It wasn’t helping. None of it was helping because she couldn’t be helped. This wasn’t some crush she could push to the side anymore, she’d gone and fallen in love with the very last man she should’ve fallen in love with.
Yup, she was an idiot all right. At least when it came to relationships she was, and definitely when it came to her heart.
But she hadn’t had a chance in hell to stop it from happening. She’d been screwed from the start. And now she was in love with Jace. She’d always be in love with him. Who knew such a realization would be so damn devastating?
It was well over an hour before she was able to pull herself together and get off the bathroom floor. Still shivering, she crawled back into bed and next to a still sleeping Jace. Her heart broke even more when his arms automatically wrapped around her and he pulled her against him.
She’d already wasted precious time with him, and she wouldn’t waste any more. Adele fought sleep the rest of the night, not letting herself go over to it until just before the sun started to light up the sky.
It was close to nine in the morning when Jace got up and went to let Katie out. Adele didn’t move an inch when he pulled himself from bed, still clearly exhausted from the day before. He lingered in the doorway for a couple of moments just watching her sleep. She was so damn peaceful, so damn beautiful. If it weren’t for the dog dancing around his feet, he would’ve lingered for much longer.
After Katie finished up outside, he headed for the kitchen figuring he’d get the coffee started before waking Adele up good and proper. Just the thought had him grinning like a fool.
Once the coffee was percolating, he took a quick look at his phone. He’d left it charging in the kitchen the night before. The second he saw the screen light up his focus was immediately diverted.
There were seven missed calls and voicemails: Coach Bale, Logan, and five other guys from the team. Instinctively he knew what all of those calls on his phone meant. The lockout was over.
Fucking. Finally.
Jace called Coach back first and the conversation was short and sweet. The league had come to an agreement, the season was starting, and the team needed to be back in Jacksonville for their first practice in forty-eight hours.
The second conversation was with Logan, and therefore wasn’t short or sweet. They hadn’t really talked since Jace had left Jacksonville and headed for the cabin…and definitely not since he’d slept with Adele.
Jace didn’t want to lie to his best friend so he tried his damnedest to hedge the truth, a task that was much harder than expected. Probably because it felt like lying. The thing was, he wasn’t going to ask Logan’s permission when it came to a relationship with Adele. For one, he wasn’t going to get it. And two, the person he really needed to discuss the subject with was Adele herself.
He had to tell her how he felt, had to tell her he wanted way more than this week, tell her he was in love with her.
Since the start of this lockout, Jace’s most prevalent thought had been getting back on the ice. It had been months of feeling lost without getting to play. But now the lockout being over wasn’t the most important thing going on. It didn’t compare to him figuring out he was in love with Adele.
Another thing he was beginning to figure out was that his feelings for Adele weren’t new. He’d been looking back over the years, thinking of all the time they’d spent together. He’d always been drawn to her, always wanted to be where she was. There was always a part of him that felt restless, but when she was around, it was like a calmness took over. It was probably why he’d been so damn happy to see her car pull up all of those days ago.
Probably? No, it definitely was why.
Adele had also been the reason he’d even spent that first Christmas with the James family all of those years ago. He’d been unable to say no to her. He was still unable to say no to her. And he absolutely hated seeing her unhappy. It wasn’t just this Christmas where he’d done everything he could to make her happy, it was something he’d always tried to do.
But it went even further than that. He’d hated all of the guys he’d ever seen her with. He’d known that there wasn’t a single one of them who was good enough for her. But that knowledge was always on principle, he didn’t even have to meet them to figure it out.
And why was that? Because at the core of everything, he was the one who was supposed to be with her.
That constantly ticking clock had almost run out on time. It looked like a scoreboard in Jace’s mind, the seconds almost up, and the buzzer about to sound. He had to tell her how he felt, and he hoped like hell she felt the same way.
He loved her and he wanted everything with her.
He was just a little bit distracted during the rest of those phone calls to his teammates. His brain was in overdrive, trying to figure out what he needed to do next and where he needed to start. He’d never put himself out there like this. Never put his heart on the line.
He still hadn’t figured anything out when he looked up to find Adele standing in the opening of the hallway. He wasn’t even close to an answer.
It didn’t help that the second his eyes landed on her, all of the thoughts left his head. Well, except one thought and that was that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. She was wearing a sweatshirt and yoga pants, her hair pulled back in a messy bun on top of her head, and her eyes were still lined with sleep like she hadn’t fully woken up yet.
God, he loved her.
“I have to go. I’ll see you in a couple days.” Jace barely heard what was said on the other end of the call before he hung up. Setting his phone on the coffee table, he stood from the sofa and crossed the room to Adele. “Hey, you.”
“Hey,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest.
He reached out for her, putting his hands on her upper arms and pulling her in close. “Morning.” Leaning down, he pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss.
