Chapter 39 Seemingly Impossible #2
After walking off my nervous energy for an hour, I’d finally ended up here.
No one could make these decisions for me, but I couldn’t make them without my family, either, so I came to see my brother.
He was directing a play, and I found him rehearsing in this massive Broadway theater.
Quietly, I slipped into the back row and waited.
As the actors left the stage, Davis spotted me. He walked over and slid into the seat next to me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice soft, his hand brushing gently across my shoulder.
I didn’t even think about it—I just blurted it out. “I think I’m going to take the job in Paris.”
He didn’t even flinch. He didn’t ask for details, didn’t need to. He just gave me a simple response. “Good.”
“But can I really give all this up?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“You need a breather, Michelle,” he said, his tone calm but firm, like he already knew the answer and was just waiting for me to catch up.
“You need time and space to recover from the violation. And you’ve always found solace in your work, which you haven’t been able to do here.
Go to Paris, take the job, and spend some time processing. It doesn’t have to be forever.”
I looked down at my hands, twisting them in my lap. “I’ll miss him,” I said softly, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
“I know,” Davis said, his voice matching mine. “But you spend your whole life taking care of people, and it’s what you love. You’ll be unhappy without it.”
His words hit me hard because they were true.
I flashed back to Paris—the stage, the keynote, the energy of it all.
I’d been alive there, firing on all cylinders.
Possibilities for the future had seemed as endless as the blooms in Monet’s Gardens.
I’d felt like myself, like the best version of myself.
Here, though, without the anchor of the work I loved doing, I was drifting. Lost.
We talked a little more, Davis saying what I already knew deep down but hadn’t wanted to admit. Then he glanced at the stage and gestured to the actors. “I need to get back to work. But join me later. Jill’s back in town, and we’re all meeting for drinks.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
As he walked back toward the stage, I stayed in my seat for another minute, staring at nothing. I’d been clinging to the idea of staying here, staying with Jack, but deep down, I knew the truth.
As much as it hurt, as much as I’d miss Jack, I needed to say yes to the job in Paris. Work made me happy. It was solid, steady, constant. It had never let me down.
And right now, it was the only thing that could pull me back to who I was.
I only hoped it would be enough to shelter me from the heartbreak.
When Jack came over that evening to get ready for his charity event, I didn’t know how to tell him I was thinking of leaving.
That I’d been offered a job that might have me flying across the ocean in two weeks.
Or that I’d received some incredibly good news today.
Via email, in fact. News that made me feel…
hope. But for someone who traffics in words, I was completely at a loss for the right ones to say.
So instead, I focused on the present. I buttoned up his crisp white shirt, tied his bow tie, and helped him slip on his jacket.
“You look so good in a tux,” I said, my heart aching because he was so damn handsome. I would miss this—seeing him every day and every night.
“I would look better if you were by my side, but I understand you’re not ready,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close for a kiss.
He didn’t push. He understood I wasn’t ready to be his date at the gala, not yet.
I wasn’t even sure when I’d be ready to have dinner with him in a restaurant again.
The wound was still too raw. But Jack didn’t seem to mind. He understood. He always understood.
“Come over when you’re done,” I said when we finally broke the kiss. Maybe I could tell him then. Or maybe we’d just discuss the book offer I’d found in my email earlier today. It was the first real professional ray of hope I’d felt in a while.
“I love that you invited me.”
“You’re always invited. You’re always welcome,” I said, even though always was shrinking into the span of two more weeks.
“I’ll always want to be with you.”
“Always is a very long time.” My heart cracked at how much I wanted his always.
He glanced at his watch and then back at me. “I don’t have to be there for thirty minutes.”
I rolled my eyes, a smile tugging at my lips. “You just got dressed.”
“I’m a very fast dresser,” he said, taking my hand and guiding me to the couch. He sat down, pulling me into his lap. Brushing my hair behind my ear, he leaned in and whispered, “Undress me.”
“Jack,” I said, my voice teasing but my pulse racing.
He shook his head, his expression serious but playful. “No ifs, ands, or buts. If I can’t have you by my side tonight, I want to make love to you now. And again later. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. We’re together now.”
