by Orla Bailey
My heart thunders. Did I totally misread the signs? Yet… “You can’t even tell me you love me now. I tell you all the time. Why can’t you say it to me, if it’s true?”
He hesitates until I see the light. My heart breaks.
“I’m here with you now. Isn’t that enough?”
“Oh, Jack. You know it can’t be. Not for me. Not with you.”
He turns to face me full on, hesitant. “I’m scared of failing you again.”
I smile up at him. “You don’t fail me. You protect me. You care about me. I believe that. You won’t pretend to feel something you don’t. It’s because of you I’ve experienced an ocean-deep love for another human being. I’ll never love anyone, ever, the way I love you.”
He clasps me to him. “Then don’t leave. I won’t let you. The problem is you don’t trust me. You say you love me but how can you pretend to love me when you don’t even trust me?”
His accusation brings me up short. There’s truth in what he says.
“Neither of us has been very good at that. After everything that’s happened, we’ve stopped being able to. We question everything.”
“Then trust this.” He grabs me and stares deep into my eyes. “I won’t let you go. Last time I let you go, it nearly killed me. Seeing you in other men’s arms. Letting them enjoy you when it should have been me. It should have been me.” He rattles me as if trying to change the image. “Do you know what it was like to have to watch you with those boys?”
He saw me dating? “I think I might know how much that hurts.” A nail to the temple. A sledge-hammer through the chest. A fragile heart blasted to fragments. I’ve seen him and Amanda together. Caught them kissing. And then for him to tell me they nearly married… It wounds and scars. But how can I stay if he can’t tell me he loves me? I’d sink to the floor in agony if he wasn’t holding me so fast.
“I have to be certain this is right for you. That this time you’re ready. I need to be sure I’m everything you need because for me this is it. I can’t risk pushing you into making a monumental mistake because of a past that neither of us will ever recover from.”
He’s protecting me still. Slowly, the simple truth beneath his words takes hold.
“You loved me once.” I can hardly believe how I’ve misread everything.
“Yes, I loved you. I loved you so much I wanted to be with you for ever. I wanted you so badly I asked Harry if he would give me his blessing if I asked you to become my wife.”
I’m stunned. I already know what happened next. “He told you I was too young. He made you give me time to grow up. To know my own mind.” Harry, Harry. What have you done? My mind flies back to Jack. “You really wanted to marry me?”
Jack gives a short, painful nod. I swear I see lights glisten in his blue eyes. The skin tautens across his cheekbones and there’s a raw tightness to his jaw. Jack wanted me first. Long before he wanted Amanda. I hug him tightly for the wonderful gift he’s just given me. Once, he returned my love.
I think about the sacrifice he made for me. Those boys he might have seen me with when I was going through the motions, trying to cast Jack from my hopeless, grieving mind. No wonder he reacted the way he did when he saw me with Ben Gunn, and flirting with Laurent or dancing with Luc. The same way I feel each time I see him touch Amanda. How I must have tortured him. I can’t imagine how he must have felt when he misunderstood as I was held naked in the arms of that obnoxious guy in the hotel room; but I better understand his reaction to it. His hurt re-awakened. The feelings of betrayal brutalising his mind. The same crazy state of mind I felt when he left to spend the night with Amanda and not with me.
We have both let irrational fears and mistrust, dictate our actions.
“How did you cope?” I can’t bring my mind to comprehend what I would have done if I’d had to watch him date other women, because I’d given Harry my solemn word not to interfere. I only had to deal with photographs in the press. And an active imagination.
The pain is clear in his eyes. “I didn’t. For a long time I drank. A lot.”
“Is that why you don’t want me doing the same?”
He nods. “I got myself in some bad situations I should never have got into, just to dull the ache inside every time I saw you and had to walk away. I hated myself for doing it but I couldn’t keep away from you. It took me a very long time but slowly I learnt to control the torment in my mind. I learnt to control my feelings. I learnt to control myself and everything and everyone around me. What is it you called me? The Boss? Well Jack perished. He became the Boss.”
I ease those familiar frown lines between his brows with my thumbs. “Not completely.” I place one hand flat against his heart remembering all those selfless acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. “He’s still here. He helps me when I can’t breathe and the world gets too much for me to handle. He saves me when I drink enough to be a danger to myself. He shows me how to cope with business and with life. He was out there with me on the river, his steady hand guiding both me and his ship so we came to no harm.”
“cailín álainn.”
The way he looks at me makes me feel like his beautiful girl.
“I can change, Tabitha.” He seeks a solution, a compromise. Poor Jack.
“I don’t want you to change, Jack.”
“I want to be everything you need.” His sincerity is without doubt.
Yet it’s only half the equation. “I’m not sure I’m what you need.” If I was he could tell me he loved me.
“You’re perfect. Don’t ask me to let you go. I want to be with you. I need to be with you. Let me show you I can be everything you will ever need or want too.”
“I’m scared.” Will I get hurt again? How can I survive that? I’m not that strong.
“Let me try to fix this. For both of us. I’ve controlled my own feelings for so long I don’t even know what’s real anymore.”
