Page 62 of The Broken Keys

And I can’t move forward with either of them until I know the truth. I need to face Jaxon.

Not the businessman who dismissed me in his office. Not the man who sent me a letter I never received.

The real Jaxon. The man who helped me find myself and made me believe in futures I was too frightened to name.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab my phone. I pull up his contact information and gaze at it.

My heart hammers so hard I can feel my pulse in my neck. I can’t walk away from him without giving our relationship one more try.

Me:I’m sure you got my message and I understand why you haven’t responded. Can we meet? I need to talk to you. Just us. I need to explain why I never told you about Callum. I just want you to understand how I feel about you.

I hit send before I can delete it. The message shows delivered. Then nothing.

Seconds stretch into eternities, and bile churns in my stomach. I get physically nauseous. This can’t be the way it ends. I stare at the screen as if it holds the answer to everything.

Then three dots appear.

My breath catches.

The dots vanish and so does my pulse. My hope drops.

They appear again.

I’m frozen, coffee forgotten, journal abandoned, and every nerve in my body focused on those three dancing dots that mean he’s typing. That means he’s there. That means maybe?—

The message comes through.

My King:When?

One word. But it’s enough.

I exhale for what feels like the first time in hours and respond.

Me:What does your day look like? Can we meet sometime today?

This time, his response is immediate.

My King:I’ll be in touch. I’ve got a lot I need to take care of.

Okay, it’s a start. I set the phone down with shaky hands.

The lists sit open on the table, the pros and cons suddenly feeling meaningless. Because this isn’t about what looks good on paper. It never was.

This is about confronting the man I can’t forget, even when forgetting him would be so much easier. This is about finding out if what we had was real or if I’ve been making up a fairytale in my head.

I tear the pages out of my journal and find a lighter. I go to the sink and set them on fire. Like I’ve learned to do over the past few years, I’m going to follow my intuition, and it says to try.

Jax is the one I love without trauma and loss that tears me apart anytime I think about it. Callum is the man I love because of all we’ve been through and who he’s become, but it still feels wobbly and unsafe being in his world. Last night proved it.

The media won’t let me rest if I’m with him. And the past has already shown up in the form of Zara and Sebastian.

A life with Callum is sure to be more complicated than I’m willing to take on. It may seem cowardly, but I can’t go back to running from the press and facing the wounds of my past.

An hour later, my phone rings again. Quinn’s name flashes across the screen.

“Hey, Quinn.”

“Finally! I’ve gone to your office to talk three times today. Where have you been?”