Page 67 of Jack of Hearts
Love had ambushed him when he least expected it, and as he sat there while the woman he would die for chewed on her bottom lip, waiting for him to speak, he accepted that he had to do the right thing. This being-in-love shit sucked. It hurt.
Blinking against the burning in his eyes, he leaned his elbows on his knees and stared down at the floor. “Yeah, well, I think things are moving too fast between us, and we should step back. You know, take a break for a while.” Her face paled, and he gritted his teeth to keep from telling her everything.
“I thought ...” She shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
“I’m more sorry than you can possibly know.”
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Just go, Alex.” She turned her face away.
He stood, wanting to take back everything he’d said, but he reminded himself he was doing this for her. If they had a chance for a future together, it had to be when she fell in love with the real Alex Gentry. Not that he believed he’d get another chance.
At the door, he paused, turned to look at her, and hated himself for hurting her.
“Just so you know, I take it back,” Madison said when Alex hesitated at the door. She forced her eyes to meet his. “I don’t love you.” She didn’t care if that made him flinch. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you can go to hell.”
“That’s entirely possible. I’m sorry.”
It took every ounce of willpower, but she managed not to shed a tear in front of him. Not one damn tear. As soon as the door closed behind him, her lips trembled uncontrollably and the water pooling in her eyes overflowed. How had she been so wrong about him?
She buried her face into her pillow, realizing too late he’d left his scent there. The dam broke as she remembered the beautiful night before, when she thought he might be falling in love with her. There’d been such warmth and tenderness in his eyes as he’d stared down at her, but it’d all been a lie. She shouldn’t have told him she loved him. No, she was glad she had. Apparently, he hadn’t wanted to hear her damn love declaration, so now she knew she meant nothing to him. Better to learn that sooner rather than later.
The horrible ache in her heart made her wish she’d never met him. Her life had been just fine before Alex walked into it, and now she was crying her eyes out because of a lying jerk. She jumped out of bed, stripping the sheets from the mattress and dumping them next to the door before getting in the shower and scrubbing herself raw to wash his smell from her body.
“Good-bye, Alex,” she whispered as the water and soap carried his scent down the drain. Fresh tears came when she could no longer smell him on her skin, and she let them flow. She would do her crying, and then she would forget about him. She swore it.
Once dressed for the day, her tears buried along with her aching heart in a deep hole, she headed to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of coffee, which she just might inject directly into her veins. And if there were a pill for wiping a man from her memory, she’d add that to the mix.
She wasn’t kidding herself. There would be more tears, more questions about how she’d fallen so quickly for a man she should have run from the minute she saw him. He was a friend of her cousin’s after all, and that should have been a gigantic red flag. Well, it had been, but she’d chosen to ignore it, so more fool her.
“I’m done with you, Alex,” she muttered, bringing that first sip of coffee to her lips. Yes, there would be more tears over him in the late hours of the night, but she was determined to be done with him.
“Who’re you talking to?”
Madison choked on the coffee going down her throat. “Dammit, Lauren. You scared me.”
“Why? I do live here. And I do walk into this kitchen every morning.”
Madison blinked, trying to hide her tears from her roommate. “Alex doesn’t love me.” The words slipped out along with her sobs. “He’s not ... not coming back.”
“Oh, sweetie.”
Madison sank into the arms Lauren wrapped around her. “I was so stupid to fall in love with him.”
“The Gentry brothers have a way of making you do that.”
Well, one in particular sure had that talent. She lifted her head from Lauren’s shoulder. “That’s an odd thing for you to say. Care to explain?”
Lauren’s gaze shifted away. “Not really.”
There was pain in her friend’s eyes. Her own heartbreak put aside for the moment, she said, “Yes, really. What’s the deal with you and Court?”
“I know him, all right?”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
Lauren poured coffee into a cup and then turned to leave.
“Lauren?”