I realise I’ve matured beyond all recognition when no matter what the cost, I know I can still walk away and allow Jack to be free. “If you don’t love me, I can’t take that risk.” I won’t settle for less than everything. I won’t let him do that either.
“On the boat –” He stops. His look is heated. Haunted.
“On the boat, I thought, for one moment your feelings were…”
“Yes.” He gives me a simple acknowledgement.
Who knows what he might have said to me that day if I hadn’t let Amanda come between us with her lies. But he held back, the same way I did until he caught me in that room with that man. How many painful memories of giving me the freedom to grow up, to discover life, experience other relationships with other men, must that have dredged up? I can only imagine. I felt the same once when I risked everything to bare my need for him only for him to disappear from my life. Betrayed, humiliated, drawn and quartered by the blunt blade of rejection, as I thought then.
We’ve both been tricked by illusions.
He didn’t leave because he didn’t care and I didn’t take a lover and reject him. How strong must our feelings be if neither of us can see past lies to the truth?
I’m at ground zero. I can’t trust my feelings. I can’t trust his. Is that how Jack feels too? Is that why he can’t tell me he loves me? He might have been on the point but I, too, stupidly neglected to say it before it was too late and once he’d seen what he’d seen, nothing made sense any more.
“I told you I loved you,” Jack reminds me. “Even before you told me.”
“Before you walked from the hotel. I heard you.” I love you. I bloody well love you.
“But you’re not certain you believe me.”
Despite everything I feel for Jack, he’s right. That’s the real problem. I still can’t believe he loves me. Not the all-encompassing, sweeping, far-reaching way I need to be loved. “I want to.”
“But you can’t. You don’t trust me. That’s the problem we have. Trust. We want each other but can I trust your love is real? Can you trust mine?”
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br /> “I’m sorry.” For him. For me. For both of us and the life that we will never have together. But there it is, out in the open. How can we truly love each other if we don’t have trust? Our doubts will destroy us bit by bit until there is nothing left. I can’t do that to Jack and I know he won’t do that to me. It’s the fuel that’s kept Amanda’s fires burning.
He scowls at me. “Is that all you’ve got to say? Sorry? Like this is it?”
“Don’t hate me Jack.” I’ll never hate you.
“Is this the same Tabitha Caid that marched into my boardroom to take on a whole room full of people who were screwing her business over? Even though the Boss scared her like hell?”
I frown as he raises his voice to me. He paces away, turns and fixes me with the Look.
“Is this the same Tabitha Caid who endured the Commerce Ball under the microscope because she was dressed in a red gown, despite the dress code stating strictly black and white?”
His irritation fuels mine. “Not exactly given a choice, as I recall.”
He looms over me pointing his finger. “You had a choice. You always have a choice. You could have walked away like you’re planning to do now. But you didn’t. You gutted it out. Like the Tabitha Caid who ate peach yoghurt naked at my breakfast table to prove how determined she was to fight for her company’s survival.”
“Immoral payment for dubious services,” I maintain the lie.
He laughs at my delusion. “Where’s my girl gone? The brave one. The one who would rather suffer the tortures of hell than give up or back down from anything she sets her mind to. The one I have high hopes for. Where is she?” He grabs me by the shoulders.
I shrug him off. “She’s been all but mentored out of existence by this over-confident man who knows what he wants and how to get it, no matter who or what stands in his way. His way. Because everything has to be his way. There’s no room for hers.”
He looks taken aback. “I stop things spiralling out of control. That’s all.”
“Of course you do, while I just get drunk and forget how to breathe. But I’m different now. You taught me better. And I learnt.”
“Are you telling me you’re going to decide on your own future?”
“Is that so unreasonable?”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s not.”
“About time,” I add, feeling hopeful.
“It is,” he concedes. “You’re a successful, intelligent, beautiful woman who could have any man she wanted. Who knows her own mind, what she wants from life and how to get it too.”
“You mentored me well, Jack.”
His face freezes but he scrubs it back to life again with the palm of his hand. “Please don’t tell me I’ve taught you how to walk away from me.”
“Then give me a proper reason for staying.” I search his face, desperately.
“Because you love me?”
“I do but I need more. I deserve more.”
He crushes me to him. “Yes, tabby cat. You do. And I want to be the one to give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because we deserve the chance we’ve been denied. A chance to be together after everything we’ve been through; everything we’ve sacrificed; everything we’ve survived. We deserve that chance.”
I stare up at him. A chance seems so little to ask when he’s given me so much. I feel his heart pounding through his chest wall to match the rhythm of mine. This is important to him. I’m important to him.
He gathers me close. “I know you don’t quite trust my feelings for you right now.”
“Do you trust mine?”
“I trust that you love me.”
“I know you don’t mean to hurt me, Jack.”
“I’ll never hurt you.”
“You will if I stay only to find out you can’t love me the way I love you.” Exclusively. “It’s inevitable.”
“Some things are worth any risk.”
Do I have it in me?
“Look at you. Life always scared you. But you dealt with it. You dealt with it in your own way, same as I did. The only difference is I took control of others and you took control of yourself. Everything you did, you had to be the best. Why do you think I let you know about Zee-Com signing with Advance?” I shrug. “I knew you would never give up that easily. I knew you would come to me. I wanted you to.”