She was the first to pull away from the kiss, looking up into his face. “I overheard your side of the conversation,” she nodded towards his phone on the table. “The lockout is over. Congratulations.”
There was so much relief coursing through his body at the news, and excitement. For the first time in a long time, it felt like things were finally falling into place, and a lot of that had to do with the woman in front of him.
“Thanks. They finalized the agreement early this morning. I talked to Coach Bale first. He said we needed to be back Thursday morning for our first practice. That gives us ten days before our first game on the seventh.” He started to move his hands up and down the backs of her arms…arms that were still folded across her chest.
It was then that he noticed she wasn’t touching him. It was his first inclination that something was wrong. Ever since the boundaries between them had disappeared, she’d always wrap her arms around his waist when he held her.
“I know how much you’ve missed playing. I’m happy for you.” She gave him a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Jace’s gaze didn’t leave her face, and the longer he looked at her, the more unsettled he became. Something definitely wasn’t right. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m still half-asleep. I just need to wake up.”
He knew she wasn’t always a morning person. That had been evident over the years. And the last few mornings they’d woken each other up in a rather energizing way that didn’t require caffeine first thing in the morning.
Good thing he already had the coffee going. He needed her to be a little bit more awake before he embarked on the conversation he was so anxious to have with her.
“Come on, let’s get you some coffee.” His hands moved down to her elbows before he unwound her arms, grabbing one of her hands. Their fingers twined together, and her grip tightened just fractionally holding on to him as he led her to the kitchen.
He reluctantly let go of her as he went to grab the mugs, and she went to the fridge to get the creamer. They moved around each
other in silence, taking part in their usual morning routine of the last few days, each of them fixing their coffee. He was waiting for her to get some caffeine in her system before broaching the subject, but she spoke first.
“So you’re heading out today?”
“Or tomorrow. I, uh, wanted to talk to you about that actually.” Reaching to the side, he set his coffee mug down before turning to her. “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?” He was surprised the question came out coherently.
“Huh?” She lowered her mug, blinking at him and looking slightly confused.
“New Year’s Eve…I was wondering if you wanted to spend it together.” Good Lord, his heart was pounding out of his chest now.
“In Jacksonville?”
“Yeah.”
“Jace, I don’t understand. We agreed that what happened here stays here. No expectations afterward. Vegas rules.”
“That was before.”
Adele set her coffee cup on the counter next to his before folding her arms across her stomach again. She looked cautious…hesitant. He wasn’t used to seeing so much uncertainty in her eyes. “Jace, what are you saying?”
He reached for her, grabbing onto her elbows and pulling her in close to him. “I don’t want whatever this is between us to end here.”
Her eyes narrowed on his face. “Whatever this is between us?” she repeated slowly. “And what is that exactly?”
The question hit him like a punch to the gut. What was it between them? How did she not know? Did she really not feel the same way he did?
Since Jace’s realization of being in love with Adele, he’d been nervous about broaching this subject of wanting more with her. But it had been more of an excited nervous. Sure, the possibility of her turning him down had always been present, but he’d been way more optimistic about the outcome.
Until that moment. Something hard and heavy landed in his stomach as he started to doubt everything. But fear or not, he wasn’t backing down.
“Adele, I want to see where this thing can go. I want to take this beyond the cabin. I want to date you. I want to be with you.”
She took a startled breath through her nose before she shook her head, pulling her arms from his grip. “No.”
Who knew that one word had the ability to hurt so much? “What?”
“No.” She shook her head again, taking a step away from him. It was such a small movement, and yet it cut straight through his chest. “Let’s not complicate things, Jace. We both knew what this was going into it. We agreed. What happens here stays here. Right? Nothing messy. Nothing more. We have fun, and then we move on. Things go back to the way they were before.”
His stomach was slowly filling with something the consistency of wet cement. “What if I don’t want to go back? What if I can’t go back?”
He thought that for just a second he saw something flicker in her eyes, something that looked like hope. But it disappeared a moment later as if it had never been there at all. “You don’t do relationships, remember?”
“Things change. People change. I changed.”
“Jace, it’s only been five days since I got here. Are you really trying to tell me you’ve made a complete one-eighty on how you look at relationships in five days?”
“Are you really trying to tell me that you don’t feel anything for me besides sex? I told you before, you’re a terrible actress, Adele.”
“Please don’t make this harder than it already is.” Her eyes were filling with tears and that bottom lip of hers started to quiver. “I want to say yes. Say yes to the possibility of something more with you. Something more for us. What we’ve had up here has been perfect. Magical even. This has meant the absolute world to me, but it can’t go further than this. We both know it.”
“We do?”
“Vegas rules. That was what we agreed on to prevent both of us from getting hurt in the end.” Her words were barely above a whisper now. She blinked a few times, the tears streaking down her cheeks. “You know I care about you.”
“But not enough to see where this goes.” The cement filling his stomach was hardening now, and so was the tone of his voice.
