Chapter 14 #3
But I see the relief in her shoulders. The way she exhales.
She just changed Natalie's life. And she knows it.
"Okay." Jane's voice lightens. "Enough business. Let’s sit, eat and celebrate."
They settle around the table. Jane presents the lobster with the kind of measured pride she usually hides under deflection.
“What is this?” Sloane asks, examining the plate before tasting.
“A little Boston inspiration with the Caribbean lobsters in paradise,” Jane replies.
Merritt takes a bite first. Calm. Analytical.
Her expression shifts almost immediately.
“Oh.”
Katelyn tastes next. “Mmm. That’s… excellent.”
“Butter-poached?” Merritt guesses.
Jane nods. “Lower heat. Less aggression. Spiny tail needs finesse.”
Barbie looks at her with mild surprise. “I didn’t know you cooked.”
Jane lifts a shoulder. “When you run Jane of All Trades, you learn not to be bad at things.”
Sloane laughs. “Is that on your business cards?”
“It should be,” Jane laughs. “Right under ‘Crisis Management’ and ‘Seafood Diplomacy.’”
Barbie takes another bite, amused now. “Remind me never to underestimate you.”
After a few more measured chews, she sets her fork down. “Actually, we should talk about what you did for us. Just based on the bits you drafted and showed us before today.”
Jane straightens instinctively. “You don’t have to—”
“I do.” Barbie’s tone is calm, not dramatic. “The timeline you assembled? Jane, I’ve hired private investigators who couldn’t organize a sock drawer. What you built is more than professional grade. Clear. Structured. Impossible to misinterpret.”
Sloane nods. “And more importantly, usable. If this ever sees a courtroom, it holds.”
"It's just—"
"The recording quality. The way you positioned yourself to capture video without anyone noticing. That's expert-level work. I don't know how you pulled it off, but you did."
"Actually, that’s all West. He’s been instrumental with—"
Merritt shakes her head, already scrolling through her tablet. “The contingency notes.” She looks up. “If he lawyers up. If Natalie’s family tries to suppress it. If it leaks before we control the narrative. You anticipated every move.”
Sloane adds lightly, “Three of which I hadn’t.”
Jane looks at me. Eyes wide. Silently begging for rescue.
Not a chance. She needs to hear this.
Barbie’s voice cuts in again. “West was support. Important support.” She glances at me briefly. “But you were the architect. This was your strategy.”
Katelyn speaks last. Quieter. Emotional in a way the others aren't allowing themselves to be. "You saved her, Jane. You really, really saved her."
Jane's squirming like praise is physical pain. Like the words are landing on bare skin and she doesn't know what to do with them.
This is a woman who's spent her entire life being valued for what she can fix. For who she can help. She doesn't know how to sit still and hear that she matters—not her work, not her hustle, not her sacrifice.
I want to change that. I want to be the person who makes sure she hears it. Every day.
"Thank you," Jane says finally. Voice small but real.
"No," Barbie says. "Thank you."
The silence stretches too long, and Jane looks like she might bolt. So, I step in.
"Before this turns into a Hallmark movie, how about a toast?"
She shoots me a look of pure gratitude. I return it with the slightest nod.
The energy shifts. Lighter. They eat. They laugh. Sloane asks about the garnish. Merritt takes a second helping. Katelyn photographs the plate.
Then Barbie pulls out her phone. Starts typing.
"I'm texting Natalie now. Asking her to meet us in an hour."
Jane goes still. "An hour?"
Sloane nods. "Right after we leave here. Straight to her villa."
"You were right, there’s no point waiting," Merritt says. "She needs to know before the final rehearsal dinner tonight."
Barbie looks at Jane. "You sure you don't want to be there?"
"This is your moment with your friend." Jane's voice is steady. "I'm just the hired help."
"You're more than that," Katelyn says.
Jane smiles. Small and genuine. "Thank you. But I'm good. This is for you and Natalie."
Barbie reaches for her phone again. "One more thing before we go. Payment."
Jane blinks. "Oh. I thought—after you tell Natalie—"
"You've done the work. You get paid now." Barbie's fingers hover. "Account information?"
I watch Jane's hands. They shake. Just slightly—barely perceptible—as she pulls out her phone and reads off her routing number. Her account number.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Enough to get current with her rent. Get a new used vehicle. Cover Grace's tuition. Buy groceries without calculating whether she can afford protein and vegetables in the same week.
"Done," Katelyn says, tapping. "Should hit your account in a few minutes."
Jane stares at her phone. Waiting. The terrace is silent except for the waves below.
