Page 72 of Heartless As Puck

My lips firmed. “No.”

“I don’t know exactly how the Chaos’s management will respond.” Gus’s hand shook a little around his coffee, and he put down the cup and slipped the hand beneath his desk so that I couldn’t see it tremble. “You have to be prepared that they might strip you of the captaincy.”

His words punched the air from me, and it took me a moment to choke out, “Or bench me.”

He nodded jerkily. “Or that. What happened? You’re supposed to be the client who never gets into trouble. If anything, faking a relationship should have made you more boring, not have gotten you embroiled in a sex scandal.”

“I know. But I didn’t realize I’d end up falling for Jane. I’ve lived with her for months. You’d think that if I were going to have feelings for her, it would have already happened. Apparently, I was wrong.”

Sure, I’d been attracted to her. I’d noticed her competence and how sweet she always smelled. But this was on a whole other level.

Gus nodded. “We both were. Do you love her?”

I cocked my head, considering the question. “I don’t know what romantic love feels like, but she means more to me than I could have imagined.”

“Okay.” Gus drank more coffee, his nose scrunched as if it were too bitter. “That makes our next step more difficult.”

My gut flipped. “Why?”

What, exactly, did he have in mind?

“In my opinion, we have three options. First, you can lie very, very low. As in, pretend for the love of all that is good in the world that you don’t exist.”

I stood and began pacing. “What’s the second option?”

He shrugged. “Say you broke up because the stress of all this attention was too much. That way, no one can argue that either of you was in the wrong. It’s a mutual decision and no one has any reason to look deeper. Perhaps you can even participate in a charity fundraiser to support online privacy. That would look good to team management and to the public.”

My pulse thudded in my ears, and I fisted my hands at my sides. “I’ll do whatever charity work I need to, but I don’t want to stop seeing Jane.”

We’d only just gotten together. I wasn’t ready to lose her. My entire being rebelled at the thought.

I never wanted to lose her.

But I had failed her. Because of me, thousands of people knew how she looked in the throes of passion. Perhaps she’d be happier without me. I didn’t think I could bring myself to say so to her face. Not unless she brought it up first.

“So fake a breakup?” he suggested.

“No.” I cut him off with a slash of my hand. “Even if we only pretend to break up, she’ll have to move out of the studio. They’ll ask questions if she doesn’t leave, and I’m not kicking her out of her home.”

“She could stay with a friend temporarily.”

“Perhaps.” My fists tightened. It felt like I’d just found her and she was already slipping through my fingers.

“I hate to say this…” Gus began.

I glared at him, knowing that I’d loathe whatever was about to come from his mouth.

“…but is Jane even going to want to keep dating you after this? You saw how upset she was, and what it did to her. Is she really going to want to keep going through that?”

My shoulders hitched up and tension stole through me. “I don’t know.”

I wished I could say an unambiguous “yes,” but when I forced myself to pause and think about how upset she’d been when I first proposed the idea and then how badly she’d shaken as I’d held her earlier—how wet my shirt had been from her tears—I couldn’t be certain.

I’d let her down. Perhaps the kindest thing to do would be to distance myself from her so she could move on in peace.

“Maybe you’re right.” I didn’t want to let go of Jane, but I refused to be a part of anything that hurt her. “I’ll consider ending it.”

Even the thought made my stomach turn, but hadn’t I known that anything between us would end this way from the start?