Page 102 of Second Act
When they dashed through the door, they found themselves in a hallway with scuffed white walls, a green linoleum tile floor, and bright fluorescent lighting. Bangs, clatters, and urgent voices indicated that there was food or beverage prep going on in one of the rooms off the hallway.
Hugh ignored it all, spinning her around to face him as he gripped her shoulders. “Jess, what are you doing here?” She saw confusion, uneasiness, and—maybe—hope in his face.
“I’m being myself in your world.” She waved down at her scrubs. “And having a blast, if truth be told.”
His gaze flicked over her outfit again, his expression bemused. “You look amazing. Those are not your average scrubs.”
“Quentin tailored them for me,” Jessica said. “And the jewels are on loan from Cazier. They’re real.” She touched the diamond necklace. “You see, I can do the red carpet and still be Jessica.”
“Oh God, I never doubted that.” Hugh’s words came out on a groan. “You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“I’ve put my mind to loving you, and I’m not going to change it.” She laid her palm against his cheek. “You can’t scare me away with a few photographers.”
He pulled away from her touch, sending a spear of hurt through her chest, but she held on to the memory of how he’d just kissed her.
“The photographers are just the tip of the iceberg,” he said, his voice tight with frustration. “You have an important job. Being with me will make it impossible for you to do it.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You yourself said that once the novelty dies down, no one will bother me at the clinic anymore.”
“I lied.” The muscles of his jaw bulged as he clenched it. He swept his hands out in a gesture of futility. “You can only survive by retreating into an artificial cocoon of security and isolation. I won’t ask that of you.”
“Good, because I won’t do it.” She steeled herself for another rejection when she reached for his hand, wrapping both of hers around it. “I won’t leave you, either.”
He left his hand in hers but without any sign that he wanted her touch. He looked away down the hallway and said in a low voice, “My life drove you away once.”
The pain radiated from him, old pain, all the way from his childhood. She held his hand tighter. “You’d already left me for the glitz and the adoration, so I felt like an obstacle,” she said. “But I didn’t expect you to cut me out of your life as though I’d never existed. It made me wonder how real our relationship had been right from the start.”
He whipped his head around to face her, his expression harsh. “Realer than any relationship I’d ever had.”
She saw the stark truth of that in his eyes, and another wound of her own began to heal. “You wouldn’t share yourself with me fully, though. You kept secret the parts of your past I most needed to understand who you were.”
Now he drew his hand out from between hers, taking away the warmth and physical connection she craved. “Some things you try to forget,” he said.
“You have to deal with them first. I want to be the one who helps you do that.” She curled her hands into fists of determination. “I am not like your mother.”
“I know that,” he snapped.
She pinned him with her gaze, refusing to allow his anger to intimidate her. “I will not let you drive me away this time. I came here inmy designer scrubs to fight for you, in front of all the paparazzi, if necessary.”
He dragged his hands over his face in a gesture of weariness. “I’m not worth the trouble, Jess.”
There he was: the abandoned child lurking inside the man. She caught the loneliness of him in Hugh’s eyes, and her heart felt like it would crack in two.
“Do you think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a man who doesn’t deserve it?” She stepped closer to jab her finger in his chest. “You were always worthy of love. Always. Don’t let your past convince you otherwise.”
“This isn’t about my past.” His voice became charged with vehemence. “I’ve tried to convince myself that we can make it work. But every time I look into the future, I see your love corroded into resentment, your openness and generosity hardened into cynicism.” His eyes darkened with a wrenching agony, and his voice dropped to a near whisper. “I don’t have the guts to face that.”
She held out her work-roughened hands that even Quentin’s ministrations couldn’t make elegant. “You see these? They’re damn strong. You should know that, because you’ve felt them on your body. So get rid of your image of me as a fragile innocent. My vet practice is in South Harlem. I treat police dogs shot by drug dealers. I spend time at the Carver Center, where some of the kids come from backgrounds that make you cry. Yet I haven’t run away.”
He stared down at her hands, suspended between them as she willed him to reach for her.
When he didn’t move, she stretched up to brush back the lock of hair he’d mussed, startling him into meeting her gaze. “I love you, Hugh, with every ounce of my strength. You need to trust me enough to love me back.”
Something flickered in his eyes, a glimmer of yearning. “I want...” He shook his head. “I can’t survive you leaving again.” His voice was raw with a fear that sliced into her heart.
He stood with his head bowed, his wild, dark beauty so potent that it lit up the dingy hallway. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and cradle his head against her, so he could feel the love vibrating through her. “Come home with me,” she said. “Tonight.”
His head jerked up, his eyes bright with a flare of hope, of desire, of longing.
