I shrugged. “I’ll live. It’s not about me anyway. It’s about doing what’s right for her. All I need is to figure out how the fuck I’m going to forget about her.”
“Don’t. It’s as easy as that.” His gaze bored into mine. “You’re sure you’re doing the right thing by leaving, Jaxon? You don’t want to give talking to her one more go?”
“I can’t.” I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply. “I’ve made my promises to her, big man. I need to keep ‘em now. It’s better that I’m just a memory for her at the moment anyway, and I really don’t want to hurt her.”
“You’re not making a lot of sense.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “You sure I can’t cook you up a plate of bacon and we can hash it out over breakfast and coffee?”
“No, I have to go.”
He regarded me with what seemed like pain in his own eyes before he wiped his face blank. Sticking his meaty paw into his pocket, he came back with a plain white rectangle of cardboard paper with a number scrawled on it in ink.
“Call me if you ever need me. I’m always available on that number.”
“Thanks for everything, man.”
He enveloped me in a bear hug, thudding me hard on the back before letting me go. “You’re welcome, brother.” He pointed at my aching chest after he took a step back. “Come back here sometime, you hear?”
I forced a grin, not wanting to tell him that while leaving was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done, at this very moment, I couldn’t imagine ever stepping foot inside this lobby again. “Yeah. Maybe. We’ll have to see.”
Chapter 25
LINDSAY
When I woke up, I knew in my heart of hearts that Jaxon was gone before I’d even opened my eyes. I felt around on his side of the bed, but the sheets were ice cold.
Not only that, but his presence was gone too. I didn’t know how to explain it other than I’d always felt this awareness of him in this room, and I couldn’t feel it anymore.
My suspicions were confirmed when I sat up slowly and took a good look around. It took me no time at all to notice what wasn’t there anymore.
I could see the bathroom from this side of the bed, and the basin that’d had his toiletries next to it was empty. Last night when I’d fallen asleep, clothes had been strewn all over the floor in there, but it was all cleaned up now.
My dress hung neatly from a hanger hooked over the bathroom door. Even the rose petals were gone. How he’d managed that without waking me, I didn’t know.
Then again, he’d worn me out pretty thoroughly last night. My heart started pounding when the thought hit. Was he planning this all the time? Did he give me all that pleasure just so that he wouldn’t have to deal with my pain in the morning?
Jumping out of bed with a pathetic little string of hope still tied to my heart, I searched the entire bungalow but it was like he’d never even been there at all. There was nothing left of him. It was like I’d imagined him and he’d never been real.
If not for the aches in my body after our nocturnal activities, I really would’ve started questioning my sanity.
How could he do this to me? A sob rose in my chest. I couldn’t believe he would just leave. He knew what’d happened to me just weeks ago. What a way to end this trip, by getting left again.
Had I been fooling myself all week? Last night, I could’ve sworn I saw real feelings when he looked at me, felt them in the sweet way he’d made love to me, and now this? I really couldn’t believe it.
My hands started shaking and tears welled up in my eyes, their onslaught never ceasing once they started spilling out. Hurt, pain, and rage like I should’ve felt when Will walked out on me raced through me now—like a lightning strike that’d somehow been delayed.
Although dealing with being abandoned once was bad enough. Having to deal with it twice in as many weeks? That was unthinkable. Unimaginable.
Loathsome thoughts churned in my brain, and I couldn’t get them to stop while I packed. Am I really just that unbearable? Am I unlovable? Would I ever find anyone who would really stand by me and have my back?
Sobs kept wracking through me. I couldn’t stop crying. This was the kind of pain people had been expecting me to feel after my wedding had fallen apart. Yet I hadn’t felt a damn thing.
But throw me into paradise and toss a hot guy into my room, and I get my heart broken. Pathetic. I’m utterly pathetic.
I’d never felt quite so downtrodden, quite so defeated, or quite so used. Where do I even go from here?
None of these were thoughts I’d ever had about myself, yet I felt every stinging word of the truth now. Gah. Had I really just been such an easy, vulnerable fucking target for Jaxon? Why yes, darling. You even threw yourself at him.
After a few minutes, I slammed my back into the door and sank down until I was sitting on the floor, hugging myself as I tried to weather the storm of emotion I’d known was coming but had been counting on Jaxon being here to see through with me.
Every nickname he’d called me, every smile and heated look.
Lies.
All of it had been nothing but lies. It couldn’t have been anything else. If he cared about me at all, he wouldn’t have left me without so much as a goodbye.
My whispered words in the early hours of this morning came back to me. I don’t want to say goodbye to you tomorrow morning.
Humiliation laced with mortification spread through my veins. It was too early for it to have gone down any other way. He’d already known when I said that, when he pressed that kiss that’d made me so foolishly hopeful to my head, that he wouldn’t be here when I woke up.
That he wasn’t planning on saying goodbye.
I fell apart on that bedroom floor, finally crying for everything I’d lost in the space of less than two short weeks and everything that had been taken from me. A million miles away from home and without a soul knowing what was happening, I let myself mourn for my future with Will that’d never materialized, but also let myself mourn the end of the best relationship I’d ever had. Even if it’d only been a week long.
