Chapter 44
JACQUELINE
Igot back to Chicago in a haze. That was the only way to describe it. Everything felt muted, like someone had turned down the volume on my life and forgotten to turn it back up again. I went to work, answered emails, and sat through meetings, but I was barely aware of any of it.
Days crept by like that, blurring together while the only thing I really felt was empty. Hollow. There was this quiet, constant ache in my chest that I couldn’t shake. No matter how busy I made myself, he was still there, those words he’d said still ricocheting around in my head.
Walking into my favorite coffee shop used to feel like entering a sanctuary, but this week, not even that helped. I ordered a latte and waited, but as I was wondering whether a mental institution would consider admitting me, I caught sight of the magazine rack against the wall.
One of those terrible gossip tabloids my mom loved jumped out at me immediately. Mostly because it had Jesse’s face on the cover.
The picture seemed to have been taken at that party in New York, showing him surrounded by those women who’d tried all night to get his attention. There was a roguish smirk on his lips, but only I knew that particular smirk had been aimed at me, not at any of these other women.
The headline certainly didn’t leave any room for that possibility. Chicago’s Favorite Playboy Back to His Old Games
I let out a quiet, dry laugh. Well, they’re not subtle, are they?
But on the other hand, this was the version of him the world knew. This was who he’d been. Before me.
The man on the cover of that magazine wasn’t the real Jesse, the one who’d told me he loved me like it was the simplest, most undeniable truth in the world. It also wasn’t the man who had crossed oceans to get my dog back.
I swallowed hard, looking away from the picture. Little do they know what really happened that night.
I’d been so sure that Jesse couldn’t possibly be that serious, but my entire world view was seemingly being proven wrong. At least insofar as it related to the Westwoods. Because of my mother, a lot of my world view had been shaped by who and what I’d thought they were.
When I left the coffee shop with my latte in hand, I was determined—once again—to get over it.
Jesse had scared the crap out of me with his confession of love, but it had also left me with a lot things to think about.
Until I knew what to do, I couldn’t keep wandering through my life in such a haze.
“Jacque!”
I frowned, startled out of my thoughts by someone calling my name. Turning to scan the busy street, I assumed it was probably one of the girls from the office, but then my blood ran cold when I saw Jane Westwood instead. Flanked by Kate Westwood and Eliza Westwood.
Well, at least Eliza is Westwood-Roderick, but still. That’s too many Westwoods for me right now. Way too many. Had Jesse unleashed the wives on me?
All three of them were hustling toward me, weaving through the crowd with shopping bags swinging from their arms. I watched their approach. Jane’s face lit up with a smile when they’d cut through the final group of pedestrians separating us.
“Jacqueline!” she said happily, like we’d planned to meet right here on the sidewalk.
Kate was smiling too, but she seemed more measured. Polite but observant, like she was reading the situation and hadn’t decided quite yet what to think about it. Meanwhile, Eliza looked like she was just along for the ride, having a lovely day.
“Hi,” I managed, shifting my grip on my coffee to keep it from dropping straight out of my suddenly numb fingers.
Jane barely slowed down until she was right in front of me. “Please tell me you’re attending the gala?”
“Yes,” I said, absolutely on autopilot. “I received the invitation. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I’ve heard it’s shaping up to be the event of the year.”
While I was still searching for an excuse to politely turn down the exclusive invitation, I felt something break deep inside of me. I didn’t really know what triggered it, but it was like every wall I’d carefully, meticulously built around my heart just shattered under their welcoming smiles.
Right there on the street. In front of the Westwood wives.
My throat tightened so fast it hurt. My vision blurred before I could stop it.
Deep down, I suspected that the trigger had simply been them.
Three women who’d recently thrown caution to the wind and had each fallen in love with her respective Westwood, and now, each of them was living her happily ever after.
I could’ve had that too. If I wasn’t so broken.
“Oh,” Jane said softly when the first sob tore through me.
“Oh no,” Eliza murmured under her breath. “Where’s the car?”
