Page 84 of The Love Rematch
“Sneaking into my bedroom,” Emily snaps. “Giving me the cell phone. Passing me notes on the plane. Luring me out of the hotel to take me to the crown jewels, my practical mothership. Come on. You knew exactly what you were doing. Don’t feign innocence now.”
He looks down, the guilt written across his face.
“So yeah,” she continues, driving the point home, “I’m pissed. Pissed that you tried so hard to rope me back in, just to what? Turn your back and leave? Well, news flash. I saw that movie already. I didn’t need a sequel.”
“I wasn’t—” he sputters. “I didn’t—”
“Real answer, Jake.”
He freezes.
“Real answer,” she demands again, invoking something sacred between them. Up until now she’s been too afraid for the truth, but she needs it. Like her lungs need air, she needs it in order to breathe. Right now, she’s choking on the questions, drowning in them.
“Don’t do this, Em,” he begs.
“What do you want, Jake?” she presses, refusing to give him the out. All she needs to hear is a single word, three letters, and nothing else will matter.
You.
I want you.
She wills the words into existence, but she can’t be the only one. He has to say them. He has to mean them.
Jake stares at her, his jaw set in a stubborn line, and she knows, even before he does, what his answer will be.
“If you leave, I won’t be here waiting like I was before. It’s over. For real. I mean it, Jake. I can’t do this anymore.”
He stands tall.
He steps back.
All the emotion in his gaze vanishes, as if sucked through a vacuum back behind his impenetrable wall, leaving her empty.
“Don’t walk away,” she whispers, hating how she pleads. “Not again.”
“I have to.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
jake
Tearinghimself away from her warm embrace was the hardest thing Jake’s ever done, and now here he is doing it again. Each step is more painful than the last, but he forces himself down the block, around the corner, and out of her life for good.
Fucking idiot.
Why did he do this to her? To them? He should have listened when she asked to be strangers. He should have kept his distance. He should have stayed the fuck away.
But he didn’t.
Because at heart, he’ll always be Jacob William Henry III. A screwup. A life destroyer. The spitting image of his old man. And Emily deserves so much more than that, so much more than him. She deserves someone like Cooper, rugged American hero, nice, safe. Someone good, something Jake will never be. Each excruciating step he takes away from her is a step she can take closer to the better option.
By the time he returns to his hotel room, he’s numb. The moment he turned his back on her, his heart fell out of his chest and shattered into a million tiny pieces. It’s now scattered across the streets of Rome. He feels nothing as he stares at the shadows on his ceiling. Nothing as the hours pass. Nothing as the sun peeks through the curtains, signaling a new day.
He goes through the motions at the airport. Emily won’t look at him. But he looks at her, taking in her bloodshot eyes, her puffy cheeks, and her shaky voice.Way too much alcohol,she tells the others, but he knows the truth. It’s him. What he did. What he always does. A visual manifestation of the pain he’s caused her, and will continue to cause her, if he doesn’t back the fuck up and leave her alone.
So he does.
For the next week, during the hometown dates, he lets Nina take the lead. He films B-roll. He interviews the families. He interviews the guys. He keeps out of Emily’s way, not saying a word to her over the course of the eight-day schedule. Four different men in four different cities give impassioned speeches about wanting to propose to the woman he loves, the woman he will always love, the woman he will spend his entire life dreaming of marrying—and he feels nothing. He’s dead inside. Robotic. A visitor in his own body.
