Chapter Five
Jackson
“How is it only Tuesday?” Emily asks, dropping the latest Meridian file onto my desk. The tenth one they've sent over today.
“It's cruel, is what it is.”
“Want me to have Mr. Sullivan hunted down and properly chastised?” she asks with a smile.
Emily is sixty-eight years old and built like she could bench-press half the executive floor. Competitive bodybuilder in her off-hours, trophies, spray tan, the whole production. She can give me a run for my money on the treadmill and has, more times than my ego cares to count.
“Properly chastised meaning kick his ass?”
“What other kind of punishment is there?”
I laugh and close the file in front of me. “Go home, Emily. It's past nine. My driver will take you.”
“That's kind of you, Mr. Jackson. Thank you. See you in the morning.”
“Night, Em.”
The door closes behind her, and the office goes quiet enough that I can hear the hum of the air-conditioning and the faint traffic thirty floors below.
The thought of walking back into that house, of looking at Elyse and Frank's whole arrangement dressed up as a marriage and remembering I've still got two years left on the sentence makes me want to jump into traffic.
I don't even let myself finish the thought. There's nothing useful waiting at the end of it, so I drag a hand down my face and reach for the Meridian file again.
“Why are you still here?”
Rosalie's voice cuts through the room.
“And why are you keeping Emily this late? I just passed her at the elevator, the poor woman.”
I look up.
Something about the sound of her voice gets me out of my chair before I've even figured out what's wrong.
“Why are you here?”
“Just came from dinner. Grabbing my bag before I head upstairs. Didn't take it with me tonight.” She says it lightly, casually, gesturing at the bag over her shoulder like that explains everything.
It doesn't.
I stop in front of her and look properly.
There’s an energy about her that’s making the hairs on my arms stand up.
Rose’s eyes are red-rimmed, not tired red, not allergy red.
Crying red. The kind you get after you've spent enough time wiping at them that the skin underneath starts to look sore.
There's a fresh peel on her bottom lip where she's been picking at it, which Rose only does when she's somewhere far past whatever control she thinks she's maintaining.
Her hair is down and frizzed around the crown, strands pulled loose like she's been running both hands through it over and over.
None of those things alone would mean much.
Together, it makes me really fucking nervous.
She watches me put it together and I see the exact second she realizes I know.
Her bottom lip trembles.
“Don't.” Her voice comes out so small it scares the shit out of me. “Please don't, Jackson.”
Fuck.
Whatever this is, it's got both hands around her throat.
I don't ask. Not yet. I just take the bag from her shoulder and drop it into the nearest chair, then pull her against me.
Rose comes without a fight.
That's when I know how bad it is.
Her arms go around my neck, her face disappearing into the spot beneath my jaw where she always hides when she doesn't want anyone looking at her, and the first sob tears out of her before I've even fully gotten my arms around her.
“I've got you.”
That's all I say.
I reach behind us and lock the office door without letting go, then walk us toward the sofa with her still clinging to me.
She barely seems aware we're moving. By the time I sit, she's half in my lap, folded into my chest and crying hard enough that breathing has become something she has to remember to do.
There isn't anything delicate about it.
There's a wail underneath the sobs that she keeps trying to choke off against my neck, and every time she gets close to pulling herself together, something else breaks loose.
Her whole body is shaking in my arms, small and fierce and completely fucking wrecked, and I tighten my hold because I don't know what else to do with something this big.
“Breathe, baby.”
I rub one hand slowly up and down her back, the other cradling the back of her head while I let her soak the collar of my shirt and whatever's left of her pride into me.
I've seen Rose drunk and heartbroken. I've seen her furious enough to make grown men reconsider their career choices. I've carried her home, watched her hide pain behind sarcasm and watched sarcasm fail when the pain got too big.
But I've only felt her come apart like this once before.
And I had hoped like hell I'd never feel it again.
My stomach turns. What the fuck happened tonight?
I don't get to ask it out loud. With her face still wet and her breathing still coming too fast, Rose kisses me.
