I find a florist and order some flowers, having them sent to Lusso with a note.
Sarah is at my desk when I get to my office, and I ignore the look of interest she gives me. I’m not speaking to her. Landing on the couch, I start sifting through a pile of paperwork on the coffee table, just for something to do.
“Forgive me,” she says, and I look up, confused. She turns my laptop around, showing me the screen, where an email with my order confirmation from the florist is open. A confirmation that states what I want to be written on the card.Forgive me.“Why?” she asks. “What did you do?”
I close my eyes and breathe in. It’s never been an issue that she has access to my email account. She has access to everything. Everything but my black heart. “Mind your business, Sarah,” I mutter, done with this place already. I get up and grab my suit off the back of the door.
“Is that where you’ve been recently?” she asks. “Fucking the interior designer?” There’s laughter in her tone, and it gets right under my skin. “Jesus, Jesse, she must be ten years younger than you.”
My jaw ticks, my eyes burning holes through the door before me.Don’t bite.“I’m notfuckingher,” I grate, incensed by her assumption. Although, painfully, I have no right to be annoyed.
She starts laughing, and it’s like blades cutting my flesh. “Then what are you trying to do? Woo her?” She laughs some more, and I slowly pivot, my suit hanging from one hand, my face straight. Her eyes sparkle delightedly. The twisted bitch is getting a sick thrill out of baiting me.
“Shut the fuck up, Sarah.”
She smirks, standing, the bodice she’s wearing pushing her fake tits up to her chin. “You know only this life, Jesse.” Her hands rest on my desk when she bends, leaning in, getting closer. “You’d be a fool to think you can manage without it.”
“Or without you?” I ask, swinging my suit bag over my shoulder. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? You think I can’t survive without you.” She’s right to an extent. Keeping Sarah close, looking out for her, defending her when she upsets someone—which is a lot—has always offered me a twisted sense of redemption. Because despite what I did to Carmichael, despite whatshedid too, he would want to know she’s okay. That’s just how he was. Always happy. Always forgiving. Always compassionate.Neverheld a grudge, and my father’s contempt for him was proof of that. So was Sarah’s attraction to me. He knew how she felt. I knew he knew. She knew he knew. Everyone knew he knew. But he’d smile it off. Tell me he trusted no one in the world more than me, that Sarah was a natural-born flirt, and her confidence was one of the things he loved about her. Their relationship wasn’t exclusive. But it didn’t stretch to me.
I let him down.
I know he’d forgive me for being weak. For betraying him. For falling into Sarah’s clutches. But I wasn’t blessed with his clemency. He didn’t have the opportunity to absolve me of my wrongs, because he died, and that is entirely my fault.
Like Jake. Like Rosie.
All my fucking fault.
“No woman will accept you as long as we’re together,” she retorts, though there are threads of doubt in her words, and they are warranted.
“But we’re not together, Sarah. Never will be. You need to get your twisted, fucked-up mind around that,” I yell, and she flinches. Guilt eats me up inside, and I bite my tongue, holding back on hitting her with more scathing truths. She’s spent the past sixteen years trying to bend me to her will. Trying to convince me in one way or another that we need each other. Trying to make me see the devastation and pain we caused wasn’t entirely for nothing. It’s never been hard to resist her advances, or her fucking whip. But I’ve never lost my rag. I’ve always maintained my cool, laughed it off, shook my head in despair sometimes. Not today. Today, I’m done.
“Stop believing in something that has never been there. Wake up. See the truth. I amnotyours.” I yank the door open and leave, closing my eyes when I hear the unmistakable sound of her sobbing.
Fuck!
John is on his way down the corridor toward me, and he pulls his wraparounds off, revealing his deadly glare. “What did you do?”
“Told her some home truths,” I snap, barging his shoulder as I pass. It wasn’t a conscious move, but his body is wide, and this corridor isn’t.
“Watch it, boy,” he warns menacingly, his threat palpable. “Don’t think I won’t kick your motherfucking arse all over this place.”
“I’m out of here.” I pick up my pace, itching to escape.
“Be wise,” he calls. He’s not talking about my lack of respect for him. Of course he’s not.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I might not answer.”
He’ll answer. John always answers. I make it to my car and sling my suit on the back seat, before getting behind the wheel and revving the engine hard a few times, taking out my frustration, my fury, my hopelessness, on my car.
All I can hear is Sarah’s laugh. All I can see is her amusement.
Am I that laughable? That... beyond hope?
I rub at my forehead, lifting my arse from the seat to dig out my phone. “I’m sorry,” I say to myself as I message Sarah. I am literally all that woman has. And she’s scared. I get that.But she needs to face the truth and let me go.
It’s not the first time I’ve needed a woman to do that.