Start Again Series: A Billionaire Romance Box Set

by J. Saman

  Sensing someone’s watching, he pulls away from the girl on his neck, and our eyes meet in the miasma. His penetrating stare holds me annoyingly captive for a moment before he does a slow perusal of me. Unlike Henry, Jasper is not surprised to see me. In fact, his expression hardly registers any emotion at all. But the fire burning in his eyes tells a different story, and for reasons beyond my comprehension, I cannot tear myself away.

  He tilts his head, a smirk curling up the corner of his lips, and I realize I’ve been standing here, staring at him with voyeuristic-quality engrossment for far too long.

  But I don’t know how to break this spell.

  The smoldering blaze in his eyes is likely related to what the girl who was attached to his neck was doing to him. Yet somehow, it doesn’t feel like that.

  No, his focus is entirely on me.

  And he’s making sure I know it.

  A rush of heat swirls across my skin, crawling up my face. I shake my head ever so slightly, stumbling back a step.

  Noticing my inner turmoil, Jasper rights his body, forcing the girl away. She says something to him that he doesn’t acknowledge or respond to. He runs a hand through his messy reddish-brown hair as he shifts, ready to come and speak to me when my field of vision is obscured.

  Gus. I’d know him in my sleep.

  My gaze drops, catching and sticking on his unzipped fly.

  “You’re here,” he exclaims reverently, the thrill in his voice at seeing me unmistakable. I peek up and latch onto the fresh hickey on his neck. A hickey? Seriously? I didn’t even know people still gave those. When I find his lazy gray eyes, I want to cry. Especially with the purple welt giving me the finger.

  “I’m here.”

  He wraps me up in his arms, and I smell the woman who gave him that hickey. Her perfume possessively clings to his shirt, and I draw back, crinkling my nose in disgust.

  “What’s wrong, babe?” His thumb strokes my cheek. “Long flight?”

  I step back, out of his grasp.

  “Your fly is unzipped, and you have a hickey on your neck.”

  He blanches, his eyes dropping down to his groin while immediately zipping his family jewels back up. “I just took a leak.”

  I nod, but mostly because I’m not sure how much fight I have left in me. It was a long flight. And a long eight months before that. But still, it’s one thing to know your boyfriend is cheating on you; it’s another to see it in the flesh, literally.

  “And the hickey?”

  “Not what it looks like, Vi. I swear.”

  I reach up and cup his dark-blond stubbled jawline. My chest clenches. “Don’t lie, Gus. It just ruins everything. I don’t want to hate you, and I think if you lie to me now, I might.”

  He shakes his head violently against my hand, his expression pleading. “You’re here, Vi. You’re finally here. Nothing else matters.”

  “But it does. It all matters. The distance. The way our lives are diverging. I love you, Gus, but it’s not like it used to be with us. None of it is.” I swallow, my throat so tight it’s hard to push the words out. “Let’s end this now before it turns into bitterness and resentment.”

  “I could never resent you.”

  I inwardly sigh. He really doesn’t get it. “But your penis might. You’re fucking any woman who looks at you. Where does that leave me?”

  “You seriously flew out here to end it?” He’s incredulous. And hurt. And I hate a hurt Gus. Even if we’re not the stuff of happily ever afters, I do love this man. I’m just not so sure how in love with him I am anymore. He broke my heart. He broke my trust. And absence hasn’t made my heart grow fonder. It’s made it grow harder.

  But I still don’t want him hurting. He’s my…friend?

  Shit and hell, he’s my friend.

  And God, I’m going to miss him.

  So I hug him. I wrap my arms around his neck because I need to. I ignore the scent of that faceless girl because I need to feel him close to me, even if for the last time. That lump is back in my throat, and my eyes are once again burning with those tears I refuse to let fall. Gus squeezes me, gripping me as if his life depends on it, and it’s breaking me apart.

  “Would you rather I ended it on the phone?” His face meets my neck, and my eyes fling open wide, only to find Jasper watching us from over Gus’s shoulder. A curious observer, and my insides hurt all over again. His expression is a mask of apathy lined loosely with disdain. The way it’s always been with me. All that earlier heat a thing of the past. I don’t care either way.

