Some part of me has known how hard this must be for Jess, but she’s done nothing but smile and support me, and I hate myself for not bringing it up myself, for letting her stew in her feelings without me there to support her in turn.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Jess says quietly. “I don’t know if I can go the whole rest of my career playing second fiddle. And I hate myself for that, for even entertaining the thought. I love him so much, but I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can be with him.”
Her voice breaks, and so does my heart.
It’s the final push I need. I know she won’t let herself end our relationship because of this—she’s too good of a person. But I can be the one to do it for her.
Even if it kills me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jess
I eat slowly, despite being so hungry it feels like my stomach is devouring itself. I want to enjoy these last few moments with Nick, where everything is calm and peaceful and the hurt feelings are far in the past.
I have a feeling once he explains why he chose to break up with me that those hurt feelings will be back in full force. Because what could he possibly tell me, what could possibly justify cutting me off and breaking my heart? Destroying everything we had together, right as our dreams were coming true?
We make small talk as we eat, jibe at each other and crack jokes, the sting softened by a wide smile and the squeeze of a hand.
Nick charges the meal to his room and then pushes back his chair. “Should we head upstairs?”
I shake my head, pushing back my own chair and leading him out into the lobby. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be in close proximity to a bed when we are meant to be talking about the serious things.”
He wraps his arm around my waist, tugging me closer and planting a kiss on the top of my head. “How could I take that in any other way but the best way? It means you can’t resist me.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t pull away. “I think we both know you are the one who can’t resist me.”
“Yes, but I would never dare say otherwise. You know I’ve never been able to deny you anything, Jess.”
Except for a satisfying explanation of what broke us up.
I take him over to the quiet corner of the lobby I discovered earlier in the week, though the entire lobby is much quieter now that the hotel’s occupants have been able to head home. With how badly I wanted to get out of here, it’s hard to believe I voluntarily turned down a ride to the train station.
That’s the power of Nick Matthews, I suppose.
We settle into our armchairs, the two of us still close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from him, but with enough space that I should be able to think clearly.
Nick leans forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about we start with the why? Did your feelings for me change? Were you concerned about me dragging down your career somehow? Did you feel like you’d outgrown me, that I was no longer enough for you?” The questions come spilling out of me, and I didn’t realize how much I was still holding in. Before this week, I would have told you I was well and truly over Nick, that our breakup was an unfortunate incident firmly in my past. But the rush of emotion rising in my chest and the wetness springing up in my eyes would tell the truth.
“No, Jess. God no. None of that.” He scrubs his hands over the thighs of his jeans and looks at me, his hazel eyes full of a hundred emotions. I want to separate them all out and dissect each one.
“Then why?” I whisper, swallowing the tears before they have the chance to trail down my cheeks.
“I need you to know, first and foremost, that my feelings for you were real and true. I saw a future for us.” His voice drops and he turns his gaze away from me. “I went ring shopping and I talked to your parents.”
I suck in a breath. All of that is news to me. “They never told me.” I know them well enough to know it’s not a betrayal; they just didn’t want me to suffer any more than I already was.
He nods. “I’m not surprised. I asked them to keep it a secret and then, well, then everything changed.”
I’m sick of asking for further clarification so I just sit in silence until he works up the nerve to speak again.
“There’s no way to put this that doesn’t make me sound like the asshole that I was. The asshole I would like to think I no longer am.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
A small smile tugs on his lips. “Fair enough.” He sits back in his chair. “At the time, I pretty much talked myself into breaking up with you for your own good.”