The worst thing of all was I was pretty confident Jaxon had ruined me. At least for a while, I wouldn’t even be able to look at any other man.
My heart was shattered.
Broken, bruised, and bleeding, and he’d given it a final stomp before tossing it right back at me. And I hadn’t even been awake to catch the useless damn thing.
Not only that, but he’d also taken that part of me that being with him had unearthed, because there was no way I’d be able to trust that woman’s judgment again.
And so I cried for me, for Jaxon, and for Will. For unrealized dreams and unrealistic plans. For the relationships I’d had and the relationships I’d hoped they would turn into. For the anguish that felt like it’d crawled into my heart for good and for the humiliation that would never leave me.
I reminded myself over and over again that I was a strong, independent woman and that I didn’t need a man. A voice in my head whispered that this one breakdown was okay. That no one could be expected to go through the emotional wringer the way I had and begrudge themselves that one ugly cry session.
When I got up from here, I would be that queen again that I’d told Jaxon I was. But for now, I was going to cry because I already missed his hand in mine and the weight of his arm over my shoulder. I already missed being able to count on him—always there, always ready, always right beside me.
I already missed that stupid smirk and the way he made me feel when he looked at me. I was going to cry because the first thing in my life that’d really felt real had been fake all along. I was going to cry because I knew, and I wasn’t just being dramatic, that there would never be another Jaxon for me again.
The kind of chemistry I’d had with him had been once in a lifetime, and so had the safety and comfort offered by my marriage to Will.
And it was all gone.
Just gone.
As intangible and irreplaceable as a single p
uff of smoke in the wind.
Both times without even having had the opportunity to say goodbye.
I must’ve done something really terrible in a previous life or something to have deserved this.
Just yesterday, I’d believed it when Big Mac had said the universe had pushed us together. I’d believed that maybe it really had been fate that wanted us to be together, and that maybe that meant it would all work out.
What a crock of shit. I knew better than that. Honestly.
I let myself fall to pieces before reminding myself that I couldn’t sit here like this for days. I had a plane to catch, and it was probably about time for me to start getting ready to catch it. Little by little, I focused on putting the salvageable parts of myself back together and eventually found the strength to get up off the damn floor.
I showered but felt like every one of the warm drops was slicing straight through my being. Not only was every one of those aches in my body now nothing of a painful reminder of what I’d lost and would never have again, but I could still feel him deep inside me with every move I made. Even though he’d known—he had to have already fucking known—that he’d be gone without the courtesy of even a goodbye by the time I felt it.
God. He must be having such a good fucking laugh at my expense right now. I fell for everything he’d laid out for me. Hook. Line. And fucking sinker.
Feeling sick to my stomach after I got out of the shower, I was hunched over while I packed my things in here. If I could avoid it, I didn’t want to revisit any part of this bungalow once I was done in it for the last time.
The shower was the last time I wanted to see this fucking bathroom, where just last night he’d confirmed that he had the symbol for following his heart tattooed right over it.
Yeah. Right. What fucking heart?
Where had he followed it to anyway? The next hotel, an attendant on one of his flights, a fucking member of the staff of this very resort? With looks and a personality like his, he could get any woman he wanted and he knew it. Probably just another reason why he decided to dump poor Lindsay without a goddamn word when he was done with me.
Was I that worthless I didn’t even deserve a conversation from either of these men? I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was seriously stacking up against the accuracy of my beliefs.
As I moved back into the bedroom and dropped my vanity bag on the bed, I swiped my clothes from the shelves with complete disregard for the state they would be packed in, then stopped dead in my tracks when I saw something lying on top of my suitcase.
It was a wooden, carved-out frame that looked like something one could buy in the market here. In it was a photograph of the two of us looking so damn happy I could puke now when I looked at it.
Why? Why would you do this to me? I mentally yelled at him, feeling like a thousand red-hot needles stabbed into my heart as I stared. You sadistic fucking son of a bitch!
Both of us looked so genuinely happy in that picture that I had to just blink at it for a minute. The man was a damn good actor. I had to give him that. To be able to fake that look that well, he deserved a fucking award.
I, of course, wouldn’t be giving him jack shit ever again. On the other hand, he didn’t really deserve anything from me either.
I had half a mind to smash the frame and text him a picture of me hurling the thing into the ocean, but I knew I had to hang onto this. It would serve as an excellent reminder of why I didn’t throw the goddamn planner out the window. It would also help keep me grounded if another good-looking asshole with tanned skin and abs for days came knocking at my door.
People said not to hate the player and to hate the game, but right in this moment? I hated the fucking player with a burning rage so all consuming that I wanted to follow through on Ember’s threat of ripping his precious cock off with my bare hands.
But I turned all that inward once I’d searched the room to make sure none of my possessions had stayed behind. I refused to be labeled as that mess of a bride who got dumped on her honeymoon and her husband hadn’t even said goodbye.
Not that I planned on making any stops, but I wanted to leave here at least feeling like my dignity was intact. No one would ever have to know the horrible thoughts that had gone through my mind back in that bedroom, and no one would ever witness a scene like that from me again.
