Chapter 28
JACQUELINE
Right now, life was good. It sort of felt like I’d somehow been transported into an alternate universe that actually made sense for me. With Thomas no longer influencing my decisions, I’d been free to follow my own heart for a few months and the difference was astonishing.
I genuinely loved my job. After years in a cramped office above a kebab shop arguing over estates and inheritance clauses like it was my life’s calling, Ellis & Addeson was the kind of firm where people said its name like it actually meant something.
Moreover, I was making friends and finding my rhythm in a city that had once felt impossibly large and unfamiliar, and then there was Jesse. An entire category on his own.
My phone buzzed on my desk for at least the fifth time this morning and I didn’t even try to hide my smile as I glanced down at it.
Jesse: Have you eaten or are you surviving on spite and caffeine again?
Me: I’ll have you know that spite is nutritious.
Jesse: Be that as it may, I’m sending something even better.
I rolled my eyes, but there was a warmth in my chest I just couldn’t quite shake.
No matter what, he texted me throughout the day, and if I couldn’t leave my desk, lunch would arrive within minutes of him confirming that I’d not yet eaten.
It was excessive, honestly, and yet, it was also kind of sweet.
The man made me feel things I’d never thought someone like me could actually feel after having my heart shattered, but today felt off.
I didn’t quite know why. Only that we’d woken up this morning to rain, a steady, gray downpour that made the whole city feel heavier, and somehow, it felt like that had put doubts in my gut.
I stood from my desk, stretching before grabbing my mug for a coffee refill. This strange feeling was probably just a caffeine deficiency. When I approached the break room, however, I noticed a small cluster of people huddled together, whispering.
The second they saw me, they scattered like I’d walked in on them committing a crime. I frowned but kept going, trying not to take it personally even if something definitely felt wrong.
Barely three steps later, Miranda called my name. “Jacque? Can you come in here for a second?”
I turned to see her standing in her office doorway, waving me over with urgency. My heart tripped over itself, but I went over, closing the door behind me while she moved to shut the blinds like we were about to conduct a covert operation.
“Should I be concerned?” I asked slowly.
“No, but we are. If you need to take time off to be there for your boyfriend and his family during this difficult time, I completely understand. It’s no big deal.”
I blinked hard, finally registering the sympathetic softness of her features and the worry in her eyes. “My what now? What are you talking about?”
For a split second, I thought, perhaps irrationally, that someone had died. Jesse or maybe one of his brothers. Even someone else in that sprawling, intimidating family. My stomach dipped as Miranda frowned, confusion flickering across her face. “You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” I asked. “Please just tell me. Is he okay?”
“Well, I don’t know about okay. Physically, I’m sure he is,” she said, already reaching for her phone. “It just hit the local news sites. I assumed you’d seen it.”
“I’ve been buried in a case for three days,” I said. “I barely know my own name right now, but I’ve been talking to him and he hasn’t said anything.”
“Right,” she murmured, then handed me her phone. “Well, like I said, it’s just happened.”
I took the device, my eyes immediately dropping to the screen and scanning the article already open on it. The headline was bold and dramatic, seemingly pertaining to a high-profile divorce, but I didn’t recognize the names of the parties involved.
Unfortunately, I didn’t need to because I realized what the fuss was all about almost instantly. While none of the Westwoods were part of this divorce, their name was scattered throughout the text anyhow and my grip tightened on the phone as I kept reading.
The tone of the article was sharp and damning, not really reporting so much as dissecting the strange marriage traditions of these old-money families. It dug into the power dynamics involved, the strategic alliances that weren’t about love so much as money, legacy, and control.
Somehow, it seemed the Westwoods were getting the worst of it. Even Zach’s name was there. Apparently, he’d been tied to the woman at the center of it all, and since she was being raked through the coals, so was he.
“I don’t understand what any of this really means,” Miranda admitted, waving her hand at the screen. “It’s all very dramatic, but I can’t imagine it’s easy for them.”
I swallowed hard, my eyes still on the article, but my heart was already aching for Jesse and his brothers. Miranda might not understand, but I understood it perfectly because I’d seen it before.
Obviously, not in headlines or glossy articles meant for public consumption, but in quiet conversations and the way my mother’s voice still tightened when certain names came up. In our case, she’d been deemed unworthy simply because of the fact that she’d been adopted.
Jesse’s family was going through that right now. By proxy, maybe, but that didn’t make it any less real. This was a terrible look for them, for him, and even for me. Like it or not, I was in it now, too.
