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THIRTY-THREE
Noelle
A knock came on my door, and I wiped my hands on my apron with a smile, knowing Matthew was coming over that evening. But when I opened the door, it wasn’t my wonderful hunk of a boyfriend who stood in front of me.
It took me a panicking minute to get over the shock.
“Jake? What the hell are you doing here?”
He looked terrible, and I could tell from the way he reeked of alcohol that he had been drinking. “I miss you,” he groaned. “I want you back, Noelle, baby.”
“It’s been three years,” I said harshly. “Three years since you tore my heart out in New York, and now you’re coming back here to tell me you miss me? Do I have to remind you that you left me?”
“It was a mistake,” he pleaded. “Come on, Noelle, don’t you miss me?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I was always too good for you, Jacob. And you never treated me like I was worth anything to you. Why would I want to come back to you?” My heart pounded, knowing the way he used to treat me before. How he used to act around me. How he belittled me and made me feel worthless. Made me feel like no one else was ever going to love me. Well, he was wrong. Because I had an amazing man who… I didn’t know if Matthew loved me, exactly, but the way he treated me so reverently, so caring… it was everything I could have asked for and more.
And then, just like all those other times before… Jake turned cruel, sneering at me. “When that blonde boyfriend of yours realizes how worthless you are, you’re going to come crawling back to me.”
I shook with anger, but I managed to snap back. “No, I’m not. Because he’ll never treat me like you did.”
“When he breaks your heart, you’ll be lucky if I take you back after he’s used you up.”
“Jake,” I gasped. “You… you’re an asshole!” I could feel the rage pooling in my bones—I had never hated someone as much as I hated him in that moment. “After everything you did to me, I can’t believe you think I would ever come back to you! Even if Matthew and I did end things one day…” I swallowed, hating to think of that at all. “I would never come back to you.”
A crooked, arrogant smile twisted his face. “You will,” he said, before taking a step towards me. I took a step back, but he just kept following me.
“You don’t even realize how you treated me all those years, did you? I idolized you. I loved you. And you treated me like I was trash. Nothing I ever did was good enough for you, but now you’re back. Did you cheat on Laura, too? The assistant I caught you fucking in our bed?” I spit out the words with such venom that I almost surprised myself. “And then you left—without a word. I didn’t even get the chance to tell you what a piece of shit you were to your face, asshole. You emotionally abused me and manipulated me for years, so you can kiss goodbye any possibility in your brain of ever seeing me again. And don’t you dare say one more word about the man that I love. Because he’s better than you ever were or could ever be.”
He was now on the threshold of my apartment, trying to get another step in. “Get out, Jacob. Leave me alone,” I said, fiercer than I could have imagined would come out of my mouth. “I never want to see you again.”
That was when my gaze focused over Jake’s shoulders and I realized that Matthew stood in the hallway, bottle of wine and a single sunflower clutched in his hands, with a livid expression on his face. Oh no.
“Matthew—” I started, but he didn’t even hear me, pinning those furious eyes on Jake.
“I thought I told you to leave her alone,” Matthew growled. “What do you think you’re doing, talking to my girl like that?”
“She was mine first,” Jake said, stumbling as he took another step towards me, and I pushed a hand against his chest to keep him away.
“And you gave her up, fucked up the best thing you could have had in your life—something I never plan to do. You looked at her and only saw someone you could use. I look at her and I see everything,” Matthew ground out as he crossed the distance between them in seconds, and then he had him pinned against the wall with only one hand.
“We’ll see,” Jake taunted him. “When you grow tired of her, she’ll just come crawling back to me like a pathetic—” And then a thud followed by a painful cry echoed through the hallway when Matthew punched Jake straight in the jaw.
I gasped, but I couldn’t lie—it gave me immense satisfaction. While jake dropped to the floor cupping his face, Matthew came rushing over to me. “Are you okay, baby? He didn’t hurt you, right?”
I shook my head, and he cradled me into his arms. Then he turned back to Jake and spoke in a threating tone that made me shiver: “I don’t want to ever see you again. If you ever make her cry again, I will find you and make your life a living hell.”
His upper body muscles flexed around me—and I knew it was because he was holding himself back, but I couldn’t help but appreciate his physique once again. For a professor, he kept his body in great shape, and it showed. Damn, watching him punch my piece-of-shit ex was delightful.
“Now if you don’t want me to beat the shit out of you, I’d appreciate if you would get the fuck out of my girl’s apartment.”
Jake wiped a trickle of blood off of his chin and then gave us a toothy smile, looking more crazed than I had ever seen him. “Enjoy my sloppy seconds, Professor. She was never that good in bed, anyway.”
Matthew growled. Like, full-on throat rumbling, and took a step back towards him, but Jake was quick to walk backwards to the hallway and the front door of the building, giving me one last look that made me want to be sick, before he was gone.
And my handsome, beautiful, caring man, sensing I was trembling, weak in the knees over everything that just happened—at how Jake could still make me feel worthless after all this time apart—he pulled me into his arms, locked the door and the deadbolt, and then sat us down on the couch. He brushed a hand over my hair, over and over, soothing me as the tremors in my body began to slow.
“I’m sorry,” I choked.
