Walking away from another relationship, from this situation that was rapidly turning toxic, wasn’t an easy decision to make, but she knew that it was the right path. It didn’t matter that it was hard, that she felt the brutal sting of loss and disappointment. She couldn’t allow it to dictate her life. She was stronger and braver and more resilient than she’d ever been, and she wouldn’t let this push her back into being that weak, insecure girl she’d been before.
It was time that she started protecting her heart, her feelings and her soul. It was time, as her mum had suggested, to stop standing and start walking.
* * *
Because he’d spent the past week chasing down old contacts and new leads, Ryan quickly realized that there was no money floating around to finance Blown Away. We’re in a recession, we don’t have that much, it’s too risky, credit is tight. He’d heard the same excuses time and time again.
This was the end of the line. He was out of options.
Not quite true, he reluctantly admitted. He still had his father’s offer to finance a movie, but he’d rather wash his face with acid than ask him. He could always come back to Blown Away in the future, but Jaci’s career would take a hit...
Jaci... No, he wasn’t going to think about her at all. It was over and she had—according to the very brief letter she’d left with his PA—released him from her contract.
She was out of his life, and that was good. But his mind kept playing the last scenes of their movie in his head. Instead of fighting the memory, as he had been doing, instead of pushing it aside, he let it run. It wasn’t as if he was doing any work, and maybe if he just remembered, properly, the events of that night, he’d be able to move on. He had to get his life back to normal.
He remembered the wedding, how amazing Jaci looked in that pale pink cocktail dress with the straps that crisscrossed her back. Her eyes looked deep and mysterious and her lips had been painted a color that matched her dress. He’d kept his eyes on her all night, had followed her progress across the tented room, watched her talk to friends and acquaintances, noticed how she refused the many offers to dance. After the meal, the horse’s ass had approached her and she’d looked wary and distant. They’d talked and talked and Clive kept moving closer and Jaci kept putting distance between them.
Ryan frowned. She had done that. He wasn’t imagining that. Clive had eventually left her, looking less than happy. Then he’d joined her at that table and they’d chatted and the pinched look left her eyes. Her attention had been on him, all on him; her eyes softened when they looked at him. Her entire attention had been focused on him; she hadn’t looked around. Clive had been forgotten when they were together.
She’d been that into me...
So how had she gone from being so into him to jumping into bed with Whips? Did she? Are you so sure that she did? Ryan picked up his pen and tapped it against his desk. He had no proof that Jaci had slept with Clive, just his notoriously unreliable gut instinct. And his intuition was clouded by jealously and past insecurities about being cheated on...
He wished he could talk to someone who would tell him the unvarnished, dirty truth.
Jaci’s ball-breaker sister would do that. Merry had never pulled her punches. Ryan picked up his mobile and within a minute Meredith’s cut-glass tones swirled around his office. “Are you there, you ridiculous excuse for a human being?”
Whoa! Someone sounded very irritated with him. That was okay because he was still massively irritated with her sister. “Did she sleep with Whips and Chains?” he demanded.
“We video chatted last night and she looked like death warmed up. I have never seen her so unhappy, so...so...so heartbroken. She cries herself to sleep every night, Ryan, did you know that?”
Ryan’s heart lurched. “Did. She. Sleep. With. Him?”
There was a long, intense silence on the other end of the phone and Ryan pulled the receiver away, looked at it and spoke into it again. “Are you there?”
“Oh, dear Lord in heaven,” Merry stated on a long sigh. Her voice lost about 50 percent of its tartness when she spoke again. “Ryan Jackson, why would you think that Jaci slept with Clive?”
“That morning she looked...” Ryan felt as if his head was about to explode. “... God, I don’t know. She...glowed. She looked like something wonderful had happened. Your dad told me that they were in her bedroom so I presumed that they’d...reconciled.”
“You are an idiot of magnificent proportions,” Merry told him, exasperated. “Now, listen to me, birdbrain. Clive came to pick up some stuff of his she was storing at Lyon House. That’s the only reason he was there. Yes, she told him about New York, how happy she was there. Because she’s a girl and she has her pride, she wanted Clive to know how happy and successful she was, how much she didn’t need him. She told Clive about Banks, and you, because she wanted to show him that there were other men out there, rich, powerful and successful men, who wanted and desired her. She wanted him to know that she didn’t need him anymore because she was now a better version of who she used to be with him.”