“Baby, I am sorry for all of this. I literally walked into the office this morning and she was there. I had no idea.”
Her bottom lip quivered. “I believe you. I just … I can’t.” She laughed a small little laugh that only made me feel worse. “I just can’t deal with anything else right now.”
I watched her sitting there with her face streaked, her hair pulled partly down from her ponytail. The orange dress she had worn earlier just for my benefit, lying in a heap on the floor.
I felt like a complete fucking ass.
“Can I hold you? Please?”
She snorted. “I have to finish packing. I need to leave for the airport in an hour.” She looked down at herself. “And I need to get cleaned up. I’m a mess.”
“You are just overwhelmed. Everything will be okay, baby. Let us find Simon and you can come back.”
Her bottom lip quivered and a sick feeling took over my stomach. “What are you thinking?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“Nothing,” she said, looking away.
“You are lying to me.”
“You can spot one of your own kind.”
“Jada. Don’t go there.”
“Why, Cane? You don’t like being put on the spot? You don’t like it when I call you out on lying to me for weeks now? Even when my life might have been at stake? Or the fact that I walk in today and see Ashley in your office? You don’t want that open for discussion?”
I tried to stay calm, to stay in control of my body, but it was spinning out of control too quickly. “Damn it, Jada! It’s not like that!”
She leaned forward, her eyes angrier than I had ever seen them. “Here’s what it’s like, Cane. The fact that I’ve been feeling you pull away and scared to fucking death that it was going to end like it did with Decker. But you convinced me otherwise and I believed you. And now I have to go out of town because someone may want to kill me, yet I have to leave you here when he might be trying to kill you, too! How am I supposed to manage that, Cane? How am I supposed to live while worrying that something is going to happen to you?!”
She took in a rush of breath and her body shook.
“And then I come in there today to see Ashley sitting there.” Her eyes narrowed as she spat her name out like a poison. “Once again, I thought my life was headed in the right direction and I feel … I feel like everything has been thrown into a mixer and shaken beyond recognition!”
Tears flowed down her cheeks again and I couldn’t stop myself. I bounded across the floor and wrapped my arms around her. She pounded her fists into my chest as I held her tight, before giving in and wrapping them around my back as she poured herself into me.
“I’m so sorry, beautiful girl. So, so sorry,” I apologized, kissing her head. Tears began to prick my eyes. “This will be over soon and you can come home. We can pick back up where we left off.”
She sniffled as she pulled away, keeping her eyes on the floor. “I don’t want to pick up from here.”
My body stilled, my blood running cold. “For fuck’s sake! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just tired, Cane.” She shook her head. “I need to get packed, okay?”
“I will be there to get you. I promise you.” I tilted her head to look in my eyes. “I love you.”
Her eyes clouded again as she tried to look away.
“I love you,” I repeated. “You are my world. My happiness. My exception.”
Her lip shook as a smile made its way across those beautiful lips. “I love you.”
She pulled from my grip and I let her chin drop.
“You won’t go with me?” Her voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear it.
“I can’t, Jada,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
She nodded, but I could see that the anger she had when I first arrived was making a comeback.
My chest felt heavy as I considered walking out of this room. She was clearly irate at me. I just hoped like hell it would dissipate as she cooled down.
“You are leaving Arizona because I asked you to, right? And not because you want to get away from me?”
She refused to look at me as she muttered, “Yeah.”
I grabbed either side of her head and pressed my lips firmly to hers. I rested my forehead against hers, not wanting to let her go, but knowing I had to.
“You are mine. Whether you are here or in Chicago—you are mine.”
She stayed silent as I turned and walked out of her room, leaving my heart, my happiness … my whole fucking world in her hands.
Max was standing by the front door when I made my way down the steps, looking as wary as I felt.
“How’d that go?” he asked. A pained look was on his face.
“You’re going to have your hands full. That’s all I’m saying.”
Max tilted his head. “Does she even know I’m tagging along?”
I shook my head, waiting for his reaction.
He snorted in disbelief. “You fucking owe me, man.”
“When do I not, Max?”
We eyed each other, a million words exchanged and not one spoken.