My heart roars to life as though it’s being ripped apart by talons. My neck snaps toward him.
“What? No! Don’t say that.”
“Okay. Relax.”
“Relax!” I fold my arms and scoff. “How can you just want to end it that fast?”
He slowly shakes his head, and with a featherlight touch, he sweeps a lock of hair behind my ear. “Morgan, sometimes, I think you live in la-la-land and forget reality. Then I pay for it.”
He pays for it...?
Those words stick with me. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want anything to end, but it really isn’t up to me.”
“It isn’t?”
“I’m trying to be...” He draws in a deep breath. “Hopeful.”
The word seems to scrape out of his throat. He continues.
“I want to believe this isn’t a dream, and I’m not about to wake up... Butyoualways leave me, remember?”
Oh.
I do. It slams back.
How I stopped talking to him after our amazing night at the street races. How I ended things after we slept together. Then the airport disaster, where he confessed he was falling for me, and I still didn’t take him back.
The freaking engagement.
A powerful sense of guilt crashes down as I realize a terrible truth: Jack might be guarded, but that’s partially my fault. I hurt him. Repeatedly.
No wonder why he’s so hot and cold. Quiet at times. Difficult.
I grimace at the epiphany. Maybe I do live in an alternate reality.
I practically fall out of my chair as I lunge at him, my arms hooked behind his neck.
“I amsosorry, Jack,” I say against his neck. “For everything. I promise, I’m not leaving you.”
I sit back, and he nods, but the skepticism in his expression is glaringly clear.
I smile weakly. “I mean it.”
He chuckles softly. “Guess we’ll see if I wake up.”
Fair.
In fact, Jack could slice into me right now. He could throw my mistakes in my face, or leave me the way I left him.
He doesn’t. He simply takes a sip of his drink and gives me a soft smile. “By the way, you look gorgeous tonight.”
No vengeance. No cruelty. Just selflessness.
He may lack Jesus, but he sure acts like him.
“Thank you,” I whisper, quietly overwhelmed. I collect myself, then straighten in my seat. “And you look very handsome. You always do.”
