Page 130 of Where There's Smoke

It wasn’t Simone, though. I should have known from the weight of the footsteps, but who was rational in a moment like this?

“Where is she?” I asked Dean.

“She doesn’t need to see you.” He stood in the middle of the stairs, and I swore his shoulders expanded to fill the space and forbid me from going by.

I took a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm. “I need to see her.”

“Yeah, and she doesn’t—”

“Look, I’m the one who fucked things up for her. I’ll be the first to admit it, and there’s nothing I want more in the world than to make it right. Just…let me talk to her.”

“So you can do what?” he snapped and took a step toward me. “Apologize again? Tell her how much you don’t want to hurt her?”

I set my jaw. “This is between her and me.”

“So am I.”

My shoulders dropped. “Dean, please. I know she doesn’t want to see me, and I don’t blame her. But this has gone too far. The way the media’s treating her, all of that. I’m not here to apologize and pretend that’ll fix everything. I’m not sure what I can do yet, but this is going to stop. It has to. But Ineedto talk to her.”

Dean pursed his lips, and for a moment, I thought he just might deck me. Then he dropped his gaze and turned, leaving me just enough room to walk past him. “She’s in the bedroom.”

“Thank you.” I took the stairs two at a time and followed the hall to the bedroom Simone and I once shared. The door was ajar, but I tapped it twice with my knuckle first. “Simone?”

No answer.

Cautiously I pushed the door open, the hinges squeaking in the otherwise silent room.

And there she was, on her side of the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. Her thin shoulders shook, and she couldn’t quite muffle her quiet sobs.

“Simone?” I approached slowly, warily, like she was a skittish animal who might suddenly take off or lunge at me.

She murmured something I didn’t understand. When I sat on the edge of the bed, she pulled her knees up and recoiled from me. I touched her arm, and she recoiled even more.

“Simone? You all right?”

God, what a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t. But what the fuck was I supposed to say?

She sniffed sharply and buried her face even deeper, tugging her arm out from under my hand.

Hoping she didn’t shove me away, I lay beside her and put my arm over her waist. She tensed but then sank back against me, and her body shook even harder. God, she felt so thin and frail like this. I wanted to hold her close to me, but I was irrationally certain I’d break her.

“Hey.” I kissed the back of her shoulder through her shirt. “Talk to me, Simone.” My stomach twisted into guilty knots, and my chest ached as she lay in my arms. Making sense of—never mind discussing—emotions was nearly impossible for her, but usually she either went into a rage or a deep, silent depression. Then she’d move on as if nothing ever happened. She gave that appearance, anyway, and refused to acknowledge any lingering feelings.

This? This shook me straight to the core. I’d seen stress and emotions take their toll on her time and again, but in all the years I’d known her, I had never seen her break.

After a long moment, she whispered, “How could they think I would hurt you?”

“They’re just looking for the most sensational story. They took what they heard and what they saw, and they spun it into something to get ratings.”

“But they think I…” She shuddered. “Jesse…”

I pulled her closer. My throat aching with the threat of tears, I said, “I’m so sorry.”

“I thought I could just suck it up, wait a few months until the election is over, and…” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “God, every time I… When they…” With a choked sob, she buried her face in her hands and the pillow and, for a moment, just quietly shook.

I stroked her hair, struggling to keep my own composure and completely at a loss for any words that might put the slightest dent in her pain.

“I can’t do this, Jesse,” she sobbed. “Not when they think I’m hurting you. It was bad enough before. It was bad enough when it was just you and Anthony.”

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