“I know,” I said, my throat tightening. The words almost caught in my chest. We were together now, but what would happen when I left? For now, though—for this moment—I wanted the same thing. So I did as he asked. I undressed him, then myself, and sank onto him.
The groan he let out as I took him in was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard, and it nearly made me cry. It felt so good—so unbearably good. I gripped his shoulders, pulling him on top of me as I lay back on the couch, wanting to take him deeper, wanting to hold onto him as tightly as I could.
My hands roamed along his strong back, memorizing every inch of him. His skin. His muscles. Him.
“See?” he said, his voice low and rough as he moved inside me with a slow, deliberate thrust that left me gasping. “There’s always time for this.”
“Always,” I echoed, squeezing my eyes shut. I let the sensations carry me away, far from the thought that this might be one of our last times together. I had so much to say, so much I wanted to tell him about how I felt, but the words wouldn’t come. I could only feel.
I cataloged every sensation. The heat of his bare skin against mine.
The sheen of sweat between us. The unbelievable closeness as I wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him even deeper.
My nails dug into his shoulders, and he rocked into me, the delicious friction and the sounds he made driving me closer and closer to the edge.
He made love to me passionately, possessively, in a way that erased everything but him, me, and us.
“Michelle. My Michelle,” he whispered against my collarbone, his lips brushing sweet, sinful kisses along my neck.
The way he said my name undid me completely. Tears spilled from my eyes as a wave of ecstasy surged through my body. I cried from the pleasure, from the bittersweetness of it all, from the thought of losing this. I didn’t want the bitter. I’d had enough bitter.
As I came down from the high, Jack held my face in his hands, brushing his lips lightly against mine. “Have I told you today how much I love you?”
He’d said it so many times since that day in the gardens. Even through the mud, the muck, and the chaos, he hadn’t stopped saying it. He kept showing me, being the man I needed and the man I wanted.
After ten years of longing, of chasing love with the wrong person, I finally had it with the right one.
What was I thinking? I couldn’t give this up.
I couldn’t give him up. I couldn’t reinvent myself in Paris—I’d be exactly who I was before him—professionally successful, and a heartbroken mess personally.
Maybe I wouldn’t love my new work here, but I’d have love in my life, and that was something I couldn’t give up.
“I know you love me. And that’s why I’m saying no to Denis,” I said, pulling back to look at him.
He stilled, his hands gripping my shoulders. “What?”
“He made me an offer today. I told you he’d expressed some interest. He made it official. He wants me to work in his practice in Paris.”
“You said no?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“I’m going to say no,” I clarified. “It’s past midnight in Paris, so I haven’t been able to respond yet.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice soft but insistent. “Why are you saying no?”
I shot him a look, unable to believe he didn’t already know.
“Why?” I repeated. “Because I’m in love with you, and you’re here.
Your business is here. If he’d made the offer six months ago, I’d have gone in a heartbeat.
But everything’s changed since I met you.
There are some things worth giving up for love. ”
“You’d do that for me? Give up a job like that?” he asked, searching my face.
I nodded.
“But that’s an impossible choice,” he said, echoing the words we’d once spoken.
I shook my head. “It’s not at all. I might have lost most of my clients, but I’m getting requests like wild after that article. I received an email earlier today from Brooks and Bailey,” I said. “I have a publisher interested in a book!”
“You do?” He sounded wildly delighted.
“I do. And I’ll probably find an agent, because the concept sounds amazing. It’s everything I’ve built my career on. I can write it and I’ll start over with a new specialty.”
“It’s going to be incredible. You’re incredible, and I can’t wait to read it.”
“Thank you,” I said, then took a beat before adding, “it’s worth it for love. All this change—it’s worth it.”
For a moment, he just looked at me, as if processing everything I’d said. Then he exhaled shakily. “God, I fucking love you, Michelle Milo. More than anything.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead before quickly dressing again.
At the door, he kissed me goodbye. “I’ll see you in a couple hours,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, and as he walked toward the elevator, I swore I heard him mutter, “but probably sooner.”
I stood in the doorway, watching him go, feeling content with my choices. All of them—even the ones that once felt impossible.