17. “WELL, THIS AINT OVER, NO, NOT HERE. NOT WHILE I STILL NEED YOU AROUND.” #2
“I just need him to stop,” Jocelyn explained. “No more calls. No more texts. No flowers. Just leave me alone.”
“Joce, maybe if you just heard him out. He’s obviously sorry.”
She knew he was sorry, but that didn’t negate the fact that this was a clear sign of the kind of man he’d always be.
“What would you do if Greyson put his colleagues before you?”
“Bodhi and I are his colleagues.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Logan told Grey there was something wrong with the plane. He obviously didn’t plan to be late.”
“He showed up in golf clothes, Wren. He spent the whole morning golfing, knowing I needed him. I just…can’t.”
Her friend sighed. “I’ll ask Grey to talk to him. I’ll tell him you need more time.”
Would time repair this?
“Thank you.”
Wren hesitated before hanging up. “I think he loves you, Joce.”
Her vision blurred. “Don’t do that. It’s not fair. If he loved me, he would have been here when I needed him.”
“He tried—”
“No, Wren, he didn’t. I texted him in the morning, telling him all about the fish crisis and I…” She practically choked on the truth. “I even said I needed him. If he had left then, he would have been there, but instead, he played a full round. Eighteen holes while I was trapped in Bait-gate.”
Her friend sighed. “I’ll talk to Grey.”
After talking to Wren, Jocelyn only felt like eating her feelings. She hadn’t gone to town that morning for her usual order at the Harbor Crumb, so she searched the fridge for anything that wasn’t a condiment, settling for a shitty cup of coffee and a defrosted bagel with butter.
Two bites and one sip and she tossed both in the trash, over the roses.
Writing was impossible.
Every time she tried to construct a sentence, the blinking cursor mocked her. How could she focus on romance when her heart was so broken?
For a good thirty minutes, she paced. She’d tried to channel her energy towards cleaning, but housework never comforted her the way it did others.
Shifting gears, she turned her attention to other things. Her email had been backed up for weeks, and she needed to weed through the spam, respond to her readers, and follow up with her editor who was still waiting for her draft.
It was easy to delete mail when she felt no sentimental attachment to anything. She was operating on autopilot, mercifully numb due to some sort of subconscious survival tactic and ruthlessly deleting messages with lethal clicks.
For the last ten years, Jocelyn had only herself to lean on, and she’d managed just fine. It was time to get back to that sort of mentality.
She could handle this.
It was a breakup. People broke up all the time. She’d written dozens. She would get through it just like she got through everything else, with sheer fucking stubbornness, profanity, and plenty of peanut butter whiskey.
Once the spam was cleared out of her inbox, her mail had dwindled to a manageable one-hundred-twenty-two emails. She had the unwelcome thought of how that much unanswered mail would make Soren twitch and almost laughed.
No more thinking like that anymore.
No more holding herself in the contrasting view of his flawless perfectionism. She could go back to doing things her way. Not that she ever budged on doing them differently.
But there had been this recent sense of awareness, some niggling that she could maybe try a little harder to be less…catastrophic and abrasive.
Fuck that.
The emails from her fans helped. She started with the oldest first, answering each one with a teary smile and a ball of gratitude in the pit of her stomach. Without them, she’d be lost.
Each message came from an open contact form on her website. Some readers dropped reviews, others left a single question or compliment, while others sent character art and long letters telling her how much they loved her work.
It was the purest medicine for her dark soul.
Of course, there was always additional spam that slipped through her firewalls, perverts finding her contact form as easily as they slid into her DMs, but that was par for the course when you wrote smut, had a public platform, and a contact page on your website.
When the pervie emails slithered into her inbox, she simply deleted, blocked, and moved on. It wasn’t worth getting upset over. Especially because, in the end, the good messages far outweighed the bad.
Flicking through, she finally made it to the emails from that week, whittling her inbox down to a manageable twenty-six messages that still needed attention. She took inventory of her mental state, finding herself more grounded than she’d been two hours ago.
The last message was one with an attachment. Those were her favorite, because some of her readers were truly gifted at drawing and could bring her characters to life better than her own imagination. She opened the message and her smile dropped.
“What the fuck?” Cold cut through the warmth in her chest and her blood chilled in her veins.
This wasn’t from a fan.
Scrolling down, hand trembling, she stared at a picture of Soren and Olivia. She stared unblinking at the image, noting how handsome he looked in his tux and how disgusting the sight of her hand on his chest made her feel.
