Chapter 37
ISAAC
After a stunning weekend with Jasmine, I’d realized there was no point in pretending anymore. For the first time in my life, I was on cloud nine because of a woman and I didn’t even mind it. In fact, it wasn’t even only that I didn’t mind it. I fucking loved where I was right now.
Sprawled out on my couch, I scrolled through pictures of the cruise on my phone, smiling like a complete idiot every time I came across a shot of her.
It was ridiculous how gorgeous she was, with the golden flecks in those dark eyes lighting up every time she’d smiled at my camera and laughing so hard on some pictures that her nose was all crinkled.
I lingered on a selfie we’d taken in bed one morning over the weekend, just the two of us with our hair all mussed and our shoulders bare in the frame. Her head rested on my chest. Her smile was lazy and her beautiful face was completely stunning without so much as a speck of makeup in sight.
I grinned at my phone, then shook my head at myself, groaned, and dropped my head back against the couch. Who even am I right now?
Before I had time to begin to consider the question, there was a knock on my door and my heart jerked as Jasmine’s voice came through the wood. “Isaac? Are you here?”
“Yeah. I’m coming!” I called, on my feet before my brain had even commanded my body to move. I pulled the door open with the grin still on my face, but it disappeared as soon as I saw her.
Unlike me, Jasmine was not happy. Her eyes were a little wider than usual, the look in them oddly stricken. She brushed past me into the apartment, rolling her lips into her mouth. She kept walking until she reached the windows on the other side of my living room, keeping her back to me.
“Hey,” I said, shutting the door and then leaning back against it with my heart pounding. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve spoken to my father,” she replied after pausing for a beat, her shoulders rising on a deep inhale. “You got the bid, Isaac.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You and Joseph will be developing the industrial complex in Sharm. It’s done.”
What I should’ve felt in that moment was overwhelming joy and relief. That complex was everything I’d ever dreamed of designing. But I didn’t like this. Something was wrong. “Why?”
She finally turned to look at me, sliding her fingers to the knuckles into the pockets of her shorts, her narrow shoulders riding just a little higher than they should’ve. “Why what?”
“Why did we get the bid?” I asked, pushing away from the door and walking toward her. “What happened? Your father told me David had won, so what’s the catch?”
Even as I asked the question, I was sure I already knew the answer. My extremities turned to ice while red hot rage flooded my veins like lava. “What did you do, Jasmine?”
Her head lifted a little more, her chin high as she looked into my eyes. “David wants to marry me and I’m going to accept his proposal.”
The room tilted, my universe somehow turning inside out and upside down. “No.”
“Yes.” Her eyes filled with a plea for me to understand, but instead, something inside cracked so hard, I practically heard it happen.
“No.” I shook my head again, scoffing. “I’m not taking that project. There’s no way.”
“It’s already yours.”
“I’ll give it back,” I said firmly. “Joseph and I will withdraw.”
She sighed. “No, you won’t. You worked too hard on that design to walk away from it, especially now that GlobalStar is fully onboard.”
“I don’t want it like this.”
“It’s not your decision, Isaac.” She took a few steps closer to me. “You have earned this. You’re going to get everything you’ve always dreamed of.”
I scoffed. “I’m not letting you marry someone because of me.”
“It’s not because of you,” she said, taking another step closer. “David approached my father and I’ve decided to accept the proposition he made.”
“Don’t insult either of us by pretending that’s true.” My head cocked as I stared at her, standing there in her little denim shorts and cut-off shirt, acting like this wasn’t breaking her in half. “I know you, Jasmine. I know what you want, and it’s not David.”
“It might be.” She shrugged. “Who knows?”
“I do.” I lifted my arms out to my sides. “I know, Jasmine. I might allow you to boss me around, and for the most part, I love it, but I have to draw the line somewhere and I won’t let this happen.”
“It’s not up to you. It never was.”
“The hell it’s not.” I took the last few steps separating us and wrapped my fingers around her hands. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself so I can build a factory and some warehouses. That’s ridiculous.”
Her jaw tightened. “Well, I’m sorry, but you don’t get to decide what I can and cannot do.”
“Maybe not, but you don’t get to decide whether I’m willing to accept it and I’m not.”
She looked up into my eyes like she was waiting for me to calm down and see reason, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Isaac, just think about this for a second. David will withdraw his bid and the board will vote in your favor.”
My heart slammed against my ribs as I looked into those eyes, realizing that this was the moment I’d been waiting for. Everything I’d said to Joseph about why Jasmine and I couldn’t have a future together was still true, but I’d already crossed a line I couldn’t uncross.
I’d decided to take the risk, and if I didn’t take it right now, I probably wouldn’t get another chance. “I love you, Jasmine Saad.”
For a guy who’d never said those words to a woman who wasn’t family before, I managed to sound completely calm. Confident. I didn’t feel it, but I squeezed her hands and waited for her to look up at me. “I love you and I wasn’t going to tell you yet because I honestly don’t have much to offer.”
She was completely frozen, her jaw slack and her eyes wide, clearly stunned, but I didn’t let that stop me. “In fact, I don’t have anything else to offer. All I have is the way I feel about you. I get that love isn’t enough but I still can’t let you go like this.”
Her lips parted, but instead of saying words, she let out a heavy sigh and glanced down at our joined fingers. She stroked the sides of my thumbs, but when she looked up me again, her eyes were shining with tears instead of joy.
“That’s exactly why I have to say yes.”
My eyebrows snapped together. “What?”
“You don’t understand,” she murmured. “You family has been dragged through hell and back, but this project together with Colin’s entrance to our family will set you all on a better path. You’ll finally be able to put the past behind you and move on.”
“No, not like this, Jasmine. Never like this.”
Her eyes widened in exasperation this time. “You know what this project will do for you, Isaac. Once that complex is complete, you’ll be world-renowned and you know it.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do,” she said simply. “You deserve this. I’m not going to let you throw away the opportunity of a lifetime just because you don’t like the decision I’ve made.”
I flinched. “You are not and never will be a necessary sacrifice. A project isn’t worth losing you.”
“This one is,” she said, and despite the hurt shimmering in her eyes, I could see that she was set on this decision. No matter how much I begged her to turn David down, she wouldn’t do it because she thought she was protecting me. Protecting my family. Even if it broke her own heart.
“Please,” I whispered, trying anyway. “Don’t do this, Jasmine.”
Instead of responding, she took one more step closer and rose onto her toes to brush a kiss against my cheek, lingering with her front against mine and her lips on my skin, so close that I could feel her breathing. I could even feel her hesitation, but it didn’t last long.
Letting go of my hands, she turned and walked out, not even pausing at the door to say goodbye.
As soon as I heard that latch click into place behind her, my legs refused to keep functioning and I dropped into a crouch, burying my head in my hands and realizing that if I’d thought I knew what turmoil felt like before, I’d been wrong.
This… this is turmoil. And I have absolutely no idea how to survive it.