Chapter 30
JACQUELINE
Isat in Jesse’s car, staring straight ahead with my hands folded tightly in my lap, hoping that if I just stayed still enough, maybe everything that had happened in that house would unhappen.
Logically, I knew it wouldn’t.
Hell, logically, I even understood why it shouldn’t.
Alex wasn’t wrong. Their family—Zach—needed a public spectacle to distract the press right now and Jesse was, in fact, the best brother to provide it. I really did get it, but that didn’t mean my eyes weren’t stinging with tears or that I had to like the things I understood.
My lips parted as I inhaled a deep, shaky breath. All along, I’d known the other shoe was going to drop.
This was it. The shoe had hit the floor. I should’ve been relieved that it’d finally happened, but instead, I felt like I’d fallen—face first into a vat of misery.
For a while there, Jesse Westwood really had been the dream. I never thought I’d meet a man like him, who shared my sense of both humor and adventure, who was strong enough to handle my moods and my career, and who thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated it all.
He and I had hit it off in a way that had fooled even me into believing that perhaps we were meant to be. Our chemistry had rewired my brain and probably ruined me for anybody else, which I didn’t love, but again, that didn’t make it any less true.
The thing about dreams, however, was that we always had to wake up, and in that grand, old house back there, I’d had a bloody rude awakening.
For a few minutes after I’d dropped into the car, I just kept sitting there, replaying every minute we’d had together since that first time we’d actually talked at the Roderick Estate, and with every memory, it felt like a fresh cut was being made to the very center of my being.
By the time Jesse finally slid in beside me, his breathing uneven and his strong jawline so hard, the bones might crack, I’d accepted that this was going to really hurt. I’d been wondering where the devastation was after Thomas had left, but I’d found it now for sure.
It’d been here all along, just waiting for me with Jesse.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough with frustration. “I had no idea that was going to go down that way, but don’t worry, okay? It won’t happen again. I’ll talk to Alex and make it crystal fucking clear that we’re not playing a game—”
“We can’t do this, Jesse.”
The words came out quieter than I’d expected, but he’d clearly heard me because I felt him turn to face me. I felt the weight of his stare, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“What do you mean we can’t do this?” he asked slowly, carefully enunciating every word. “Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, Jacque.”
He turned over the engine and threw the car into gear, pulling away from the house fast, with his tires spinning on the gravel and sending up a spray of it up in our wake.
A single glimpse at his hand on the gear lever revealed that his knuckles were white, his grip strangling an object that couldn’t die.
I could relate, but even as my chest threatened to cave in, I knew I had to push through. No amount of fear, rage, or indignation would change our actual situation. “I’m not going to play pretend again, Jesse. I can’t.”
He didn’t interrupt me, which I was grateful for. Even though I knew this was the right thing to do, I was balancing on a knife’s edge with this decision. If he could offer a single solution that actually seemed viable, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
“I’ve done that already,” I said. “I spent almost a decade of my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t for somebody else’s benefit.
I made friends with his very boring, academic friends.
I nodded along while they debated things I didn’t care about and pretended to be impressed when they all tried to sound smarter than the next person.
I laughed when I was supposed to laugh.”
When I finally risked a glance at him, he was staring straight ahead now, his lips pursed and his posture rigid.
We were practically flying down the road despite the pelting rain, but I still wasn’t afraid.
The trouble was that I trusted him, even with my life, and even when he was clearly livid while driving.
“I moved back to London for him, Jesse. I rented a flat he liked and lived a life he wanted despite the fact that he was rarely even there to live it with me. I built everything around him, and for what?” I shook my head, looking away again as I blinked back the burn in my eyes.
“He left, that’s what. He stole my dog and left.
” The words still sounded ridiculous out loud.
“Now I’m here. I’m living a new life in a new city with a new job and I thought—”
I cut myself off when the lump in my throat made it too painful to keep speaking. I thought what, exactly? That this was different? That he was different? He is. That’s the bloody problem, isn’t it?
“I thought that maybe we could just have fun,” I admitted. “Honestly, when you first pitched this whole idea to me, it felt like it would be simple. Easy. I’d get to spend a few weeks with a man I genuinely enjoy spending time with, and after that, I sort of thought we’d just go our separate ways.”
“Is that what you want, Jacque? Do you actually want us to go our separate ways?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I know it was never part of our deal, but I do care about you, Jesse. A lot, and the feelings I have for you are not fake or insignificant.”
His breathing hitched, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I have feelings for you too, Jacque. Nothing fake about that either. So why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?”
“I know you have feelings for me and I know they’re real,” I said without any hesitation at all. “That’s the problem, though. Isn’t it? That’s why it feels like I’m saying goodbye. Because I am. You and I agreed to one thing and had something else happen entirely.”
He frowned. “How is that a problem?”
I blew out a long, slow breath, finally turning to face him fully. “Because of your family.”
His shoulders stiffened, those devastating eyes I would likely be dreaming about for the rest of my life flying to mine for only a split second before they were back on the road. “What? What about my family?”
