Page 132 of Where There's Smoke

“Just tell me,” she said, barely whispering. “Please.”

I took a breath. “Not the way you deserve to be loved.” I stroked her hair, and as fresh tears filled her eyes, I couldn’t stop a few from sliding down my face. “I wanted to give you that. I wanted to from the beginning. But…I can’t. And you deserve so much more than that.”

“I don’t care what I deserve.” She brushed a tear off my cheek. “I want you. I mean, I love—” She glanced past me, toward the bedroom door, and as her eyes shifted back to me, she lowered her voice. “I love Dean. I really do. But not like I love you. You’re the first man who ever treated me like I wasn’t just a sex object or a piece of meat. You don’t know how scared I am that I won’t find that again.”

“Dean doesn’t treat you that way, does he?”

“No, but…” She sighed. “The thing is, I can’t fall in love with anyone because I’m still in love with you.” She put a hand to her mouth and softly added, “I don’t know how to let you go, Jesse.”

I cleared my throat. “You’ll find someone. Therearegood men out there.”

She sniffed and smiled. “Well, you found someone, so I guess there’s hope.”

I returned the smile and brushed a few more strands of hair out of her face. Then my smile faded, and I trailed my fingertips along her damp cheek. “I never did any of this to hurt you. I swear on my life it’s the last thing I ever wanted to do, and I’m so, so sorry this election has just compounded everything. I do love you, and I always will. You’re not losing me. I’m just setting you free so you can have the love you deserve.” I smoothed her hair. “I’m not walking out of your life unless that’s what you want me to do.”

She held me closer. “No. No, I don’t want you to leave. That’s…that’s the problem. You’re the only one who’s ever cared about me like this. I don’t want to lose that. I’m scared to lose that.”

“You’re not losing that. We’re getting a divorce so we can both be with the right people, but I’m not disappearing from your life.”

She sniffed but managed to crack a smile. “You’d better not be.”

I laughed softly and kissed her forehead. “Anything you need, anytime, I’m here for you. I promise. And as far as the election, the media, all of that, I’m going to make this as right as I can.”

She squeezed my hand. “Don’t jeopardize your campaign, though. You’ve come so far, I don’t want this to—”

“I’ll deal with any consequences for my campaign. You need to worry about you, and so do I.”

“What are you going to do, though?”

I pulled her closer to me and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll figure it out.”

That wasn’t entirely true. In fact, I was pretty sure there was only one thing Icoulddo.

Chapter 27

Anthony

The press conferencewas kept as hush-hush as anything like that could be kept when there were reporters involved. Quite simply, I waited until the absolute last second to put the word out to the media. I could only imagine the coffee-spilling, tire-squealing, muttered-swearing rush that resulted, but within two hours of the announcement, the conference room was thick with cameras, microphones, and eager-eyed reporters.

Backstage, Ranya and I ran interference, keeping anyone and everyone away from Jesse unless they had a damned good reason to talk to him.

A network crewman stepped into the room. “Mr. Cameron, you’re on in five minutes.”

“Thank you,” Jesse said with a nod. He set his shoulders back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then he turned to me. “Did you look over my statement?”

I nodded. “Sounds good. I couldn’t have written it any better.”

He smiled. Though I’d written most of his speeches for the duration of the campaign, he’d insisted he needed to do this one on his own.

“It might not be the most eloquent thing in the world,”he’d said,“but I need this to be in my words.”

“It looks good,” I said again. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“No.” He gulped. “Are you going to try to talk me out of it?”

“No.”

A cautious smile spread across his lips. “Some campaign manager you are.”

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