The first raindrops started to fall.
Paige was oblivious.
Her head spun with questions. Where? What? Why? How much? “So you—wait—” She struggled to make sense of it. “You’re saying that you’ve been protecting me? No. That can’t be true. You’re the only one who doesn’t protect me. When everyone else is wrapping me in cotton wool, you handle me like you’re throwing the first pitch at the game.” He didn’t protect her. He didn’t. Not Jake.
She waited for him to agree with her, to confirm that he didn’t protect her.
He was silent.
There was a throbbing in her head. She lifted her fingers to her forehead and rubbed. The storm was closing in—she could feel it, and not just in the sky above her.
“I know you don’t protect me.” She tried to focus, tried to examine the information and shook her head. “Just the other night, when we found out we’d lost our jobs, Matt was sympathetic, but you were brutal. I was ready to cry, but you made me so angry and—” She stared at him, understanding. She felt the color drain from her face. “You did it on purpose. You made me angry on purpose.”
“You get more done when you’re angry,” he said flatly. “And you needed to get things done.”
No denial.
He’d goaded her. Galvanized her into action.
“You challenge every idea I have.” She felt dizzy. “We fight. All the time. If I say something is black, you say it’s white.”
He stood in silence, not bothering to deny it, and she shook her head in disbelief.
“You make me angry. You do that on purpose because if I’m angry with you then I’m not—” She’d been blind. She breathed, adjusting to this new picture of their relationship. The first boom of thunder split the air but she ignored it. “How long? How long, Jake?”
“How long, what?” He yanked at his bow tie with impatient fingers. His gaze shifted from hers. He looked like a man who wanted to be anywhere but with her.
“How long have you cared? How long have you been protecting me?” She stumbled over the word, and the thought.
He ran his hand over his jaw. “Since I walked through the door of that damn hospital room and saw you sitting on the bed in your Snoopy T-shirt, with that enormous smile on your face. You were so brave. The most frightened brave person I’d ever seen. And you tried so hard not to let anyone see it. I have always protected you, Paige. Except for the other night when I let my guard down.”
But he’d been protecting her then, too. He’d been taking care of her when she was so terrified she hadn’t known what to do.
“So you thought I was brave, but not strong. Not strong enough to cope alone without protection. I don’t understand. I thought you weren’t interested—that you didn’t want this, and now I discover—” It was a struggle to process it. “So this whole time you did care about me. You do.”
Rain was falling steadily now, landing in droplets on his jacket and her hair.
“Paige—”
“The kiss the other night—”
“Was a mistake.”
“But it was real. It wasn’t because I was a pair of red lips in an elevator. All these days, months, years I’ve been telling myself you didn’t feel anything. All the time I’ve been confused because my instincts were so wrong and I couldn’t understand why, but now I do. They weren’t wrong. I wasn’t wrong.”
“Maybe you weren’t.”
“So why let me think that?”
“Because it was easier.”
“Easier than what? Telling me the truth? News flash, and, by the way, I thought you knew this—I don’t want to be protected. I want to live my life. You’re the one who’s always telling me to take more risks.”
“Yeah, well, that proves you shouldn’t listen to anything I tell you. We should go inside before you catch pneumonia.” He eased away from the railings and she caught his arm.
“I’ll go inside when I decide to go inside.” The rain was soaking her skin. “What happens now?”
“Nothing. I know you don’t want to be protected, but that’s tough, Paige, because that’s what I’m doing. I’m not what you’re looking for, and I never have been. We don’t want the same thing. There’s a car waiting downstairs to take you and the other two home. Make sure you use it.” Without giving her a chance to respond, Jake strode away from her toward the bank of elevators and left her standing there, alone in the glittering cityscape, watching the entire shape of her life change. Another twist. Another turn. The unexpected.