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“And then, after months of radio silence, of wondering if we were real, doubting my own mind and heart, I see you withher. Announcing a damn relationship.”
Jay places his palms flat against my cheeks and pulls back so I’m forced to make eye contact. “No, Kitten,” he urges, his voice rough, and anguish marring the lines on his face. “I wasn’t announcing a relationship…I was protecting you.”
“From what?” I shout in a strangled cry. “Did you think ghosting me would hurt less than being honest about not wanting me? I called and called…”
Jay grimaces, and his shoulders sag. “I can’t tell you everything…”
I push against his chest. Fuck him and the lies he’s still holding on to.
Grasping me tighter so I can’t escape, he groans. “It’s not my secret to tell, Cat. It’s your grandfather’s.”
“What?” I whisper, shock stealing my voice. “What does my grandfather have to do with this?”
Jay sighs. “I can’t…” He drops his head, and his blond hair falls forward. He’s devastatingly handsome in his tux tonight. But his hair is the perfect mess I love. My hands itch to swipe it back, to reveal the blue eyes that always give him away. At least to me. “I didn’t ignore your phone calls, Cat. I was in a coma.” With those words, he finally looks up.
The air is sucked from my lungs, like I’m hurtling into an abyss, clutching at anything to keep myself from falling. “What?”
“When my father was killed—” He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. This must be so painful for him. “The people that came for him, they beat me to within an inch of my life. I was in a coma for months.”
I can’t grasp the facts he’s laying out for me. His voice is muffled, and the world around me is fuzzy. I can’t comprehend a word he’s saying, but I need to touch him. The need to hold him as he speaks is so overwhelming, I may shatter if I don’t get my hands on him. Tenderly, I brush my fingers across his forehead, pushing the hair from his eyes.
He leans into my touch. “I would have done anything to change how that night went, Cat.Anything.But what happened couldn’t be undone. I won’t apologize for staying away. I was protecting you. Dating Grace? That was protecting you. Not getting on the first flight to Paris? That was protecting you. And staying away from you for the last thirteen years—until I was sure the threat was gone—thatwas protecting you.”
A sensation warms the backs of my eyes, and tears threaten to spill over my lashes. “From what? Who? What were you protecting me from?”
He squeezes his eyes squeeze shut and lets out a frustrated sigh. “The men who put me into a coma.”
Nothing makes sense. It’s like he’s speaking a foreign language. Jay in a coma. A threat to my life. What is he talking about?
“But my messages…” Even if he was in a coma, at some point, he had to have gotten them. He had to have gotten the news about our daughter.
“I never got them,” he says softly. “Your grandfather had my phone. He was fielding my calls. It’s how I knew you planned to come back. Your grandfather told me you were desperate. That if I didn’t do something drastic, you would come back to Boston, and we both knew it wasn’t safe. So I started dating. I contacted the magazine to do a spread on Grace and me because I knew if you saw it, you would stay away…”
The tears fall freely, and the pieces of my heart he shattered so long ago ache. “So you never heard my messages?”
He shakes his head. “It would have killed me to hear you begging, Cat. I was already dead inside without you. Hearing your voice, seeing you…it would have been too much. So your grandfather kept them from me. I assumed he told me the things I needed to know. But Cat, please know if I had any choice in the matter, I would have moved fucking heaven and earth to get to you.”
He doesn’t know about Chloe.
He doesn’t know about Chloe, and he didn’t willingly leave me.
“Why are you here with Grace tonight?” I ask. Is it because I asked him to be seen with her, or is it because he wants her?
He studies me openly. “Because you don’t want her with Cash. I’ve been trying to break them up like you asked. I know how much it hurts when you see her with him, baby. And I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I want you to feel nothing but love for the rest of your life. And I want to be the one to provide that to you.”
“Because you love me?” I whisper, still unsure.
“Yes, Catherine. I’m in love with you. Irrevocably. Completely. Head overfuckingheels in love with you. I fell in love with you thirteen years ago when you broke my nose at the train station,” he says softly, “and I never stopped.”
I can’t help the laugh that sneaks out along with another sob.
Jay brushes the tears from my cheeks while valiantly fighting back his own.
“I love you too,” I breathe, the quiet words punching hard into the air between us.
Jay’s shock can’t be hidden. It’s evident in the way his eyes widen and how his jaw drops. “You do?”
I nod as another tear falls. “I fell in love with you on a perfect fall day while we ate waffles at the farmers’ market”—I suck in a breath—“and I never stopped.”