  “I don’t want you to do it at all,” Gus’s voice is thick with regret as he holds me. “I love you, Vi. I love you so goddamn much. I just…”

  “I know. I really do.” I squeeze him back, feeling like I’m losing the only good part of my childhood in saying goodbye. “We’re just in different spaces now, with different lives, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  He shakes his head against me, holding me so close and so tight, it’s hard to breathe. He smells like that girl. But he smells like him underneath, and I cling to that last part because the scent of some unknown meaningless girl hurts too much. It rips me apart, knowing he did that to me.

  To us.

  I close my eyes for a moment and push that away. It’s useless at this point, and I don’t want to leave here more upset than I already am.

  “Don’t end it,” he pleads, cupping my face and holding me the way he always has. “I can’t lose you.”

  I lean up on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. Tall bastard. “And I can’t come in third. I handled second well enough, but not third.”

  “Third?”

  “Music first. Other women second. Me third. I need to end this Gus, or I’ll hate you, and I’ll hate myself.”

  “No,” he forces out, but it’s half-hearted. We’re nineteen, and just too young. There isn’t enough of the right type of love between us to fight harder for something we both know will never work. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy. The cheating guy who pushes his long-time sweetheart-best-friend away. “You’re breaking my heart.” A tear leaks from my eye as I battle to stifle my sob. “I’m in love with you, and you’re ending it.” I blink back more tears, watching as he accepts what’s happening. “I’m going to regret this,” he states matter-of-factly. “Letting you go is going to be the regret of my life. Years from now, I’m going to hate myself for not making you stay.”

  But you’re not fighting for me now.

  “And that’s why I have to go.” I lean in and kiss him goodbye and then run like hell.

  I make it outside, the heavy door slamming behind me. Warm, stale air brushes across my tacky skin, doing nothing to comfort or bring me clarity. I’m a mess of a woman as useless tears cling to my lashes.

  “You’re leaving already?” Jasper’s voice catches me off guard, and I start. Why did he bother following me? “You just got here.”

  “Yes,” I reply, twisting around to face the green eyes that have been fucking with my head since I caught them ten minutes ago. “You can’t be surprised.”

  “He loves you. He’s just lost in this life, ya know?” I shake my head at him. Jasper takes a long step in my direction, wanting to get closer and yet hesitant to. “So that’s it? You just walk away from him?”

  “What do you want, Jasper? You can’t honestly tell me you’re disappointed to be rid of me.”

  “I see we’re at the zero-fucks-left-to-give portion of the evening.”

  I shrug. That just about sums it up.

  His eyes, filled with anger, indecision, and frustration, bounce all around, the street, the lights of the neighboring storefronts, the crowd still dispersing from the show, everywhere but at me. I can’t stand this any longer, so I turn away and start to walk out into the Los Angeles night, away from the arena where Wild Minds–the band and the boys I’ve loved my whole life–just performed.

  “It’s yours,” Jasper calls out, and I’m so confused by his hasty words that I freeze,
turning back to him. His expression is completely exposed. Utterly vulnerable. And he’s staring straight at me. Directly into my eyes in a way he hasn’t dared since we were fourteen. My heart picks up a few extra beats, my breath held firmly in my chest. God, this man is so intense, I feel him in my fingernails.

  “What is?” I finally ask when he doesn’t follow that up.

  “The album,” he answers slowly, reluctantly, like it pains him to confess this, his darkest secret. “Every song on it is yours. All of them, I wrote about you.”

  I stand here, lost in space as I grasp just what he’s saying. What it means, as random lyrics from random songs on their album flitter through my head. Song after song filled with the most achingly beautiful poetry.

  “Jasper?” I whisper, my hand over my chest because I’m positive my heart never beat like this before.

  But he is already at the door, having confessed his sins without waiting for absolution.

  “Why did you tell me?” I yell after him, praying he’ll stop. Needing him to explain this to me. Why did you tell me, Jasper? Why did you pick this moment to ruin me?

  His hand rests on the frame of the now open door, his head bowed, his back to me. “Because I didn’t think I’d ever get another chance, knowing I’ll probably never see you again.” He blows out a harsh breath. “But it doesn’t change anything, Vi. Absolutely nothing. So you can move on without us and pretend like I never said a word.”

  And then the door slams shut behind him.

  Jesus.

  It takes me forever to move. To force myself to try and do just that. To try and forget his words and ignore the havoc they just created.

  Knowing it’s futile. Knowing those words will reside in me forever.

  * * *

  Want to know what happens next with Jasper and Viola? One-Click Love to Hate Her now to find out!