Mack scoffed. “Then you didn’t try hard enough.”
“How would you know?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. But I do know this. I know that she didn’t deserve to be thrown for a loop at the revelation of who you are to her when it comes to her career. You should have known better.”
“And what would you have done? Huh? Would you have just sat back and waited for the people in your company to finally see what a star they had in her? Or would you nudge them in the right direction? I didn’t give the order to hire her. All I did was tell them the truth. I’d seen just how good she was. And I had hoped they’d seen it, too.”
“Then you should have told Jane first. She at least deserved to know who you were at the core before the world figured it out. But you didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt. You refused to trust her,” Mack spat before he spun around and climbed down the ladder toward the ground below. His words were like a punch to the gut.
Noah knew he’d made the right decision when it came to placing Jane in her current position. Heck, he could argue that she deserved to be running one of the locations he had in the country. The one thing Mack had said that was completely right had everything to do with trust.
He’d told Jane he loved her. But he hadn’t trusted her with his heart. He’d kept his secrets so well guarded that she didn’t have a chance to make the choice before the world got to see who he really was.
A groan escaped his lips, and he paced the loft as his head continued to pound harder. He couldn’t turn back time. So howwas he supposed to fix this? How could he make her see that she was still the most important person in his life without making things all the messier?
Noah was at a loss. He couldn’t come up with a single idea, and that meant he was at an even bigger risk of losing her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It had been a week.
A full freaking week, and Jane hadn’t heard from Noah.
She’d half-expected him to try to talk to her after a few days, but with the way she’d sent him off, she couldn’t say she was surprised. She’d been really firm about her decision, not to mention the act of demanding space meant the ball would be in her court.
Jane hated that idea. Right about now, she almost wanted Noah to come storming into her office to tell her to listen to him and accept what he said was truth.
Then again, that would make the chatter start up again.
The people here at The Wounded Heroes Project had finally stopped talking about how crazy it was that abillionaire—not millionaire—lived in this small town. They stopped gushing over the fact that he chose to spend millions of dollars helping veterans around the country who were down on their luck.
Jane had been tasked with a new project. It was a fundraiser that didn’t require black-tie attendees to be present in order to be successful, and it was actually turning out better than planned.
On more than one occasion, she had superiors and coworkers stop by to tell her how impressed they were with how much she’d managed to raise thus far. It was strange to hear so much verbal feedback, and she had half a mind to call Noah and ask him if he was responsible for all of the positive affirmations.
Then she thought better of it.
Noah hadn’t shown up at that meeting after the big event. Someone had come in his stead. Then he hadn’t shown his face at her office or in town, either. Jane hadn’t seen Mack around after their little lunch date. Everything was quiet on that front.
He was really giving her space.
And it wasn’t nearly as nice as she’d thought it would be.
Her heart ached any time she thought about him. There were moments throughout the week that made her want to call him and vent. When something funny happened at the office, she had to hold herself back from texting him so he could get a laugh, too.
Bo had insisted that she could take time off, and she didn’t have to worry about losing her position, so that made it easier to avoid the ranch. Maybe it had been so quiet because Noah thought she’d broken things off officially.
Her heart lurched, and she prayed that wasn’t the case.
Jane paced her office, her pen to her lips as she thought over everything that had happened since she’d arrived inRocky Ridge. Her whole life had revolved around her job and Sagebrush—only because Noah had been there.
Who was she kidding? Noah was as close to the center of her world as things could get. The fact that she was worried he thought they were over was proof enough that her feelings of betrayal weren’t affecting her as much as she’d originally thought. She wanted to forgive him despite it all.
There was only one thing standing in her way.
Her own stubbornness.
She huffed a frustrated breath and glanced around her office. This had been an upgrade, too. After the success of that event, her supervisor had insisted on giving it to her officially, and Noah hadn’t been involved in that decision at all. In fact, her supervisor was her biggest cheerleader, if she could call him that. He had nothing but good things to say about her work ethic—it was almost getting ridiculous, and it made her wonder if he was worried that she’d end up leaving this location for something bigger.
