27. Ember
TWENTY-SEVEN
EMBER
I looked up from my computer and noticed it was dark outside. The days were getting shorter. I stretched my back, groaning as my spine crackled and popped. It was Saturday afternoon, and I’d spent the day working. What else was I going to do with my time?
Darby was probably at her piano recital right now. I wondered how miserable she felt, standing up in front of all those people, performing on an instrument she hated. I wondered how Jack felt watching her. If he knew, deep down, that he was making a mistake.
These were the ruminations that circled my mind like sharks. I couldn’t stop thinking about the two of them, no matter how hard I tried.
Maybe I wasn’t trying very hard at all. Maybe thinking about them hurt, but it was the only thing that made me feel like that month in Marswood Harbor had actually happened.
Pushing back from my desk, I headed toward the kitchen with my empty mug of coffee and paused when there was a buzz on the intercom.
I frowned. I hadn’t ordered anything. Maybe someone had pressed the wrong buzzer.
Walking to the control panel by the door, I pressed the button to speak. “Yes?”
“Ember. It’s me. Can I come in?”
Jack Mars was at my door. He’d come all the way from Marswood Harbor, probably got my address from one of the forms my lawyer and I had emailed him, and showed up outside my building.
What the hell. What the actual hell.
I blinked, staring at the off-white speaker, wondering if I was hallucinating. I probably should have eaten lunch. Maybe my blood sugar was low.
I jumped when the buzzer sounded again. “Yes?” I repeated into the intercom.
“Ember. Please. I just want to talk to you.”
Letting him in was a terrible idea. Why was he here? He’d get his money and his divorce. There was no reason for us to speak. He wanted to sweet-talk me somehow. Make me fall for his games all over again. Why? Did he get off on it?
Yet I still watched as my finger hovered over the button to open the building’s front door. I felt the soft rubber under my fingertip, listened to the blood rush in my ears.
He was here. He’d walk up the steps and knock on the door, and I’d see him right here outside my apartment one last time.
Even though I knew it was a bad idea, I still pressed the button anyway. There was a buzz, and I heard the faint click of the entrance door closing downstairs. The sound traveled up the old stairwell, echoing on all those hard surfaces. Soon, I’d hear Jack’s footsteps.
Because he was here. At my home.
I set my empty mug on the kitchen counter and glanced up at the small mirror I’d set by the front door. My hair was frizzy and my face was bare. I wore leggings and a sweatshirt. I didn’t look great. Did it matter?
The sound of his footsteps reached me through my front door. I stood there, staring at the barrier between us, waiting for the knock.
I still flinched when it came.
My heart took off as my mouth turned dry. I waited a breath, wiped my damp palms on my leggings, and opened the door.
I hadn’t imagined it; he really was as beautiful as I’d remembered.
He stood on my doorstep wearing a dark jacket branded with the Marswood Security logo over a pair of black jeans.
His hair was a mess, as if he’d spent the day running his fingers through it.
His cheeks were slightly reddened, maybe from the wind outside.
And his eyes were a haunted, tortured blue.
“Ember.”
I swallowed. Stepped aside. Inhaled through my clenched teeth as he walked into my space and took up all the available oxygen.
Letting him in had been a mistake. I should’ve learned my lesson the first time.
I watched his gaze sweep over my home and felt a wave of shame. Yes, this was where I lived. These were all my possessions. Yes, you were right to toss me aside.
But when Jack looked at me, I didn’t see any of that in his gaze. I saw pain.
He exhaled. We watched each other.
Finally, he said, “You look good.”
That snapped me out of my stupor. I blinked, straightening. I knew I didn’t look good. I looked like I’d spent the past three weeks steeped in my own misery. I wasn’t going to fall for this all over again.
I straightened. “You got the notification from my lawyer,” I guessed. “All we need is your bank account information, and you’ll get the money within a couple of weeks. The estate is settled.”
His eyes turned wary. He leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter, his big hands curling around the edge. My apartment felt tiny with him in it. I wanted him to leave. His presence had made an itchy feeling crawl under my skin, and I wanted it to stop.
“I got the emails,” he confirmed. “You want to divorce me.” That, he said through clenched teeth.
