Page 54 of The Couple Behind the Headlines

‘Why not?’ Luke asked. ‘Don’t you have an apartment there?’

‘So?’

‘And weren’t you looking at opening a US branch at one point?’ Luke added, undeterred.

‘That was years ago.’

‘Could be a good move.’

Luke made it sound so easy, but Jack could still see the expression on Imogen’s face the second before she walked out, and knew it was anything but. ‘The whole thing is immaterial anyway.’

‘Why?’

He could feel a weird kind of pressure building inside him and his head went fuzzy as the undeniable truth hit him all over again. ‘Because she doesn’t want me.’

And that was really what was at the heart of it all, wasn’t it? Imogen didn’t want him. At least not enough. He’d seen it in the set of her jaw and the look in her eye when she’d told him this was her chance and she wasn’t going to screw it up for anything. Basically, she’d let him know in a roundabout kind of way that he wasn’t as important to her as studying in the States, and it had nearly crucified him.

He’d come to care about her, and like everyone else he’d ever cared about she was abandoning him. The difference was that this time he couldn’t seem to switch himself off and shut himself down. This time every muscle in his body ached with the pain of it.

To all appearances he’d been carrying on as normal. He’d gone to work, handled meetings and traded with his usual e

fficiency but inside he was a mess. Inside he was falling apart. His self-control was in bits and his grip on his sanity was fast unravelling and there didn’t seem to be a thing he could do about it.

Luke shifted, then sat upright and leaned forwards and took a deep breath as if preparing to say something unpleasant. ‘Right. As we don’t ever do this sort of stuff, I’m only going to ask this once,’ he said, fixing Jack with an unwavering stare. ‘Do you love her?’

Jack’s heart stopped and then began to beat triple time as his blood roared in his ears. What kind of a question was that? At some point during the last horrendous week, he’d come to the dizzying realisation that he adored her. Imogen was everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he’d ever dreamed of in the moments of weakness he’d allowed himself to dream.

He’d been in love with her for weeks. Possibly since the minute she’d told him to find some other victim to devour and stormed off. Why else would he have pursued her when she’d been—and had put up—such a challenge?

And since then it had grown and developed into something much more, which was undoubtedly why this all hurt so much.

‘Does it matter?’ he said tightly, because Luke might be wanting to talk, but he had no intention of expressing the tangled heap of feelings coursing through him.

‘Jack, you and I have known each other a long time, and you’re my best friend, but if you love her and you’re not going to go after her you’re a jerk.’

Jack’s eyebrows shot up and he glared at his so-called friend. Luke, however, looked unperturbed. ‘You can glower all you like, but you are.’

‘I asked her to stay,’ he said again, because this seemed to him to be the crux of the matter. ‘And she said no.’

‘So what is this? A question of pride?’

‘No.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘You know what it is,’ he muttered and frowned into his glass. Once, many years ago over too many beers, they’d had a brutally frank discussion about their pasts and their hang-ups. It had been a one-off, and neither of them had referred to it again.

Luke tilted his head and regarded Jack thoughtfully. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So is that why you sabotage every potential relationship before it has the time to develop?’

What the …? Jack snapped his head up. ‘I don’t.’

Luke arched a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Really? Then why has no woman ever lasted more than a week?’

‘I get bored easily.’ It was a line he’d told himself many times, but actually it wasn’t true, was it, because Imogen hadn’t bored him in the slightest.

‘Rubbish. You deliberately put an end to things before you can get involved.’

Jack opened his mouth to deny it, then closed it, his mind racing as his dating technique over the last ten years flashed through his head. Short-term didn’t begin to describe the brevity of the relationships he’d had, the relationships—if they could even be called that—he’d been the one to end before they’d ever had the chance to get off the ground.

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