Breath seemed to pulse into her, cold and sharp. Under the picture was a short note.
From Friday night, at our family’s home in Newport.
No signature needed. She knew exactly who it was from.
Newport… That was in Rhode Island.
Slamming her laptop shut, she shoved her chair back from her desk and folded her body forward, breathing like she was in some sort of Lamaze class.
What the hell should she do?
He hadn’t been away on business.
He had been away with his little blonde vulture.
Shaking, Jocelyn pressed her lips tight and stared at the folded laptop.
She was done. Completely fucking done. If that bitch wanted him, she could have him.
Soren stared down at his phone and scoffed in disbelief. When it first pinged, he’d launched for it and fumbled to answer it so fast it flew out of his hands and skittered across the floor. He’d thought it might finally be Jocelyn, but instead it was a text from Greyson.
Hey, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Jocelyn, but you need to back off.
Wren said you keep calling and texting and that you’re now sending flowers.
She’s upset and doesn’t want you to contact her.
I don’t want to get in the middle, but my wife is upset, and it’s not good for the baby, so please stop. I’m here if you want to talk.
Soren clicked off his phone. “No, I don’t want to fucking talk.” At least not to him. He needed to talk to Jocelyn.
If she wasn’t going to answer his calls or respond to his texts, then she left him no choice but to go over there. Grabbing his keys, he shoved his feet into his gym shoes by the door.
King’s claws ticked across the tile as he peeked out of the den to see what he was doing. Guilt swallowed Soren. They hadn’t done their morning walk, and King clearly hoped this was it.
“Not now, bud. I promise to take you for an extra-long one tomorrow.”
As if understanding him, the dog hung his head and turned around.
Soren grabbed his keys, ripped open the front door, and once again barreled right into Logan.
“What the fuck?” he snapped when he tripped backward, almost falling into his house. “Stop loitering in doorways!”
“Sorry. I was about to knock. I need to talk to you.”
“Not now.”
“Yes, now, Soren.”
“Logan, I don’t have time for this. I have to—”
“Well, make fucking time, goddamn it! I’m your fucking brother, and it’s important.”
Taken aback by Logan’s harsh tone, Soren stiffened, a cold chill running up his spine. “What’s wrong?”
Logan led him inside and paced in the foyer for a solid minute before saying anything. “How about some coffee?”
Soren rolled his eyes. What was he, a fucking barista? “I thought you said it was important.”
“It is.”
“Important, but not urgent, I guess.” Soren led him into the kitchen and filled the machine with purified water. “I have somewhere I need to be, Logan, so either spit it out or go.”
“I want to resign as a board member.”
Soren’s hand stilled as he shaved off the extra grounds. He blinked, wondering if this was what an aneurysm felt like.
“What did you just say?” His voice sounded distant to his own ears.
“I don’t want to be a part of the company the way you do. You should assign the position to someone else. Someone who appreciates it.”
He set the portafilter down, careless of the grounds scattering across the counter, and turned. “Are you fucking kidding me, right now?”
“I know you’re disappoint—”
“Disappointed.” He scoffed. “You’re a fucking Hawthorne!”
“So?”
His brain was going to pop. “Logan, this couldn’t come at a worse fucking time.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.”
“Then why didn’t you?” he barked.
“Because I knew you’d react like this.”
“How else am I supposed to fucking act?” he shouted. “You’re a fucking Hawthorne for Christ’s sake! You have an obligation to the company—”
“Why? Because Dad said so? He’s dead, Soren. Fucking dead! And I’m tired of living my life like he’s still here.”
“I know he’s dead. Unlike you and Greyson, I’ve been showing up every day to fill his fucking shoes.”
“You wanted to take his place. The fishery has always meant more to you and Greyson. I never loved it the way you two did.”
“Come on—”
“I’m serious. I used to hate when Dad would drag us there. And now, I don’t want to be tied to something I spent my whole life hating.”
Soren staggered back as if he’d hit him. “You hated it?”
“Yes.” Logan shook his head and scowled. “Don’t you see, Greyson loved the boats, and you loved the thrill of running something massive. There was never anything left for me.”
“It’s a fucking fleet of ships, Logan. We have corporate offices all over the country. Have your pick of whatever you want!”
“I don’t want any of it.” He shook his head. “For once, can you please listen to me?”
“I am listening. I just don’t understand how you could be so goddamn selfish!”
Logan’s gaze dropped with his voice. “I should have figured you wouldn’t understand.”