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“I have!” she yells, then takes a breath. “I have told her over and over again that I won’t marry him, that I’m with you, that I love you!”
“But it’s not enough,” I say and lift the paper again. “It’s not enough when they’re printing that the woman I love, the womanIwant to marry, is in the paper engaged to someone else!”
“I’m not engaged, obviously,” she retorts weakly.
“It needs to end, Jane,” I repeat, my voice firm.
“What am I supposed to do? She’s my mother. I don’t want to hurt her. How do I tell her that I won’t marry him when she keeps pushing? How do I do any of this without anyone getting hurt?”
“You’re only hurting yourself by not setting the boundary,” I say, my voice full of frustration. I hate that she lets the woman walk all over her. I know she has a strong will and a spine in there somewhere, if only she’d let it out. “And what about me?” I point to my chest, emotions making me take a deep breath. “I’m your boyfriend, who you love, by the way. Don’t you think it hurts me that not a single person—minus your secretary—knows who I am to you?”
“I’m…” Jane starts and drops her arms to her sides, defeat written all over her as she looks to the ceiling. “I love you, Warren. I love you with everything that I am.”
I step into her, holding her gaze with mine and dropping the paper to the floor. “Then say that. Tell your mother that. Push it to the brink, because what we have?” I shake my head and take her face in mine; her hands grip my forearms. “It’s worth it, worth everything we have to face.”
Her face softens, but I steel myself, knowing I have to push this.
Because if I don’t, we’ll live with this forever… right?
“But you have to stand up. Because if you don’t stand up for us, we’ll fall.”
Jane’s face nearly crumples, but she gives me a slight nod, and I press my lips to hers. Then I wrap my arms around her and hold tight, hoping and praying she can put that steel back into her spine and fight for us.
And the next time I see Jasper Pierce, I’m punching that motherfucker in the face.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“She was put together, even when everything was falling apart.”
-Anonymous
Jane
Though I don’t want to believe it, over the next few weeks, Warren starts to distance himself from me.
I’d put out a press release, letting everyone know under no circumstances was I engaged or going to be engaged to Jasper Pierce. It had made Warren happy and made me feel better to have that out in the open.
My mother was furious. She’d called me in a rage, anger coursing through the phone, and for the first time ever, I hung up on her.
She’d come to the office, but Lisa did her best to play bodyguard and constantly turned her away.
I couldn’t care about that though. Couldn’t care about my mother trying to get in touch with me when all I wanted was Warren.
Warren, who had decided that staying at his apartment was where he needed to be to get his art made and ready for his show.
I didn’t believe the lie. Mostly because when he said so, he said it with a sigh so deep that he might as well have said, “Sorry Jane, this isn’t working.”
It wasn’t that we were fighting, because we weren’t. We still talked every day; we just didn’t spend every night wrapped in each other like we once had. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I was hurt.
I was trying. And Warren… even despite the fact that he told me that he was there for me, well, he wasn’t.
I was terrified and confused about the entire situation.
My mother had taken everything too fucking far. I was mad at her. Genuinely pissed at her actions and the repercussions that I was dealing with. She’d never gone this overboard before.
Not in my personal life anyway. Work life, yes, absolutely. But she’d usually let me control my friends, my boyfriends, who I hung out with. She didn’t care much about any of that. Until now.
Today though, I was going to her house. I was getting to the bottom of this because I couldn’t stand that she was trying to ruin the best thing that had ever happened to me.