“That’s manipulation, Jack.”
“Strategy.” He looks a little sheepish. “Okay, I admit it.” He puts his hands up in front of himself like I’m holding a gun on him and perhaps I am. “When I accepted Harry’s wishes and let you go, I told him straight up, it was never going to be forever. But you coming back to me the way I want you, is your choice. It’s always been your choice.” His voice tails off. “It’s your choice now. Please don’t give up on me, Tabitha. I’m nothing without you. Let me prove to you I’m worthy of your love.”
How can I not, when it’s all I’ve ever desired? I don’t want to grow old wishing I’d been brave enough to try. I know without a doubt, he’ll try his very best to love me again, if he can. I hold his gaze steady. “What do you have in mind?”
He laughs, kisses me and swings me around. “I have to go to Singapore for a couple of days.”
“Not sure that’ll do it.”
He smiles at me and taps me on the nose. “Listen.”
“Okay. When do you have to go?”
“Today.” He sees my face fall. “I know it’s short notice but I need to sort out some development problems. I was going to insist you come with me so I could keep a close eye on you.” I raise my eyebrows at his confession and he looks as awkward as he ought to, at his lack of faith. “But I know you have a company to run.”
I smother a grin. “Are you saying you might just trust me enough to spend a few days on a whole different continent, Mr Keogh?”
“Absolutely.”
“No doubt accessing data on my whereabouts from all those cameras in my office and your home.”
He laughs. “Our home. I’ll disable them all before I go. Whatever you want. They were never put there because I don’t trust you. It’s more about my need to safeguard what is mine.”
“Yours?”
“Mine.” He crushes me to him. His look, like his tone, dares me to deny I’m his.
I won’t even pretend his claim doesn’t make me glow a little inside. “I appreciate that trust, Jack.”
“I’ll waive all rights.” If his lips didn’t twitch, I might have got mad at him.
“Rights?” I contest as he narrows his eyes at me in mock challenge. “You don’t have to stop looking out for me, Jack. I quite like it that you want to. You make me feel special.” And a little bit loved already.
“Do I?” His frown tells me I’ve confused him.
I shrug. “Don’t even try to understand the complexities of a woman’s mind. I don’t.”
He laughs. “Whatever you want, kitten. Does that mean I can leave Blackstock at your disposal?”
“At my disposal? Or to spy on me?”
“He’d refuse. He likes you way too much.” His expression, as he strokes his fingers along my jawline, suggests he’s not too sure about that either but I love that he can be jealous too. I won’t tell him about Blackstock and Libby for a while.
“I’d be delighted to have Blackstock.” Libby too, no doubt. Perhaps he can drive us both to work together? I maintain a neutral expression although I’m dancing inside. Jack is thoughtfully trying to remedy any potential points of conflict between us. “When will you be back?”
“Why? Will you miss me?” His eyes twinkle.
“Every second.”
Which is about three times longer than it takes Jack to look like he’s planning to rip this sheet off with his teeth before he has to leave. “The dirty weekend still stands, remember? A bet’s a bet and you lost. Screamer.” He prods me in the ribs until I laugh.
I blush, grinning. “How could I forget?” I’m already considering how dirty things might
get.
“I have to fly out in a couple of hours.”
That knowledge is a bucket of cold water on my rising mood. “So soon?”
“Will you miss me, kitten?”
“You and your antiquated little ways of handling women.”
“One woman. A particularly headstrong one, as it happens. Who needs to be ready to leave for the weekend straight from work on Friday.”
“Try and stop me.”
He looks delighted at the prospect. “Blackstock will pick you up and we’ll muddy things up from there.” He smirks.
“Where are we going?” I’m already caught up in his excitement.
“You’ll see.”
“Secrets, Jack?”
“Surprises, Tabitha.”
I can’t help but laugh at his playfulness. “You’re one fast worker, Jack Keogh, I’ll give you that. I look forward to it.”
“I’m not a man to let a great opportunity slip through my fingers.”
I take that as a promise for the future. Pressing me close, he puts all humour aside to stare at me for the longest time. I stand there while he drinks me in.
“Let’s have no more doubts then.” He searches my face long enough for me to wonder what he hopes to find there. His Arctic eyes are as deep as a sea-cave, as stormy as a summer’s night; his look intent with bright blue honesty. The words, when he finally speaks them, send a thrill like fulfilled destiny coursing through my heart. “I love you, Tabitha Caid.”
Tears fill my eyes. I’ve been holding my breath and it rushes out in a whoosh, unable to be contained any longer. The declaration isn’t exactly the bells and whistles I’ve fantasised but then he’s not the kind of guy to make a three-ring circus out of feelings. True feelings.
His kiss is deep, however. Reverent. Sincere. It melts my heart.
“That’s all I need to know.”
Hearing him tell me he loves me makes me want to sing with joy yet I hate myself when I still can’t quite let myself believe it. Where are the fanfares? Where is the popping of champagne corks? The cheering crowds? He knows these words are what I want from him and he cares enough to say them. But what if he’s still quietly uncertain of his feelings too?