“Because I already know where this goes, Jace.” Her voice took on a more forceful tone as she threw her hands in the air.
“Yeah? Where does it go, Del?”
“We head back to Jacksonville and spend the next few days before New Year’s together. We continue to fool around, trying to recreate the way everything was up here, but not quite succeeding. Meanwhile, we’re also hiding what’s going on from Logan and Abby, and everyone else in my family. There’s no need for them to know yet, and neither of us wants to deal with the fall out from Logan. So we just try to stay in our little bubble. Then I go back to Scotland after the New Year with some half-brained idea of you being my boyfriend.” She put her hand to her chest, right over her heart as if the word pained her.
“At first, we talk daily on the phone…and then after a month or two it becomes every other day…and then maybe once a week. Less and less as you put all of your focus into the season, and realize you don’t have time for a relationship. Realize you don’t want a relationship. I’d start to get paranoid and overthink everything right up until the final phone call where you end things, leaving me looking like an idiot. Again.” The conviction in her words was clear. This was what she really and truly believed.
It was a couple of moments of stunned silence before Jace shook his head, a puff of air escaping his lungs in disbelief. “Wow. You’ve got it all figured out. Don’t you? And you’ve apparently got me all figured out too.”
“Jace, that wasn’t a dig, it’s just…” She trailed off, closing her eyes, and bowing her head. She took a deep breath before letting it out slowly and looking back up at him. There was a firm resolution in her gaze now.
“It’s just what?”
“I’ve already done this. I just tried this whole thing with Troy. Putting my heart on the line. Dating the guy who is a serial dater but doesn’t commit. Taking a chance and getting hurt. I can’t do it again.”
“Are you seriously comparing me to that jackass?”
“Tell me what’s different, Jace.”
“The difference is you know me.” He couldn’t keep the plea out of his words.
Those big, beautiful, golden brown eyes of hers were on his. They didn’t move. Didn’t waver in the slightest, not even when she blinked, and a fresh wave of tears slid down her cheeks. “I do. And that’s why I can’t do it, because I know you.” Her voice cracked at the same moment as his heart broke.
“You don’t think I can commit to you. You don’t believe me.”
She gave just the smallest shake of her head. “Jace, this isn’t how I wanted things to end.”
The corner of his eyes burned, and there was a thickening in his throat that was making it hard to talk. “But it is over.”
“Yes.”
He nodded, taking a step back from her. “You know, I told you before, I can’t say no to you. Can’t say no to anything that involves your happiness. I didn’t realize it until this week, didn’t realize that for the last six years there has been something inside of me that’s just wanted to see you happy. I thought I could be a part of that. Thought I could be a part of your life as more than a bystander. Thought we could be together. ”
“Jace,” she whispered his name, so much sadness in one little syllable. But it was all she said, because really, what else was there to say?
“I thought wrong. I’ll leave today.” Unable to stand there looking like an idiot for a second longer, Jace turned and headed for his bedroom.
If she wanted this thing between them to be over and done with, then he sure as shit wasn’t sticking around. For the first time in a long time, he’d wanted to put himself out there…see what could happen with her.
Take the risk.
But in the end, she didn’t think he was worth the risk. Not when it came to love. Not when it came to her heart.
/> What had she just done?
Adele stood in the kitchen for a couple of minutes staring at the opening of the hallway where Jace had just disappeared. Her mind was in overdrive, going through the conversation that had just happened, replaying it bit by bit.
He’d said he wanted more with her…wanted to see where things could go with them.
But she couldn’t do it. Seeing where things went with him would be tantamount to jumping out of a plane without a parachute. It was suicide. They didn’t feel the same way about each other. She was in love with him, and he was riding this high from their time together.
He just thought he wanted more. Just like Troy had. It didn’t matter that they weren’t the same man. Didn’t matter that she trusted Jace more. She couldn’t do it again.
She’d just gone down this path. Given someone who didn’t do relationships—someone who was a known playboy—a shot. Look where that had landed her. She didn’t want to be on the other end of this when Jace bailed, because she wouldn’t be left standing.
She knew instinctively that it was unfair to compare them, but her heart wouldn’t listen. She’d been burned already and it had hurt like hell. So really, testing things out with Jace would be like jumping out of the plane—sans parachute—over a fucking forest fire.
She couldn’t let herself get further into whatever this was. She couldn’t.
This was the right decision. It was just better to end it now before things got all tangled up. Before she began to hope for the future. Since almost the second things had started with him she’d written off any possibility of something happening outside of that cabin. Written off the chance of them continuing on after Christmas.
That hadn’t been part of the deal…hadn’t been part of the plan. She’d accepted the end she knew was coming. If they went further, she’d never be prepared for that ending. She’d be blindsided, just like she had been with Troy. Except with Jace, it would be so much worse.
An Unexpected Christmas Page 17