I hadn’t even noticed at first, too focused on the bigger picture of the divorce, the implications, and Zach’s name being dragged into something that clearly went far deeper than the article explained, but then Miranda reached for her phone and scrolled.
“Have you seen this part yet?” she asked quietly, stopping when a grainy, slightly angled picture of Jesse and me came into view.
It was one of us just walking down the street one day, his arm casually slung over my shoulders and me leaning into him, smiling as I looked up into his eyes. The picture itself being used in this kind of article would’ve been bad, but the caption was worse.
Jesse Westwood’s latest distraction? Sources speculate the identity and value of his mysterious girlfriend.
I skimmed the paragraph, my heart sinking and pulse ticking up with every line.
They’d dissected me like I was nothing more than an acquisition.
There was mention made of the fact that I was Harvard educated and of my career at Ellis & Addeson, all of which tied into the speculation about what I might be worth, what I’d brought to the table, and what kind of arrangement this might be.
The question had even been posed as to what deals had been made in the background. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
No deals had been made because this was fake. We had both signed an NDA, but that was standard. Jesse and I weren’t even really together, and it’d never been meant to go as far as it had, but that was exactly what’d happened.
It had gone this far. Further even than these people could possibly imagine. But not because of money.
My throat tightened as I locked the screen and handed her phone back. “I’m going to take the rest of the day.”
“Of course,” she said gently. “Use your unlimited PTO, please. That’s what it’s there for.”
I nodded, but I was already turning toward the door, unable to believe that anyone would be trying to quantify my involvement with Jesse. It was absurd but the public at large right now believed that I had a price—and that he’d paid it.
Westwood and Sons’ offices reflected that same kind of chaos that was swirling around my insides. When I arrived, phones were ringing off the hook, overlapping voices were coming out of every room, and people were moving too fast in too many directions.
The second the doors to the upper levels slid open, I nearly got bowled over by a guy in a bespoke suit moving like his life depended on it. He was gone in a flash, but not before I’d recognized him as Theo, the youngest brother.
As far as I knew, he was in marketing and PR.
I wasn’t super familiar with him, but I had been trying to learn a bit about each of them from Jesse.
He cared about them, truly, but right now, the youngest soldier looked like a man on a mission, which probably wasn’t the best time to introduce myself.
The receptionists also looked like they were barely holding it together, juggling calls, typing furiously, and fielding questions they probably didn’t have answers to. No one stopped me when I strode past them.
Hell, no one even noticed me, but that worked in my favor today.
I slipped down the hallway without incident, striding toward the private row of elevators I’d used once before.
My reflection stared back at me in the mirrored doors, my eyes a little too wide, but otherwise, I didn’t look like I was spiraling.
The elevator opened with a soft chime and I stepped inside, pressing the button for the executive floor. I was rather certain that was where Jesse would be, but when the doors opened again, I wasn’t expecting him to be right there.
But he was. Jesse stood just outside the elevator like he’d been about to step in himself, his expression morphing from tension to surprise when he saw me. Then the relief set in. “Jacque, thank God, you’re here.”
Instead of letting me climb out, he got onto the elevator with me and hit a button without looking. For the parking garage, of all places.
The doors slid shut again, sealing us in alone together, but for a second, neither of us spoke. He simply took a long, slow breath, like he’d just escaped from hell. Then he looked down into my eyes and I saw that same relief threading through his features.
“I was just on my way to come get you,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, a little breathless as I tried to absorb it all. “Isn’t this… Shouldn’t we come clean now?” I gestured vaguely upward, toward the PR firestorm we’d just left behind. “Your family is being raked through the coals.”
“I know,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible above the soft hum of the elevator as it descended, but those eyes were locked on mine and the space between us suddenly felt too small again, too charged, and like it was entirely too much.
That had been happening more and more often, but I tried to push past it and searched his face instead, trying to read him to understand where his head was at in all of this. Mine was everywhere and I was truly hoping they had a better handle on it than I did.
“I need your help,” he said finally. “We need your help. Will you come with me, please?”
We.
My stomach flipped, but I nodded anyway. “Yes, of course, I will. Where are we going?”
“Home,” he said, as if that explained everything.
It didn’t. Not to me, anyway.
I had no idea what exactly he was asking me to do, but as the elevator slowed, he was looking at me like whatever came next mattered more than anything that had come before—and honestly, the idea of that scared me more than I wanted to admit.