Until We Touch (Fool's Gold #15)

She stared at him without flinching. “I don’t need saving.”


“Sure you do. Without me, you have no causes. And without your causes, you’re nothing.”

Her shoulders squared and her chin came up. “You’re wrong. I have value. We all do. You’re a whole lot more than just the guy who writes the checks.”

“But I don’t want to be. I’m not interested in the work involved.”

He’d already offered all he had to save his brother and he’d been turned down. He knew what it was like to beg to save the person he loved most in the world. And he knew what it was like to watch him die.

But he’d gotten through Lucas’s funeral and the days that followed. He’d hung on. Until his parents had come to him and explained they were leaving the country. They were going to some village in Africa to help poor children. Jack wasn’t sure what they would do there—he’d stopped listening. Because the real message had mattered more. They were leaving because there was nothing left for them here. Having a son who was living, having him around, wasn’t important enough.

That was the moment that had truly changed him. He’d said all the right things—that he was heading off to college and of course, he would be fine on his own. He had his friends and football. He didn’t need his parents. At that moment, watching them leave, he’d vowed never to give his heart again. He’d vowed never to get involved again, and he’d kept that promise. For a while he’d gotten soft. He’d allowed himself to care about Taryn, about Larissa. But all that was over now. Taryn was gone and he was about to get rid of Larissa.

“Jack, you have to believe in yourself.”

“I do,” he told her, then took a drink. “It’s you I don’t believe in. You’re fired.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“You’re fired. I’m your boss at Score and I’m firing you. Go get your things out of the building, turn in your key and never come back. I want nothing to do with you.”

For a second she didn’t move. In that heartbeat, he found himself hoping she would call him on his ass**le behavior. That she would force him to see that he was making a mistake and doing things he would regret. He wanted her to be the one to show him the error of his ways. Because somewhere inside there was still enough humanity to know that one day soon he was going to have regrets.

But he’d placed the knife too perfectly and she didn’t have the strength. He saw the way her hands trembled. He saw the tears fill her eyes. She swallowed, then nodded and stood.

As she walked past him, she paused.

He’d always had the gift of timing in the game and apparently it followed him into life. Now he was able to sigh with the right combination of long suffering and boredom before shaking his head.

“Don’t bother telling me you love me,” he said. “I can’t stand to hear it again.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek. Jack watched it and felt that knife he’d placed so deliberately turn and cut through him. It made its way to the aching part of his own heart—the part that had never healed—and found a home there. The pain made it impossible to move, impossible to breathe. He could only stand there bleeding from the inside out and watch the very essence of who he had always wanted to be walk out without once looking back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LARISSA LAY STRETCHED on her sofa with Dyna sprawled across her. The fluffy cat purred loudly and stared into Larissa’s eyes, as if offering all the feline support she had.

“Thank you,” Larissa murmured, her voice muffled because her throat hurt. It was all the crying, she thought with a sniff. The horror of what had happened with Jack yesterday hadn’t gotten any better with the passage of a night and most of a morning. Her heart was still as shattered, her spirit crushed. Right now all that kept her going was the purring devotion of her cat.

“I’m glad we’ve bonded,” she told Dyna, tears slipping from the outer corners of her eyes and down her temples to get lost in her hair. “It really helps to know you’re here for me.”

Dyna’s gaze never wavered.

“It’s just I don’t understand,” she continued. “Jack is a lot of things. He can be stubborn and when he’s tired he can be a little snappish. He resists getting involved. But he’s also giving and fair. He’s been there for everyone he cares about. He’s never once been mean.”

But he’d been plenty mean yesterday. He’d broken her heart and left her feeling small. As if the gift of her love was both annoying and a burden.

She’d spent a long night trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Because something had. Something big. Something that had made him lash out.