Page 73 of The Other Plan

Jenna spun on her heel and bolted away, and I took off after her.

“You okay?” Eric asked as I blew past.

“No,” I answered quickly, then remembered it was my job to make his wedding perfect, so I added, “But I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”

I made my way through the laughing, chattering guests and out onto the porch overlooking the lake. I slid to a stop when I saw Jenna out there.

“Jenna,” I said softly. “I can’t imagine that was easy to watch, but you have to believe me. There’s no room in my life for her anymore. My heart belongs to you.”

A soft breeze blew her dark hair around her shoulders. She looked so beautiful against the moonlight water. I heard her sniffle, and my heart squeezed in my chest. She was crying, and I’d caused it.

“Hey,” I whispered, stepping up behind her.

Instead of leaning back into my arms like I’d envisioned, she moved farther away. “Don’t.”

“Jenna.”

“I’m sorry, Carter. I’m not strong enough for this. I see the way she looks at you. With her perfect blue eyes on that perfect face under that perfect hair on top of that perfect body.” Tears streamed down her face as she shook her head. “I can’t do this. I’m too damaged. Too broken. I wish I was a better woman. I wish I had the confidence to know that you’d be working side-by-side with her all day, and you’d have no problem knocking off her many, many advances, but I can’t. She’s hell-bent on getting you back, and she doesn’t seem like a woman who takes no for an answer.”

“I told her no, and I’ll keep telling her no. It doesn’t matter how hard she tries. I’ll never go back to her, Jenna. You have to believe me.”

“Even if I could, even if I pushed aside all my fears about cheating and betrayal, we’re still stuck right back at square one. You there and me here. I’ve worked too damn hard to give up my life here to chase after you. And what if I do and you decide you don’t want me anymore? Maybe you decide I’m not the girl you think I am. Now what? Now I’m living in a city that I hate, my career here is shot, and I’d be all alone. I just... I can’t. And you shouldn’t even be asking me to. I’m too scared for any of this.”

“We still have so many options to go through. All that matters is that I...” I stopped, closing my eyes as I let the power of my emotions for her rise to the surface. It was too soon to say it, but to hell if it wasn’t sitting there on the tip of my tongue, begging me to unleash it into the universe. With a jolt of courage, I finally uttered the words I’d said to her a decade ago... the words I still felt with all of my heart. “I love you, Jenna. I do. I’ve never stopped. Not for a single day.”

Her breath hitched as she spun to face me. Emotions churned inside her eyes as she stared up at me. After a long silence, finally, she said, “You don’t love me, though, Carter.”

“Jenna... yes, I do. I lo—”

“No. You don’t. You love the idea of me. Of us. Because if you loved me, you would know that I hate the city and you would never ask me to live there. You’d know that I’d never choose to make tons of money over having a quality of life that I love. Just like I thought I knew that about you. If you love someone, you know these things.” She stopped only long enough to heave in a breath. “But we’re strangers, Carter. Which means I don’t really know you either.”

My next inhale stalled in my lungs. “Yes, you do, Jenna. You know me better than anyone outside of my own family!”

“This guy...” As she waved her hand over me, I dreaded her next words. “This power-hungry suit is not at all who I fell head over heels for all those years ago. What we had back then was just a beautiful week together—two kids with a connection so strong that we thought it was more. But it wasn’t. We were too young to understand love’s true meaning. And now here we are ten years later, and our connection is still so strong that we feel like it’s love again. It’s not. Love is so much more than just this chemistry that we have.”

I reached for her, but she stepped away, and I immediately felt the loss. Felt her slipping out of my grasp. “Jenna, you don’t understand. I wish I could rip my chest wide open and show you what’s inside my heart.”

“I’m sorry, Carter, but I’m not blowing up my life to chase after you into a world where I could never belong. And the man I’d follow to the end of the earth? That man? The one I gave my heart to all those years ago... he wouldn’t be able to survive there either. He was a dreamer. A nature lover. A passionate man who’d never let money lead his way.”

My heart threatened to shred apart at her words. “Jenna, I’m still me. Don’t say we didn’t love each other. I know what I felt was real. What you felt was real. I know it. Don’t run away from this.”

“I’m not running, Carter. Not this time.” She lifted her chin and looked into my eyes. “This time, I’m walking away. I’m choosing not to go through this again. The pain. The heartbreak. I just can’t do this, Carter. I’m sorry.”

With one last pained look into my eyes, she spun on her heel and walked away with her head held high.

“Jenna!” I called, but this time, I didn’t chase after her.

Why? She was right. We were doomed, weren’t we?

With agony pushing my shoulders down, I walked out to the beach. Standing alone, I closed my eyes and let the sound of the waves soothe the ache in my soul I knew would never go away. Even as a child, the water was always my salvation. Anytime I’d gotten in trouble or problems had popped up, I’d found the answers on the lake near my house in Colorado. Then, as an adult, when I’d moved by the ocean, I’d found all my answers there. Something about the water helped me find clarity in life, and my mother had always said it was because it washed away all the little things that didn’t matter. It cleared my mind and allowed me to think. What I wouldn’t give to plunge into it right now. Climb on a board and float on top of it, let it help clear my mind so I could see through the wall of shit in my life that seemed a mile high.

I sat down in the sand, pulling my knees to my chest. The waves crashed along the shore as I inhaled and exhaled, trying to calm my spiraling thoughts and make sense of this mess I’d landed in.

I’d worked so hard to build my company in New York, and I was proud of what I’d accomplished, but as I sat and listened to the melody of the lake, it started to work its magic. Closing my eyes and letting the sounds of the water wash away the nonsense, I breathed.

In. Out.

In. Out.