“All my life, I’ve been hearing about how things work with the Westwoods. What they value. What they expect. What they do to people who don’t fit in.”
His expression darkened. “Whoa. What we do to people who don’t fit in? We’re not the fucking mob.”
“I know,” I said gently, thinking about my mother and her desperate desire to belong. “But look at what just happened back there. They don’t see me as a person, Jesse. I’m a solution. A distraction. A way to drive their narrative.”
He flinched. “Okay, fine. I know what that looked like, but I—”
“I know you don’t see me that way, but they do,” I said quietly. “I will never be one of them. They won’t allow it.”
The car slowed as we neared my building, and I swallowed, my chest tight but my resolve firm. I would not lose myself again. Not even for Jesse. He might have a beautiful soul, a big heart, a stunning face, and a magnificent cock, but none of that was worth sacrificing… me.
“They will accept you,” he argued, sounding so certain that it made my heart ache. “I mean it, Jacque. They will. Fuck, they already have.”
He leaned a little closer, like he could bridge the gap forming between us physically first and the rest would just naturally follow. “I know you’ve been through a lot with the other Westwoods in Europe. I might not know all the details, but I do know my family isn’t like that.”
I let out a breath, staring down at my hands again and realizing that he genuinely believed that. “You saw Alex with your own two eyes. You heard him. That wasn’t nothing.”
“He’s not a bad guy. Sometimes, he just gets caught up in what needs to be done and he forgets to phrase things nicely, but he really does want what’s best for us. All of us.”
Us.
How I wished I could ever be a part of that us, but realistically, it just wasn’t going to happen. There was Jesse and me, and then there were the Westwoods, and one of those things was not like the other.
“I’m normal, Jesse.”
He frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I have nothing to add,” I said, finally looking at him again. “No ties. No leverage. No value in the way your family measures it.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” I said softly, not fighting. Just stating the facts. “Alex even came right out and said it, and it’s okay. Really. I’m okay with it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“The fake engagement works for them because it shows the public that the Westwoods don’t always marry for business. That sometimes it’s real. That’s all I would be to them. Proof of concept.”
Pain flickered across his handsome features. “Okay, fine, but fuck them then. That’s not what you are to me.”
“I know that.” God, I knew it. “That’s what makes this so hard.”
The car slowed to a stop outside my building. The rain had tapered off into a soft, steady drizzle that painted the world in a muted glow. Neither of us moved at first, like maybe keeping dead still would allow us to forget that we had to choose after all, but life didn’t work that way.
Jesse turned to face me fully, those blue eyes pleading as they clashed with mine. He even reached for my hands, taking them in a firm grip and holding on tight. “It doesn’t have to be hard, Jacque. You don’t have to do anything right now. Okay? Let’s just take a step back.”
“I don’t want to lose myself again,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper. “That’s the truth of it for me. I’ve only just found my footing and I like who I am here. I like my job, and my life, and how what I’m building feels like it belongs to me.”
His gaze softened, growing warm and steady despite the fact that everything was unraveling, but the way he was looking at me right now was exactly why I had to come right out and say it.
I saw the hope flickering there, the determined light in those eyes that made it seem like he’d heard what I was saying but hadn’t accepted any of it insofar as it related to him.
“I like you,” I said. “That’s why I can’t do this. I’m sorry, Jesse. Truly. I wish there was another way, but I just don’t see it.”
Abruptly letting go of his hands, I twisted in my seat and pulled the door handle, pushing it open before I could change my mind. It took everything I had to step out onto the damp pavement, but I didn’t close the door right away.
Instead, I leaned back in slightly, meeting his eyes one last time and memorizing the way he looked at me like I was something worth fighting for. Fucking hell, that’s dangerous.
“I am sorry, Jesse” I said, meaning it in a hundred different ways.
Sorry for walking away. Sorry for not believing. Sorry for wanting to stay. Sorry for not being able to.
His jaw flexed like he wanted to argue, or reach for me, or say something that would make this easier, but he didn’t.
I gave him one last, watery smile before I shut the door and walked away, forcing myself not to look back or to give in to the pull that felt almost physical in my chest as I made my way into the building, through the lobby, and into the elevator.
Step by step, choice by choice, I put him behind me, but my hands were trembling as I unlocked my door. I set my bag down slowly beside it after I walked in, drifting to the window on an instinct I couldn’t explain, but as soon as I reached the glass, I understood it.
Jesse was still there, parked right where he had been, with his engine idling and headlights cutting through the drizzle. Waiting, watching, and making sure I was okay.
My throat tightened as I stood there, lifting my hand to the cool pane.
I let myself stare at his car for precisely ten seconds before I stumbled over to the light switch and flicked it on.
Now that it was obvious I was inside and safe, I knew it would only be a matter of time before that car pulled away.
Sure enough, a few moments later, I went back to the window and it was gone. Somehow, that was the part that hurt the most.