“That was the plan,” I forced out. My heart had sped up, and the hammering of my pulse was making me dizzy.
“Ember—”
“Why are you here? You want an apology? I’m truly sorry to have put you and Darby through that. I will regret it until my dying day.”
His jaw clenched. “You’ll regret it?”
“Won’t you?”
“No!” He exhaled. It was a short, bitter huff that burst out of him as he shook his head. “No, I won’t regret it. The only thing I regret is pushing you away.”
I frowned. That…didn’t make sense. My mind whirled, and I clung to the only thing that did. We had a deal. There was a plan. All we had to do was follow it. “The money should hit your account within—”
“Will you stop—” Jack shoved his hand in his hair, gripped it, and tugged, as if he needed the pain to center himself. His eyes darkened, and he glared at me as he said, “I don’t give a shit about the money, Ember.”
“The whole point of this was the money!”
“Not for me!” The words burst out of him, and he reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
He brandished them at me, and I recognized the contract we’d signed.
His copy, with both our signatures on it.
He was still wearing his wedding ring, and it shone between white knuckles as he gripped the top of the contract.
With his eyes blazing, he ripped the contract in half.
Then he took the shredded paper and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. Half of it fluttered to the ground.
I stared. The brain I was so proud of refused to provide an explanation. “That doesn’t actually cancel the contract,” I said.
“So give me your copy. Give me whatever computer it’s stored on. Give me your lawyer’s information. I’ll destroy all evidence of that fucking contract, and then I’ll come back here and ask you if now you understand what I’m telling you.”
I didn’t understand. My pulse hammered, and the rushing in my ears was so loud I had to strain to make sense of his words.
“While we’re at it,” he said, reaching into his pocket again. He ripped out another sheaf of papers—the divorce petition. He ripped those too, multiple times, until there was legal confetti all over my floor.
“Jack—”
“I’m not letting you divorce me.” He sliced his hand through the air, emphatic.
It was hard to breathe. My hands were clenched into fists, and I focused on the feel of my nails digging into my palms. “Why not?”
“Because I love you!” His words echoed against the white walls.
At my wide-eyed stare, he spread his palms toward me and said, “Ember, I got those divorce papers and it felt like my heart was getting ripped out. I fucking sobbed. Do you hear me? I pushed you away and treated you like shit and you left, and I didn’t realize what a monumental fucking mistake I’d made until I got that email. I love you. I love you.”
My brain screeched denial. This was a man who had every woman in that town at his beck and call. He loved being made to feel like he was desired, important, attractive. I’d just been one woman in a long line of women who filled that need for him.
He didn’t love me. He was just angry that I’d walked away. I’d hit him right in that big ego of his, and now he needed to come here and ruin the tiny bit of peace I’d found just to make himself feel better.
I shook my head. “No, you don’t. You barely even know me.”
“I know that you’re smart and funny and you keep your true self hidden because every time you open up, you get hurt. You lock yourself away behind that hard shell of yours because you’re terrified of somebody really seeing you.”
My heart felt like it had been punched. I straightened. “Get out.”
“Ember, I know these things because I’m exactly the same way.
I get it. For eleven years, I’ve gone through life hiding from everyone, including myself.
Hiding the fact that for years, the only reason I didn’t give up completely was because Darby needed me.
Telling myself I didn’t need or want a relationship.
Hiding behind casual sex and flirtation and telling myself it was enough.
” His eyes pleaded with me. He licked his lips.
Shook his head. “It wasn’t enough, and if you hadn’t come along, I would have gone the rest of my life lying to myself. ”
I had to take tiny little breaths to take air in. I was on the edge of falling apart.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about since I left my house this morning? The drive to Bangor and the flight here and the taxi ride and those torturous minutes when I thought you weren’t going to let me in? You know what I kept thinking about?”
He needed to leave. I wanted him to leave. I wanted to go back to how things were before. Didn’t I?
Still, I whispered, “What’s that?”
“I thought about your name, Ember. Because that’s exactly what you were to me.
This small, glowing, burning-hot coal that lit a fire in my soul.
You melted the ice I’d encased myself in and reminded me what it feels like to be warm and alive.
And then I pushed you away and told you it meant nothing.
I’m sorry, Ember. So fucking sorry for how I treated you. ”