She comes at me urgent and messy, both hands catching my face as her mouth crashes into mine, her tongue sliding against mine salty with tears.
And for one traitorous second, the whole fucking facade goes up like paper.
Every boundary. Every promise. Every carefully maintained inch between us.
Gone.
Then I get my hands on her shoulders and pull her back.
“Let him out.”
“Rose—”
She slaps me before I can finish my thought.
Open palm, sharp enough across the cheek that my head turns with it, and I have to fight it down.
The exact urge she wants me to lean into.
Before the sting has even fully registered, she's diving back in.
She's grinding against me in my lap now, which, in hindsight, was a catastrophically stupid place to put this woman.
Her fingers fist in my hair hard enough to hurt as she drags my mouth back to hers.
"Rose," I plead against her lips.
“Please. Just. Please, I need him.”
She breathes the words into my mouth and trails hers along my jaw, sucking at my chin before her teeth graze the line of it.
“Fuck.”
It punches out of me before I can stop it because I'm still a man, unfortunately, and she knows every seam in me whether she means to or not.
“Please,” she says again, but this time it’s a soft sob. And that's the one that does it.
She's drowning.
She's reaching for the nearest thing she thinks might shut her head off for five minutes, and tonight that happens to be me. If I let her use me for that, she'll wake up tomorrow and hate herself for it.
Probably hate me too.
I catch her face in both hands, gentle where she's being anything but, and hold her still until she finally looks at me.
“Hey. Look at me.”
Her eyes are wild.
Fuck.
“Not like this.” My voice comes out rough, and I force it down into something steadier. “Not when you're hurting like this. I'm not going anywhere. I've got you, I'm right here, but we're not doing this tonight.”
Her whole face twists with anger in a way I’ve never seen. Not once.
Then her head falls back, and a guttural scream tears out of her so hard it curdles something in my stomach.
“God! Why can't you just—” She tears herself out of my hands and jumps off my lap. “God!”
She starts pacing.
Not normal pacing either. She's moving too fast for the size of the office, turning hard at the walls, hands dragging through her hair and then down her face like she can't stand being inside her own skin.
I stay where I am for a second because I've unequivocally never seen Rose like this.
Not drunk.
Not furious.
Not heartbroken.
This is something else.
“I'm tired.” Her voice cracks as she turns again. “I can't fight this darkness taking over anymore. It's winning, and I'm tired. It's been after me for years. Years. Just hiding and following me.”
Every part of me goes cold, and I’m immediately on my feet, but she doesn't seem to notice.
“Nothing helps. Nothing takes it away. Everyone is gone. Everyone.” Her hands fly out like she's counting losses she can't see.
“Mom. Dad. James. I didn't have a choice.
I had to. I can't even have Lauren and Samson; they're his now.
You're hers now. Michael is a grown man now.
Fuck, David is Jet's now. No, sorry. Jethro. FUCKING JETHRO.”
She's talking toward the ceiling, not to me.
I don't know who James is.
I don't know what she means about Lauren and Samson.
I don't know half the people in this fucking sentence, but I know enough to hear what matters.
Everybody leaves. That's what she's saying. Everybody leaves, and she's run out of reasons to believe anyone won't.
“Rose.”
She keeps going.
“I don't exist.” Her voice rises, then breaks completely. “I don't fucking exist for anyone anymore. I hate it here. I can't do this anymore. Fuck this entire pointless, tiresome existence because why am I here? What is it even for?”
That's my cue; I don't wait for another word.
I cross the room fast and pull her into me.
She fights against it, harder than I expect.
Her palms hit my chest, her shoulders twisting as she tries to get out of my arms, but I don't let go. I'm not hurting her, and I'm not pinning her down. I'm just holding enough of her together that she can't disappear on me while she's saying shit like that.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“Jackson!”
“No.”
The sobs hit again before she can keep fighting, ripping through whatever strength she had left. Her body goes loose in my arms so suddenly I have to adjust my grip to keep her upright.
“Okay,” I murmur into her hair. “Okay. I've got you.”
She cries harder.
