Page 87 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless
"How did you get in?" I ask, though I already know.
"I still have a key." His eyes hold mine, unblinking. "From when I pick up Jaden."
I take a long swallow of wine, buying seconds to compose myself. "Why are you here, Jakob?"
"Because I couldn't stay away."
The honesty catches me off guard—no calculation, no strategy, just raw truth. It would be easier if he lied. If he claimed Jaden needed something, or work couldn't wait, or any excuse that would let me keep my walls intact.
"That's not a good enough reason." I set my glass down with deliberate care, needing my hands free. Needing nothing between us if this confrontation is to finish what began earlier. "Not after today."
He steps onto the balcony, moving into my space with the same deliberate slowness he approaches everything—giving me time to retreat, to establish boundaries, to refuse.
I don't move. Some stubborn, self-destructive part of me refuses to yield ground, even as my pulse hammers against myribs, even as my body recognizes his proximity before my mind can intervene.
"I know I hurt you," he says, stopping just close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from him. "I know I broke what we had. I know you don't believe me when I say I was trying to protect you."
"Then why are you here?" I hate how my voice betrays me, dropping lower, softer. Hate how my body remembers what my mind has spent years trying to forget.
His eyes move over my face like physical touch, cataloging details I can't hide—the slight tremble of my lips, the pulse at my throat, the way my breath comes faster when he's near.Nothing escapes Jakob. Nothing ever did.
"Because when you walked out today, I realized something." He reaches up, not touching me, his hand hovering near my cheek. The space between his palm and my skin seems to crackle with current. "I've been trying to protect you since the day we met. From my family's judgment. From my world's corruption. From my own darkness."
His hand finally makes contact, fingertips brushing my skin with devastating gentleness.
"But I never asked if you wanted protection." His voice roughens. "I never considered that you might prefer the truth—with all its danger—to safety built on lies."
Something shifts in my chest—tectonic plates grinding against each other, creating fissures where I thought I'd built solid ground.
"I trusted you," I whisper, the words scraping my throat raw. "With everything. My heart. My body. Our son. And you walked away without a word of explanation. Just divorce papers and silence."
His thumb traces the curve of my cheekbone, and I hate how my body betrays me, leaning into the touch like a flowerseeking light after years of darkness. Muscle memory. Biological treachery.
"I thought I was saving you." His voice drops to something barely audible. "I thought loving you meant keeping you clean of my mistakes. My compromises."
"That's not love," I say, but the conviction is bleeding out of the words, leaving them hollow. "That's control."
"I know." His hand slides to cup the back of my neck, and the contact sends electricity down my spine. A current that shouldn't still exist after four years of careful disconnection. "I know that now."
I should step back. Should rebuild the walls he's somehow slipped past. Should remember the hurt, the betrayal, the years of silence. Should remember this morning—the professional humiliation, the exile, the consequences of being tied to him.
Instead, I reach up and press my palm against his chest, feeling his heartbeat race beneath my fingers. Feeling the evidence that he's as affected as I am by this proximity we've denied ourselves for so long.
"I can't trust you," I say, but even I hear the question in the statement. The wavering at the edges.
"I know." His other hand comes up to cradle my face. "I haven't earned it yet."
Theyethangs between us, heavy with possibility. With implication. With a future I'm not sure I can risk believing in.
"Jakob—" I start, but the rest of the sentence dissolves as his lips brush mine.
Not a demand. A question.
My body answers before my mind can intervene, fingers curling into his shirt, pulling him closer, turning the brush into pressure. Into heat. Into hunger that four years of distance hasn't diminished.
Something breaks loose inside me—some final thread of restraint snapping under the weight of want I've denied for too long. His arms wrap around me, lifting me against him until my feet barely touch the ground. My hands find his hair, fingers tangling in the thick strands as our mouths move together with the desperate precision of muscle memory.
This. This is what I've missed. Not just the physical contact—though God, his body against mine feels like coming home—but the way the world narrows to just this moment. Just us. Nothing calculated or controlled or constructed.