Well, except for the potted plants in my house, because I was ninety-nine percent sure I wasn’t even nearly cried out over all this yet.
Unfortunately, I ran into Big Mac on my way out.
The kind-hearted, kind-eyed man who’d had such a soft spot for me and the asshole was honestly the last person I wanted to see. But he seemed to be waiting for me, hanging around near the elevators going up in the lobby.
He pushed away from the wall when he saw me, coming over to envelop me in a hug that told me that once again, he knew more than I thought he did. “Jaxon left a few hours ago. He was afraid of saying goodbye. I’m sorry, honey. I tried to stop him, but he seemed to think it was for the best.”
I stifled a sob at his tenderly murmured words. “It was for the best.”
“It’s not. I spoke to Jaxon, saw him, and looked into his eyes, and now I’m doing the same with you. He was just as upset as you are over having to leave you.”
That can’t be true. He’s just a fucking good actor. “I have to go, Big Mac. Thank you so much for everything.”
The big guy insisted on walking me out, carrying my suitcase, and even reminded me to pick up my packages from shopping the day before. Then he helped me fit my purchases in before personally calling a private hotel transfer to the airport for me.
Once again, the ride between the hotel and the airport passed in a complete blur, and before I knew it, I’d somehow managed to get my suitcase checked in, go through customs, and I was about to board.
My phone rang with an incoming call from Ember, and I moved off to the side of the crowd of passengers to take it. I relayed the highlights of my morning to her almost robotically, shutting down any emotion for fear that even a single crack would lead to another—much more public—breakdown.
“If you think about it,” she said once I’d finished talking. “It really was the perfect way to end it. No feelings of ‘there should have been more’ or empty promises to stay in touch. It was what it was, and now it’s over.”
“Yeah. Sure. We’re boarding soon. I’ll see you later.” I hung up on her without another word, staring at the boarding pass in my hand and wondering why the hell I was going back.
What do I even have left there?
Chapter 26
JAXON
Being back at the hangar with my tools in hand and grease covering my clothes, it felt like my time in Fiji had been nothing but a dream. Almost like I’d spaced out during my last conversation with Kavan and was coming to with all these made up memories of things that hadn’t really happened.
The heaviness in my chest and a deeper tan on my forearms as I worked were the only evidence that it had really happened and that I wasn’t likely to forget about it anytime soon. Big Mac’s advice not to forget about it at all turned in my head, but it was better if I did. The sooner I let it all go, the sooner I’d start feeling like myself again.
Kavan walked in about an hour later, his face breaking out into a grin and his arms widening to his sides when he saw me. “Welcome home, brother. When did you get in?”
“Yesterday.” I tightened the bolt I was busy with, feeling his gaze heavy on my back. “I don’t want to talk about it. How’re Shira and the baby?”
“Doing well. We’re counting down the days until the little princess arrives.” He walked around me and leaned against the engine I was working on, concern furrowing his brow as he folded his arms loosely over his chest. “What exactly don’t you want to talk about? Fiji, or your fake marriage while you were there?”
“Both.” They were so rolled up in each other that there was no telling how to speak about one without the other.
“All that I’m willing to say is that I wished it had ended differently.”
“How did it end?”
I scowled at the metal under my hands, even though it was completely innocent in all this. “With me leaving in the pre-dawn hours without saying goodbye.”
Kavan made a strangled noise at the back of his throat, his brows shooting up. “Seriously? You of all people sneaked away under the cover of darkness? What the fuck?”
“I didn’t sneak away.” I scoffed, giving him a narrow-eyed glare. “She said she didn’t want to say goodbye to me in the morning, so I didn’t make her say goodbye. I caught the first flight out and here I am.”
He covered his face with his hands, groaning and shaking his head. “Dude, I don’t know this woman, but I doubt she meant that as literally as you took it.”
“What?” I snapped. None of this was Kavan’s fault either, but I was in a shitty mood, and he was pushing for information I’d already told him I didn’t want to give.
“If she said she didn’t want to say goodbye to you, it meant she didn’t want your time together to end. Not that she literally didn’t want to do the goodbye part.”
“You know what? You’re right.” I turned my glare on the engine again. “You don’t know her.”
My friend, who was obviously in the mood to get a fist to his jaw because he kept pushing, let out an exasperated sigh. “Maybe not, but I know women and I know relationships. I’ve only been with Shira for over a decade. What was your longest relationship again?”
“You and Shira were meant to fucking be. You never went through anything like this.”
Blue eyes turning to ice, his jaw tightened and his fingers curled into a fist on the engine. “Your memory seems to be failing you in your old age. Maybe we didn’t meet in a tropical fucking paradise and our biggest obstacle wasn’t how to tell each other that we wanted to keep seeing each other. You know what our obstacles were? Continuous deployments for the first few years we were together, my injury, her not knowing whether I was alive, my rehab, depression when I got discharged, trying to build a new life for ourselves, fertility issues and treatments. The list goes on and fucking on, but why don’t you tell me again that I don’t know what I’m talking about because we never went through anything like that?”
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