Page 113 of Burn With Me

Fuck.

No wonder he said he couldn’t talk to me.

Letting out a sigh, I shake my head. “It’s okay. He would have found out at some point.”

Every instinct I have is telling me to go after him. He shouldn’t be alone right now. Even if he’s upset with me, he needs someone to be with him. But before I go, Ihaveto see my stranger.

Trying to act natural, I peer behind Scott, eyes sweeping the room to find an empty office. “What happened to the other man?”

“What other man?” Scott asks, turning to grab a tumbler from Carmela’s desk. He tosses back what I assume is alcohol in one gulp as I take a step into the office.

Something crawls along my skin, anxious and aware. “The one with the English accent. I’ve been waiting outside the room since the senator went in. He and Carmela came back out, then Jackson and you. What happened to the other man?”

Things I subconsciously picked up on and paid no attention to flash through my mind.

“English accent?” Scott lets out a laugh. “That’s Jackson. He does it when we think a company is withholding information to try and drive up a sale. Started when he was a kid fresh outta school. He used to joke around with the accent all the time. For whatever reason, we noticed people took him more seriously that way, and it just stuck.”

My vision tunnels.

Shrapnel from the bomb Scott just set off travels throughout my body, causing my breath to catch in my throat as it carves up my insides.

I met Jackson and the stranger the same day.

He couldn’t have me in the real world, not back then. But he had me at the club.

“Ginny?” Scott’s voice sounds far away, like I’m underwater and he’s above the surface.

The appearance of the full face mask after that first night. Jackson is smart. He didn’t want me to see any of his facial features. The extra cologne bottle in his bathroom—my stranger had a different scent.

“My tastes are very…particular.”

My stranger said it the first night we met. Jackon likes to be rough.

The way my stranger kept pushing me back towardJackson every time something happened…he urged me to find someone to protect me outside the club. He manipulated me from behind his mask before putting himself directly in my orbit in the real world.

“Ginny, are you okay?” Scott’s voice sounds closer.

His hand on my arm pulls me back to the present, my vision clearing as I turn to find that I’ve walked down the hall and am almost halfway through the main room of the restaurant. Everyone is looking at me with odd looks on their faces.

“I’m fine,” I whisper. “I need to go find Jackson.”

Pulling away, I walk out the door and hail the first cab, not bothering to grab any of my belongings. After I give the driver Jackson’s address, my thoughts start swirling again. One after the other, it’s like a barrage of moments where Jackson took advantage of our situation.

Of course, he agreed to the thirty-day deal. He had me all along. Every touch, everything I said in our room at Désirer—he had his own personal Ginny handbook.

Yet…at the same time.

He got me away from Chris. Taught me how to be confident in myself and what I wanted with my body. He built me up—continuesto build me up—and has genuinely attempted to start something real with me—something neither of us has ever had.

Jackson could have ended things after we slept together, only he didn’t. And he may have only respected my space because he was still getting to see me at the club, but he fought for me.

Hefoughtfor me.

My stranger’s words from the previous night replay with that realization.

“Scarlett. If you had to choose–”

I didn’t fight for him. And he knows it.

---