“I’m fine,” I tried, but the lie was so obvious, it was almost embarrassing. I was very much not fine and the fact that my voice cracked only made it that much more obvious. “I’m so sorry, I don’t—”
“No apologies necessary,” Jane cut in, reaching for me. “Eliza is right, though. We’re not doing this on the street. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”
Before I could protest, they were moving. Collectively. With me right at their center like they were my protective unit. I was guided—stuffed—into the back of a sleek black car, my latte disappearing from my hand before it was passed back as the door shut behind us.
“Go,” Jane told the driver without missing a beat. “Just drive.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A moment later, the wheels were turning, all of us piled into the back, the layout more like a limousine than a car. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I supposed. But my brain felt like a void.
It was all I could do, trying to process how my life had spiraled from getting coffee to being kidnapped by the Westwood women in under sixty seconds. Eliza sat beside me, her hand gently finding mine and giving my fingers a light squeeze.
“You’re okay,” she said quietly. “You’re safe now. I’ve always found the American press rather invasive on my visits here and it’s much worse for Jesse, isn’t it?”
With those words, I broke. These girls didn’t owe me anything. They barely even knew me but they’d acted without hesitation, closing ranks around me as if I belonged.
“I’m in love with him,” I blurted, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.
“Well, yes,” Jane said lightly. “We gathered that. Didn’t you and I have this talk just the other day?”
“Yes, but I fucked it up,” I admitted, my voice shaking. “I fucked it up completely and I feel like such a stubborn fool for it.”
“Tell us what happened,” Kate said from her seat next to Jane, calm but firm. “We might be able to help you, but we can’t do that if we don’t know what’s going on.”
“What happened with my ex-fiancé messed me up more than I realized,” I started, staring down at my hands and waiting for the sobs to subside enough that I could speak coherently.
“After everything that happened, I thought I was doing myself a favor by keeping Jesse at arm’s length, but all I managed to do was ruin it. ”
Eliza squeezed my hand again. “Things are rarely as hopeless as they seem.”
“Maybe, but I just don’t know.” I let out a shaky breath.
“I’ve never chosen anything for myself before I moved to Chicago.
Everything I did was always what was expected and safe, but then with Jesse…
” Trailing off, I wracked my brain for the right words to describe the situation, but when I couldn’t find them, I just said it straight.
“I thought he only needed me for show. I really thought this was all just convenient, but he told me he was in love with me and he stole back my dog. From another country.”
“To be fair, that does sound like him,” Eliza murmured. “Not the falling in love bit, though. Definitely not that part, but the international dog theft? That’s right up his alley.”
A weak laugh escaped me even as tears slid down my cheeks. “I still pushed him away. I was so afraid of getting hurt that I ended up breaking the heart of the one man who’s ever truly loved me for me.”
Jane reached for her phone, showing us that she needed a moment as she pressed dial and pushed it against her ear. “Hello? Yes, this is Jane Westwood. I need that gown moved up to today. No, not tomorrow. Now. I’ll send the details.”
As she kept making arrangements I didn’t quite understand, Kate huffed out a quiet breath and turned to me. “This can be fixed, Jacqueline. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that. I’m not exactly what your family is used to, so even if Jesse will somehow forgive me—”
Kate scoffed and arched an eyebrow at me. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re wrong.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“God, have you actually asked Jesse any questions about us? Do you know the positions we were in before we married them? Because if you did, you’d know none of us started where you seem to think we did.”
Jane hummed her agreement, but she was now rapidly typing something into her phone. Kate’s eyes were still on me as she leaned back slightly. “Is that what you’re so worried about? Not being good enough for this family?”
“Yes,” I said. “How could I not be worried?”
She shook her head. “You clearly don’t know our actual origin stories.”
“Excuse me?” Honestly, that threw me, but on the other hand, I wasn’t as sure of anything anymore as I used to be. “What are you talking about?”
Eliza squeezed my hand again, drawing my attention back to her. “She’s right, you know, but we can get to all of that later. Right now, the only thing we need to know is whether you want to fix it.”
“I think I might’ve pushed him away too far for that to be possible.”
She smiled. “Oh, I know Jesse pretty well at this point and most people’s idea of too far is that man’s starting point. I do have a plan, though. If you’d be interested in hearing it?”