Page 69 of Heartbreaker

A paramedic rushes past me and my legs become unglued, I shake off Jake and Corey. “I’m okay, I need to see her.” I take the steps to her flat two at a time. Walking into her flat that smells of her, my body feels weak as I see her on the floor with paramedics applying oxygen to her face. Blood covers one eyebrow and she tries to sit up but is pushed back down by the paramedic.

Relief so strong rushes through me to see her alive and awake that my legs almost give way. I move closer and her groggy eyes meet mine as I kneel beside her.

“Jackson,” she cries, and I take her soft smooth hand in mine, never wanting to let go.

“Sshh, it’s okay. Just rest, you’re safe now.” All I can think as they take her down the stairs and load her into the ambulance with Taylor fussing around her is I let her down.

I follow her to the hospital in Jake’s car, my brother hasn’t left my side and I am grateful for that. My head is a complete mess, Taylor had called the man Ethan, but I knew him as Alex my failed apprentice. Had he applied for the job to get closer to Ashley? I had no clue, but it was fucked up.

When I get to the hospital, I wait in the waiting room for a few hours until a doctor comes to tell us that she is going to be fine. Taylor hugs me, and I limply hug her back.

“Is there a Jackson here?” the doctor asks, and I look at him before I answer.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“She is asking for you.”

It’s crunch time. If I go in there now, I’ll break down and tell her I love her, beg her to take me back and that would be a mistake. I let her down, I don’t deserve her. She is better off without me because it is only a matter of time before I let her down again and I don’t ever want to do that and see the hurt in her eyes. The same hurt my father put in my mother’s eyes. I am my father’s son it would seem and no good can come of a woman as good and perfect as Tinkerbell loving me.

I look into the doctor’s eyes and with a heart heavy with grief and the knowledge that I’ll never love anyone other than her I turn and walk away.