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Aria drops down next to me, eyes sad. “Mallory, I don’t really know how to tell you this.”
Coldness begins to creep in, freezing me in my seat. “Don’t know how to tell me what?”
She glances away, unable to meet my eyes. “Jackson, he—”
I gasp as the door slams open. Jackson’s standing in the doorway, blood dripping down the side of his mouth, his hair as ruffled as Liam’s had been. Emotion rages in his eyes, fists clenched at his sides. “It’s not what you think,” he states.
First, Aria. Now, him. “What’s not what I think?”
Liam pushes his way into the condo, but Jackson is unmovable now. His gaze is narrowed on my face, and Liam’s shove barely makes an impact. “That he fucking used you,” Liam growls.
I shake my head. “You’re wrong. He hasn’t used me. He’s done nothing wrong.”
Liam’s lip curls, face flushing a deep crimson. “Please do explain to me how that is possible, Mallory. He secretly bought you.” To Jackson, he snarls, “A guy like him has no business going around a sweet woman like you.”
“Because anything that did happen between us I instigated,” I explain.
It’s pretty obvious Liam reads between the lines that we had sex. He slowly turns to Jackson and says through gritted teeth, “You fucking piece of shit.”
“Liam,” I snap, rising to my feet. “He’s done nothing wrong. Seriously, back off.”
Liam’s nostrils flare, fists clenching at his sides. He sets his glare onto Jackson. “If you’re such a man, tell her what you’ve done.”
“Tell me what?” I demand.
Everything is fine, and I’m thinking this is all a big misunderstanding until Jackson looks at me. There’s something in his eyes there, something that sends an icy bite into my veins. “It’s not how it seems,” he says again, softer this time.
I hug myself trying to warm my blood when I look at Aria. She’s staring down at the ground, unable to look at me or Jackson. That’s when I understand how bad this all really is. She can’t even face what Jackson has done. When I look at Jackson again, the guilt in his eyes is heady and raw. “All right, enough,” I snap, done with all of this. “Will someone please explain to me what in the hell is going on?”
“I will.” Liam reaches into his pocket and then clicks a few buttons before passing me his phone.
The view before me takes a minute to process. Though there is no denying any of it. The email from Jackson to Liam is there, sent on the day we arrived in Muskoka, with the selfie that Jackson took of us before I pushed him into the water. I note the heat in my eyes, remembering how intense it had been having Jackson that close. I scan over our smiles but then my heart sinks and all I see are the words that Jackson wrote to Liam.
You took what was mine. Now I’m taking what’s yours.
* * *
JACKSON
Seconds feel like minutes while Mallory stares down at the phone in her hand, the light in her eyes slowly fading. I know what she’s looking at—my fucking email. I’m not a man who typically regrets anything. Sending that email is something that I do regret. Not because Liam doesn’t deserve to be taunted, he does, but because of how the email hurts Mallory. In fact, I’d forgotten all about the message until I saw Liam’s fist coming toward my face. And now I don’t even know why I sent it in the first place. I don’t feel like that same vindictive guy anymore. In fact, I don’t give a fuck about Liam, I find myself only caring about impressing the woman before me.
When Mallory finally lifts her head, her eyes meet mine, soft and questioning. “You sent this?”
I nod. “I did.” Sure, I could say that I sent it before everything happened between us. I could give reasons and excuses but the damage is done. The betrayal in her eyes in there. Just as I’ve come to learn that Mallory has a good head on her shoulders, I know she’s too smart to put up with stupid shit. There is no coming back from this.
She glances back down at the phone again, and my entire world narrows on her. The way she’s barely breathing. The slight hunch to her shoulders. The way her thumb is stroking over the screen.
Something inside me cracks then shatters.
The entire room fades away as she becomes all I see. It’s just Mallory and the hurt crossing her expression. She bleeds emotion, I’ve come to discover. In all that she does, she expresses things fully and completely, and she expresses pain in the same way. Her heartbreak is there in the way her brows are drawn, in the depths of her pretty eyes. She keeps looking at the photo as if to make sense out of it, trying to understand the stupid fucking game I played. Maybe even trying to figure out if I’ve been lying to her. If I am the man Liam claims me to be.
And she deserves none of it.
“Mallory,” I say gently, my fingers twitching to reach out to her. “Please let me explain.”
She finally draws in a big deep breath, raises her head, and smiles at me. It’s forced, I can tell. And that guts me. For all the things I’ve done wrong in my life, this amounts to the most shameful. I loathe to hurt women, and yet I’ve done what I swore I’d never do. I hurt the sweetest woman of all.
I hate myself for the way she shuts down the emotion on her expression, turning that smile onto Aria and Liam, too. “While this is not surprising considering the way you two behave,” she says, handing Liam his phone, “this also changes nothing.”
