“What?”
His blue bore into mine without deflection. “I hated every second of watching those men approach you. I didn’t like the way they looked at you—” He stopped, jaw working. “What I’m saying is that I’m jealous,” he said, voice low. “I hated watching them look at you like they had a chance. I hated knowing you’d let them try.”
The music swelled around us. The crowd pressed close. And I stood there, caught in the gravity of Jack Specter, feeling my walls start to crumble and not knowing how to stop it.
“We should go,” I said.
He didn’t argue.
The car broke down on the way home.
One moment we were driving through dark streets in charged silence, the air between us thick with everything we weren’t saying.
The next, the engine made a sound like a wounded animal and the car rolled to a stop on the side of the road.
Jack tried the ignition. Nothing. He swore under his breath—a rare crack in his composure—and pulled out his phone to call for a replacement.
I didn’t wait for him to finish. I pushed open my door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, needing air. Space. To be anywhere that wasn’t inside that car with him and the memory of his voice saying he was jealous.
The night air hit me like a slap. Cold and sharp, cutting through the thin silk of my dress. I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at nothing, willing my heartbeat to slow.
For my thoughts to settle into something that made sense.
I heard his door open. Close. His footsteps on the pavement, slow and deliberate.
“Ten minutes,” he said from somewhere behind me.
I nodded without turning around.
The silence stretched between us. No crowd to hide in now. No music, no chatter, no convenient distractions.
Just the empty street and the darkness and the weight of everything we’d been circling around.
“Pauline.” His voice was closer than I expected. “Look at me.”
I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. If I turned around, if I looked into those eyes, I would?—
“Please.”
That word. That single, quiet word, stripped of all his usual confidence. It undid something in me.
I turned.
He was closer than I’d realized. Close enough that I could see the tension in his jaw. The streetlight caught his face, all sharp angles and shadows, and his eyes…His eyes were burning.
“Why do you do this?” He asked.
“Do what?”
“Push me away.” He moved closer. I should have stepped back. I didn’t. “Pretend you don’t feel what I know you feel.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw your face when that woman was talking to me.” He was closer now, “I saw you watching. Why can’t you just admit that you still want me.” His voice was lower, rougher. “That whatever we had didn’t end just because you decided it did.”
My breath caught. “I told you, we are already over.”
“Are we?” He reached up, slowly, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
