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“Can’t they leave you alone for one minute?” Ava asked, frowning. “They are like a pack of hyenas.”
“There is nothing as scintillating as when a Davis screws up,” Scarlett inserted, cynicism staining her voice. “They can’t help themselves. It’s a national pastime.”
Which she’d done more than once over the past few weeks. Jensen threw her purse on the foyer table, too exhausted to move. Ava hooked an arm through hers and drew her into the salon. “You need a glass of wine, and it will all feel better.”
She was afraid it was never going to feel better. That Cristiano had torn her from end to end and nothing was ever going to fix it.
She sank down on the white brocade sofa in her favorite room with its beautiful antique fireplace and elegant wood paneling. Ava poured her a glass of wine and pressed it into her hand before leaning back against the fireplace. “Are you okay?”
Scarlett gave Ava a withering look. “Does she look okay? She’s been drying mother out again, while her career goes up in flames.” She flicked her gaze to Jensen. “What happened with Cristiano?”
“He is furious. I let him down. I let them all down. He told me we are done. That I am not what he wants or needs.”
Scarlett sank down on the sofa beside her, her face resolute. “You’re done covering for her, Jensen. Destroying yourself for the sake of her, when she doesn’t even appreciate it. She just keeps doing it, again and again, because she knows you’ll clean up the mess. And Ava and I have let you carry far too much of the load.”
“What choice do we have?” Jensen asked wearily. “We can’t abandon her.”
“Force her to stand on her own two feet. Act like the grown-up she is.” Scarlett waved her phone at her. “We have researched a very discreet rehab center in Arizona. They have some of the top specialists in the country. Mom either decides to complete the program during the hiatus, or she doesn’t. But the money stops there. You are not putting one more penny of your savings into her, Jensen.”
Jensen swallowed hard, because leaving her mother hanging out to dry was a difficult concept to get her head around.
“It’s time for you to focus on yourself,” said Scarlett. “On your career and, more importantly, on your love life. Surely, things are repairable with Cristiano?”
Jensen’s heart pulsed, her misery bubbling over. She told her sisters the whole story then, everything she’d been holding tight to herself these past few weeks, afraid to break what she and Cristiano had. Worried it would somehow vaporize. The home she’d found on the estate with him and Filomena. The stability and grounding she’d discovered with him. The best version of herself she’d allowed herself to be.
“I miss him,” she murmured. “I love him. He’s everything I never knew I wanted or needed. But I’m afraid I’ve messed it up too badly to fix it. I lied to him. I didn’t prioritize him, and I put the company’s reputation in jeopardy. And,” she added, her insides still singed, “he made it clear I am not what he wants or needs.”
“Because he isn’t operating with all the information,” Scarlett reproached. “Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”
They’d never toldanyonethe truth.It had been far too risky. “We’ve signed an NDA. The show could sue us.”
“Screw the show,” Scarlett said baldly. “I’m done letting it ruin our lives.”
Jensen sank her teeth into her lip. What if she told Cristiano the truth and he decided it was just another reason he should have nothing to do with her? Because he might, and she wasn’t sure she could take another rejection from him, because the last one had been devastating enough. But she wondered if the truth also went deeper than that. To how intensely vulnerable she’d been with him. How much she’d come to need and depend on him. His demands that she trust him and open up to him. How much that had scared her.
Yes, her mother had been in a precarious situation, but it had beenherchoice to protect her, rather than fulfil her obligations to Cristiano. She could say that she’d been putting the bonds of family first, which she had, but she wondered if it had been more than that. That she’d felt so scared about her growing feelings for Cristiano, so afraid to put herself out there, so afraid of being rejected again, she had subconsciously decided to sabotage her relationship with him rather than have him end it first. That she’d told herself she was protecting her mother, when in fact, she had been protecting herself.
The visit from Alessandra had shaken her. Unearthed every insecurity she’d ever had about herself and her relationship with Cristiano. That even if he wanted her, needed her, he would never end up with someone like her, a message he’d driven home in that final conversation they’d shared, in which he’d assumed so much and hadn’t given her a chance to explain.
Even if she told him the truth, as Scarlett was urging her to, and he did forgive her, it still didn’t change the facts at hand. That Cristiano needed something other than her, and she couldn’t live her life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Cristiano stood looking out at a breathtaking view of the lake from the terrace of the villa on a picture-perfect Milanese night. Nicholas Zhang’s signature was on the contract his lawyers had drawn up, his manufacturing issues had been ironed out, and Pascal’s collection was garnering rave reviews from every corner of the globe, ensuring the rebirth of the company he had spent a decade rebuilding. Everything he’d worked so hard for, there in the blink of an eye.
He should feel some deeply ingrained sense of vindication. A weight lifted off his shoulders. The chance to perhaps sleep again at night. Instead, his dreams were haunted by a mahogany-haired siren. And she was everywhere. Sitting on the counter in his kitchen, laughing at him with those beautiful dark eyes. Perched on his desk, offering some uncannily sharp observation from that whip-smart brain of hers. In his bed, her long golden limbs splayed out for his delectation, his every fantasy come true.
He knew he looked haunted. He had caught himself staring off into space more than once this week. But he was so disappointed in Jensen, so bitterly disappointed, he wasn’t sure he could get past it. He’d been clear he needed honesty from her. Reliability.Transparency. It was the only way he could live his life, given his backstory. And yet she hadn’t given it to him—she’d given him the opposite.
His fingers tightened around the railing as he took in the sunset setting the sky on fire. He’d broken every rule for her—shattered those carefully delineated lines he drew between business and pleasure. Had gone off script for the first time in his life. She’d been the absolute riskiest choice for him, but he’d done it anyway, because the way he’d felt when he’d been with her had been like nothing else he’d ever experienced. A hedonistic side of himself he’d never tapped into.
He’d known he should listen to his rational self—that she was too much trouble, too young, tooflightyfor him. Had told himself more than once over the past few weeks that he should walk away. Instead, he’d gotten so wrapped up in her, been so mad about her, he hadn’t wanted to let her go. Had wanted to keep that piece of himself he’d discovered. To hell with the consequences.
And now she was gone. Restless, unsure of how to handle the unfamiliar emotion bubbling up inside him, how toshakeit, he carried the glass of scotch to his mouth and swallowed a long draw. The clatter of Filomena’s heels on the terrace pulled him out of his reverie. Turning, he absorbed the grimace written across her lined, aged face.
“Thebiondinais here,”she said,sottovoce.“I have tried to get her to use the front door, but it doesn’t seem to be in her vocabulary.”
Cristiano would have smiled at her description of his ex as theblonde bombshell, Filomena’s feelings for Alessandra long apparent, but he didn’t have the heart for it tonight. He wasn’t sure he had the patience for it either, but given that Alessandra had already penetrated his inner defenses and was walking out onto the terrace, clad in a chic white pantsuit, he clearly had no choice.
“Va bene,”he murmured to Filomena. “Finish up. Enjoy your night.”
