Page 39 of Fighting For You
Her gaze found mine. “If you knew he was cheating, why didn’t you say anything? We were friends.”
Guilt and regret sliced at me, the familiar sensation cutting deeper after the last few days. “I never had proof before that TDY. And I… I was worried about my motives.”
Her brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
Shit. Here we go.
I rocked to my toes, then planted my feet again on her wet front walk, not daring to approach her any closer. My pulse pounded in my ears and heat climbed my neck. Omi’s words rang in the back of my mind—Don’t hide away. Open your heart.I grunted through the thickness in my throat and ran a hand through my hair, then jumped off the cliff.
“Because I’d been in love with you for a long time. I didn’t want you with him.” I sucked in a breath. A mile-long sprint sounding like a cakewalk about now. Would she hate me even more? Or… not? I pushed on, forced out the rest. “I couldn’t be sure if I was making things up—creating reasons you shouldn’t be together, or whether what I’d noticed was reality. Not until I witnessed it myself.”
At the wordlove, she’d bent, almost like the sounds had formed a fist and struck an uppercut straight to her ribs. She bowed over thirty degrees, and her face was utterly stricken.
My chest cinched tight with worry and I bit down onthe need to go to her—to take her by the shoulders and shake her, to make her understand me. To beg her to see I hadn’t meant to hurt her or betray her, even though now, all these years later, my choices looked like anything but love.
I had to get out of here. The ticking clock had officially struck midnight.
“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough, and I’d vowed to say everything. She hadn’t spoken, so what was there to lose now? Why not lay it out? Then I’d go. “I regret that I let my messed-up feelings distract me. And I’ll never forgive myself for it. But in the end, I don’t regret getting him removed from the unit nor do I regret that you didn’t marry him because he was the biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”
I let out a string of expletives before I could stop myself, my face and hands hot as my heart cranked with adrenaline.
“He hadyou, and that wasn’t enough, and Jess…” I swore again, overcome and nearly out of words. “You have to know that you’re… you’re everything. And that utter trash pile of a human being squandered what you gave him, and it said nothing about you. It only proved he was worthless by choice.”
She made a sound then, something like a groan or a gasp, and Ihadto go. I’d said more than I’d intended and now, I couldn’t wait another second.
“I’m sorry.”
And I was out. Back in the truck and on autopilot to the cabin. Forget stopping by the market or treating myself to takeout or anything else. I had to get out of here, out of Silverton, and back to the safety and solitude of my cabin and my cat and the life I’d had before she’d shown up and ruined everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jess
Ididn’t know how long I stood on my front porch, frozen by Jude’s words and—well, really, just the words.
I’d been in love with you for a long time.
I’d been in love with you for a long time.
I’d been in love with you for a long time.
They replayed on a loop, the rest of it fading into the background, until my phone buzzed in my pocket. When I finally looked, I had six messages from Dove saying she and Elise were going to bring me dinner whenever I was back, and to let them know.
Did I want them here? Didn’t I need time to process this?
I huffed an odd laugh. No. I needed someone to help me make sense of it. I needed a chance to rant. And Elise and Dove would let me do that.
I replied they could come whenever they were offwork—I’d be home all day and ready for them whenever they arrived. I’d already texted the office to tell them I wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. It might’ve felt good to go to work, but something told me I wouldn’t be able to focus with Beast’s—Jude’s—words floating around my head.
After a long shower during which I did not miss the scent of Beast’s soap, and purely appreciated the presence of shampoo made for a human woman and not something better suited to cattle hair, I slumped into bed fully intending to nap for as long as possible and forget about all of humanity for a few hours.
I’d been in love with you for a long time.
And I didn’t want you with him.
You’re everything.
There they came, like good little soldiers in formation. Each sentence flashing through my mind paired with the image of him, his face in absolute misery and his hand fisting, then flexing as he confessed the truth he’d held locked inside himself for years. He’d been vehement, pleading, and flushed from the neckline of his T-shirt to his hair after he’d said those words.