I tighten one arm around her and lift her, wrapping her legs around my waist when she doesn't have enough strength left to stand. Her face buries itself against my neck immediately, both arms hooking around me while she shakes.
I grab her bag with my free hand.
We're done here. No more questions tonight. No trying to get the story out of her while she's drowning in it. Whatever the fuck broke loose tonight can wait until she's somewhere safe and breathing like a human being again.
I carry her out of my office and hit the elevator button with my elbow.
Her fingers twist into the back of my shirt.
“Don't leave me.”
The words are so quiet I almost miss them.
I press my mouth to her temple. “I'm not, baby.”
The building is empty except for security, and nobody asks questions when I carry her through the lobby.
They know both of us well enough to recognize when curiosity needs to mind its own fucking business.
Rose cries into my neck the entire way, quieter now but no less wrecked, her fingers twisted into my shirt while I reach into the back pocket of her jeans for the card key I know she keeps there and let us into her apartment.
I don't stop until I get her into the bathroom.
I set her on the counter and turn on the shower, testing the water with my hand while she sits where I put her.
The crying has mostly stopped, but she hasn't come back to me yet.
Her eyes are open without really seeing anything, her face slack in a way that scares me more than the screaming did because at least the screaming meant she was still fighting.
Wherever she's gone, I'm not dragging her back before she's ready.
I stay close instead. One hand on her knee, then her shoulder, enough contact that she knows exactly where I am even if she can't answer me yet.
When the water is warm, I pull her blazer carefully over her shoulders.
"Arms up for me, baby." She lifts them, slow, automatic, and I pull her shirt carefully over her head and start to get the rest of her clothes off without making any more of it than I have to. There isn't a sexual thought in my head. Not one.
I don't bother taking off my own clothes before I step beneath the spray with her.
The water soaks through my shirt and pants almost immediately while I guide her beneath it, one arm around her waist and the other hand supporting the back of her head. I tip her face carefully into the warmth and hold her there while it runs over her hair and shoulders.
For a while, that's all I do.
Hold her up.
My fingers move slowly through her scalp, working through the tangles while her forehead rests against my chest. She isn't crying anymore, but every so often a tremor moves through her hard enough that I feel it against my ribs.
“I'm here,” I murmur, not because I expect an answer but because I need her to keep hearing my voice. “You don't have to do anything. Just stay right here with me.”
It takes a few minutes.
Maybe longer.
Eventually her eyes close, and she drags in one deep, ragged breath that sounds like the first full one she's managed since she walked into my office.
My fingers keep moving through her hair, and when she lets out a small sigh and some of the tension finally leaves her shoulders, I know she's close enough to hear me now.
I lean down until my mouth is near her ear, speaking over the rush of the water.
“You exist, Rose. You exist to me right now, in this room, more than anyone alive. Whatever that darkness is telling you, that you don't matter, that everyone's gone, that there isn't anything left for you here, it's fucking lying to you.”
Her fingers move against my shirt.
I tighten my arm around her.
“I need you to stay with me. I'm not going anywhere, and I mean that.
Not tonight. Not tomorrow. You're not doing this alone.” I swallow around the pressure gathering in my throat, because there are some truths a man can spend nearly a decade avoiding right up until the woman he loves tells him she doesn't know why she's alive.
“You haven't been alone since the moment I laid eyes on you in that bar, even when you thought you were.”
Her head lifts slightly.
“I've always loved you, Rosalie. You'll never be alone. Not while I've got breath in me."
Her face crumples.
I cup her jaw and make her look at me. “Do you hear me?”
She nods.
“Use your words, baby.”
Her eyes finally focus on mine. Really focus.
“I hear you, Jackson.”
There she is.
Relief hits me so hard my knees almost fucking give out.
“There you are,” I whisper. I press my mouth to her forehead and hold it there for a second before kissing her temple, her cheek, anything that lets me touch her without asking her for one goddamn thing in return.
“There you are.” I kiss her lips softly.
Her top lip, then her bottom. “Don’t leave. Stay with me, Rose.”