Page 48 of Love Lies Bleeding

I tense as Jake comes up behind me, his breath on my neck, the warmth of his body making me want to lean into him even as I recognize the danger he poses to the life I’ve built here. Moving around the counter, I put distance between us and give him what I hope is a look of disinterest.

“For the record, I don’t need your help. I don’t need anything from you, ever. But if it eases my best friend’s mind, I’ll tolerate you being here but stay out of my way.”

“That’s your problem, you don’t need anybody. You never did. It’s why you’re so closed off.”

“Fuck you, Jake. I am not closed off, and not needing people isn’t a bad thing. It shows I can stand on my own two feet.”

“It shows you don’t trust people, that you’re still a broken doll deep down inside.”

How could this man gut me so quickly and with so few words? My chest aches and my belly feels hollow as he peels back my skin and exposes the raw wounds festering beneath. He spoke into existence the fear I live with. That I was broken, that somehow I’d lost something crucial to who I was when he betrayed me.

“And who’s fault is that?” I bite the words out in an angry whisper, pain making me shake inside.

“Mine. I fucked up and I own that, but it was never because I didn’t love you, Cherry Blossom. What we had was real.”

I hold up my hand to stop him, I don’t want to hear it. I deserve answers, I need answers but not here, not now, when once again the only man to make me cry is pushing my buttons.

“Don’t. Just don’t. You have no right to bring that up. You played your games and won whatever sick prize my destruction cost, so don’t try and make out it was more when it wasn’t.”

Jake slams his hands down on the counter and leans into me, his jaw clenching as he tries to hold on to his control. Anger, like a living breathing beast, consumes us both, but underneath it is that simmering attraction that has always been so natural between us. “You were never a game to me, Blossom.”

“Then what was I?”

I brace, waiting for him to admit I was just a fun distraction, a toy for him to play with and ultimately destroy, but what came next was so much worse.

“Everything. You were the oxygen in my lungs, the blood in my veins, and the only person who mattered to me.”

“No, you don’t get to say that after what you did.”

Jake shook his head, slowly. “I know I hurt you, Blossom, but I never meant to.”

“Then why?” I ask the question I’d spent so many nights torturing myself over.

Jake looks wrecked as he backs up and then blinks away his emotions as if they’d never existed. Any hope I’d had of an answer fell away into dust.

“It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago and it’s in the past.”

Disappointment bleeds through me, tainting everything and making me feel tired to my bones. It might be in the past for him but it had defined my life, my relationships, and everything I had today is because of the path he’d put me on, both good and bad. I want to scream at him and yell, demand answers, and ask him why me. Why was I so disposable to him? But I couldn’t allow him that kind of power. I had too much to do, and too many people relying on me to fall apart.

“Forget it, Jake. It doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s just get through this for Lexi and Hunter’s sake.”

He looks like he might argue but then nods. “You got it.”

“Good, now the entire showroom needs a dust, so get to it.” I bend beneath the counter and pull out the dusters and polish we use to keep everything shining and shove them towards him. I thought he’d balk, that the billionaire would think this beneath him, but he takes them with a smile before removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, showcasing veiny, muscular forearms that make my mouth water. Ruthlessly, I push my attraction down and get on with my endless list of tasks.

All morning my concentration wavers between the man moving about my shop like it’s his natural habitat and the letter I’m composing to KLM, rejecting another offer for my mother’s salon.

So far I’ve only had one visit from a representative of theirs and they’d been pushy but polite. I know they’ll be back though, and I want this nipped in the bud before my mom gets wind of it. My lawyer, Harvey, who much to my dismay looks nothing like the hot guy from Suits, is about as useless as a snooze button on a smoke alarm.

“What ya doing?”

I gasp as I jump and slam my laptop shut. “You need a fucking bell around your neck.”

“Not my fault you were daydreaming while I slave away.”

I turn to him and a bubble of laughter slips out at the dust covering his once pristine white shirt. “Aww poor little billionaire, did you break a nail doing manual labor?”

Jake gives me a withering glare and tosses the rags on the counter. “Physical labor has never been a problem for me, and you know it.”

---