Her phone buzzes.
She looks down.
Her lips part. Her eyes go glassy.
"It's here," she whispers.
"Good," Katelyn says softly.
"Grace's tuition is covered," Jane says, and her voice shakes. "All of it. Spring semester. Summer housing. Books. Everything." She swallows. "I can pay off my business loans. And I can fix the leak in my apartment ceiling."
"How long has that been leaking?" Sloane asks.
"Since October."
October. Five months. She's been living with water dripping through her ceiling for five months because she couldn't afford the repair.
And she never told me.
I want to ask why she didn't tell me. But I know why.
Because telling me would mean admitting she needs help. And admitting she needs help would mean this arrangement isn't purely transactional. And if it's not transactional—
I stop the thought. Not now.
This is better. For her.
The energy shifts. Celebration without the weight of unpaid debt hanging over it.
Merritt stands. "We should go. We have to meet Natalie in forty-five minutes."
Sloane stands too. Barbie. Katelyn.
The reality settles over all of them. What comes next.
Barbie looks at Jane. "Wish us luck."
Jane's voice is steady. "You don't need luck. You have the truth."
Katelyn hugs Jane first. Then Merritt. Then Sloane. Then Barbie.
"If you're ever in Connecticut—"
Jane grins. "We’ll feast on real lobsters!”
Laughter. Warm goodbyes. Genuine affection.
And then they're gone.
Sandals clicking down the path, heading toward Natalie's villa and the conversation that will detonate everything.
The terrace falls quiet.
Jane's still holding her phone. Screen still lit with the bank notification.
"You okay?" I ask.
She looks up. Nods. But her eyes are wet.
"This is real," she says.
"Yeah."
"The money. The job. It's done."
"It's done."
She exhales. Long and shaky.
And I realize: now comes the hard part.
We're cleaning up in silence.
Not the comfortable kind. The heavy kind. The kind that says we both know what conversation is coming and neither of us wants to go first.
Jane stacks plates. I collect glasses. We orbit each other carefully, maintaining a precise distance—close enough to hand things back and forth, far enough that our fingers don't brush.
Like we're afraid contact will either start the conversation too fast or make us abandon it entirely.
"West?" she says finally.
I look up.
"We should probably talk."
Yeah. We should.
"Inside?" I ask.
She nods.
We sit on the couch. Not touching. A careful foot of space between us that feels like the Atlantic.
"So," she says.
"So."
She takes a breath. Squares her shoulders the way she does before she tackles something she's afraid of.
"I really, really like you."
The words hit me low. Soft but devastating.
"I really like you too," I say.
She looks up. Meets my eyes.
"Not fake like," she clarifies. "Not 'this is convenient' like. Not 'we had great chemistry in a high-pressure situation' like."
"I know."
"Real like."
Real love, I think. But I don't say it.
Because "like" is safer. "Like" doesn't carry the weight of expectations or the pressure of fifty thousand dollars that just hit her account.
It doesn't carry the question of whether her feelings grew because I helped her earn that money, or whether mine are clouded by a week of paradise and proximity and a woman who dismantles my discipline without trying.
She needs her win to land clean. I won't let my feelings contaminate it.
"This feels real," she says. Her hand presses flat against her sternum. "In here. It's not just the palm trees or the fake dating or the adrenaline."
"It's real for me too."
"Good." Her voice cracks. "Because I was worried I was—"
"You're not."
"You don't know what I was going to say."
"You were going to say you were worried you were alone in this." I hold her gaze. "You're not."
She exhales. Shaky.
And I want to say it. The words are right there—heavy, certain, pressing against the back of my teeth.
I love you.
But I can't.
Because Jane's fifty thousand dollars hit her account eleven minutes ago.
She's been in survival mode for years—supporting Grace, keeping the business alive, choosing between groceries and ceiling repairs.
She earned every cent of that money through intelligence, grit, and a plan that worked because she made it work. My role was support. Hers was strategy.
But the way it happened—me recording Blake, me getting the final footage—I don't want gratitude confused with something deeper. I don't want the relief of financial security tangled up with the warmth she feels sitting next to me on this couch.
I want her love chosen freely. Not in the glow of a rescue.
Not in a tropical bubble where everything feels heightened and urgent and unreal.
When the palm trees are gone and the countdown is over and she's standing in her apartment with the leak finally fixed, her sister’s tuition paid, a little breathing room in her account for once—and she still picks up the phone to call me.
That's the love I want from her.
So I say "I really like you too" instead of "I love you."
Because it's true.