keep watching him like nothing else exists.”
Words failed him.
“I didn’t mind it before,” she continued, her calmness cutting sharper than rage ever could.
“The leaked clip, the chemistry, the gossip, the way the studio pushed the story. It was all part of the job.” Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“But lately you don’t touch me. You’ve never looked at me the way you look at him right now. ”
The silence that followed was answer enough, but she pushed anyway. “It’s not just acting, is it?”
“Caroline,” Jacob rasped, “please—”
Caroline nodded slowly. “I used to think people were wrong. When the rumors started, I defended you.” Her voice didn’t rise; if anything, it fell quieter, which only made it harder to bear. “Is it true?”
He hesitated for the briefest moment, but it was enough.
He could have denied it—should have—but the lie stuck in his throat and refused to move.
The truth pressed too heavily on his chest. When she looked at him like she already knew, he realized he couldn’t lie to her. Not about this. Not anymore.
Her eyes hardened. “God. It is.”
“I never meant—”
“No one ever does.” Her words were sharp, but her face smoothed again, the practiced facade sliding neatly back into place. She leaned in so close only he could hear her. “Do you love him?”
The question gutted him. It was not one he had prepared for, not even one he had allowed himself to ask. His throat tightened until it hurt; his pulse hammering at the edges of his control. “I don’t know.”
Her lips pressed into a line. She looked at him as though she’d already known the answer and had only hoped to be wrong. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Not long enough to collapse, but long enough to feel the truth of it. “I know.”
She did not cry. She did not lash out. She only looked at him as though he were already gone, and perhaps she was right. She turned and slipped back into the crowd, leaving a silence at his side so sharp it felt like a wound.
* * *
The drive home dragged by in silence, the kind that filled every corner of the car until Jacob thought he might choke on it. The kids were at Caroline’s parents for a sleepover—thank God. At least the fallout wouldn’t have them as witnesses.
Inside the house, the tension pressed against his skin. His tie felt like a noose around his throat as he yanked at it, loosening the knot without relief. He slipped off his jacket and laid it neatly over the back of a chair, a ritual that felt absurd in the face of everything that had shattered.
Caroline’s heels clicked softly against the hardwood floors until she stopped. Her mouth was set in a line that gave nothing away, though her silence spoke louder than any accusation.
His hands hung useless at his sides, his pulse a roar in his ears.
He hadn’t wanted this conversation tonight.
He hadn’t wanted it at all. Every instinct in him screamed to delay, to smooth, to control the narrative, but there was no delaying anymore.
He had lost control the moment Caroline had begun to see through him.
Her breath left her in one brittle exhale before she spoke. “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”
The words cut clean through the room. No hesitation, no cushion—just the truth, laid bare.
Jacob closed his eyes. The words cracked open the fragile illusion he had tried to hold together. “I didn’t plan this,” he said, his voice unsteady. “It happened and I—”
Caroline’s laugh was sharp, void of humor. “Jesus Christ, Jacob. Do you even hear yourself?”
The weight of her stare pinned him in place. “I didn’t go out looking for this…” he said.
“Of course not,” she snapped, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as if bracing herself. “So what happened? You tripped and landed inside your co-star? Or does he fuck you?”
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Her voice rose, edged with fury. “Don’t point out that my husband has been lying to me? That he’s been sneaking around like some pathetic cliché?”
The words hit their mark and his body flinched. “Caroline.”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her control fraying even as she tried to hold it together. “Do you even love me anymore? Or has this all been a joke I just wasn’t in on?”
Jacob’s throat ached with the weight of it, but he forced the words past. “I still love you.”
Her scoff was derisive. “No. You don’t. You don’t get to stand there and say that.”
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t marry you with the intention of betraying you. I didn’t stand before you and vow forever only to break it. For years I’ve been yours. Every part of me meant it.”
Her voice broke against the words. “Not anymore. You don’t want this anymore.”
The truth of it silenced him. In that quiet, he saw her understanding—the painful acceptance in her eyes.
He hadn’t meant to leave her tonight, but now there was no escaping the fact that he already had.
He knew it with the kind of clarity that made his stomach twist. It was already done, and no amount of denial could put it back together again.
“How long?” she asked.
His jaw locked before he gave the answer. “A while.”
She shook her head, voice trembling. “No, Jacob. Be more specific.”
He looked away, struggling for the right words. “I don’t know exactly. There was always… something there from the start. A few months, probably. But nothing truly happened until that week on location last month.”
The devastation in her stare hollowed him out. “You really did it. You blew up our whole life. For him.”
He couldn’t answer.
Her laugh was bitter. “When were you going to tell me? When the tabloids splashed it across the front page? Or never, just letting me stand by your side like some clueless fool?”
His voice broke when he spoke. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything that lasted. Not at first.”
Her eyes searched his face, her voice barely above a whisper. “And now?”
Jacob held her gaze, unable to hide what had already taken root inside him. His silence became its own confession.
“Oh my God.” Her breath caught, lips trembling when she spoke. “You really do love him.”
The words landed like a brand against his chest. He could have tried to lie, but the words wouldn’t pass his lips—not even to protect her from this.
Her hand came down against his chest. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him feel it. “Coward.”
“I’m sorry.” The words came broken, meaningless, but they were all he had.
Her laugh cracked like glass. “Sorry? Sorry doesn’t rewrite history.
Sorry doesn’t erase the years I gave you, the children we raised, the sacrifices I made for your career.
” She swallowed hard, voice ragged. “Oh God. Our children, Jacob. Did you even think about them while you were sneaking around and screwing him?”
He shook his head, barely able to get the words out. “I never meant to hurt you. Or them. I just… I lost control.”
She stared at him, tears bright in her eyes. “Do you even understand what you’ve done? Do you know what it feels like to look at your husband and not recognize him anymore? To be standing in a room full of people and realize the man you married is already gone?”
His jaw clenched, his eyes rimmed red, but no words came, because no words would change what was already in ruins. The silence dragged until he forced himself to break it. “I’ll move into the guest room.”
She stared, wet-cheeked, her body rigid.
“I’ll leave the house,” he continued. “I’ll find a place. Just give me a few days. This house is yours.”
Her voice cracked. “What about the kids?”
His chest tightened as though the words might break him. “I’ll never stop taking care of them. Or you. That doesn’t change. I’ll always be there for them.”
“Everything changes, Jacob.”
There was no argument left in him.
Her strength finally gave way as she sank onto the couch, her face crumpling into her hands. The sobs came raw and unrestrained, filling the room with a sound that broke him apart piece by piece.
Jacob moved slowly, every step deliberate. He lowered himself to the floor beside her. For a moment, he hovered, uncertain if he had the right. Then he let his hand rest lightly on her back, as though she might shatter if he pressed any harder.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered again, because there was nothing else left to say. Jacob didn’t notice the tears on his cheeks until they touched the floor. He was losing everything he’d once held most dear, and it was all his fault— because he couldn’t stop needing Liam.
Her body shook beneath his palm, but she didn’t tell him to leave.
The urge to scream tore through him, because none of this was what he had wanted. He had never meant to betray her or to unravel every promise he had made. He had just fallen—into something vast and consuming and terrifyingly real—and by the time he had tried to name it, it was already too late.
Staying here wasn’t an option anymore. Going forward was the only direction left, though he had no idea where it led, and he had never felt more lost.