Would he really let it end this way? Was he so determined not to let anyone in that he would throw away a chance at happiness?
Or maybe, Cara thought, he was right. Maybe he was giving all he was capable of giving. Maybe she was being unfair in asking for more. Why couldn’t she be happy with what they had now? Why did she want more?
Because I deserve it.
Leaving Jack was the right thing to do. She knew it in her heart, no matter how her heart seemed to be splitting in two at the thought. How could she ever rely on him if she didn’t trust that he felt the way she did? Would she turn out like Mama, loving a man who deceived her and left her brokenhearted, if she were to settle for anything less than the love she deserved?
“I care about you,” he said, breaking into her tormented thoughts. “I want you.”
Cara sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Jack, but that’s not good enough for me. Because I do want the fantasy. I want love and marriage, even though it terrifies me, and I want to be someone’s life and soul. I want to be with a man who can’t live without me just as I can’t live without him.”
His laugh was bitter. “You just said love terrifies you. Because you know it doesn’t last, Cara. You have your parents’ example, just as I have mine. People leave when you need them most.”
She shook her head. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I can’t be like you, Jack. As much as it scares me to ever rely on another human being, I want that chance. I want to try, at least. I want to share my life with the man I love, and I want him to share his with me.”
His eyes were so full of pain and frustration. She wanted to go to him, wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him everything would be all right. But she wasn’t really sure if it would ever be all right. She watched him, waiting for his response. Waiting for him to acknowledge what she’d just told him.
But if he understood that she’d confessed her love for him, he didn’t show it.
“What do you want from me?”
“I think you know.”
“This has been good between us, Cara. It doesn’t need to end.”
She pulled in a deep breath. “It has been good, you’re right. But it’s not enough. I want more. I don’t want to go to parties and have people whisper behind my back that I’m just another mistress. I want people to know we’re together, that I’ve chosen you every bit as much as you’ve chosen me. I don’t want to be just another bought and paid-for companion.”
And she was, wasn’t she? Ever since she’d accepted his offer to come to London for the wedding, the balance of power had been thrown off. As much as she’d tried to convince herself it was a legitimate job, the truth was far different. Because she’d been fated to fall into bed with him from the moment he’d arrived at her table in Nice.
“You can’t listen to gossip, Cara. People will try to hurt you if you let them.”
“They wouldn’t try if they didn’t think it was true.”
His jaw was hard, his eyes glittering. He swore vehemently.
“Fine, we’ll get married if that’s what it takes to make you happy.”
Cara’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost him to say that. She would have laughed if her heart weren’t breaking.
“Oh, Jack. You just don’t get it, do you? It’s not about marriage.” She walked over to him, placed a hand on his chest. Felt the thundering pulse of his heart. “It’s about what’s in here. I want to know you. I want you to let me inside. And I’m not sure you ever will.”
He gripped her hand where it lay against his heart. He looked so serious and so tortured at once.
“You do know me. As well as anyone.”
She shook her head sadly. “But for how long, Jack?”
“As long as it lasts,” he said.
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry. I should have gone sooner, but—”
“What?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.
Cara shrugged. “I didn’t want to. I fell for you, Jack. And I kept hoping you’d love me, too.”
“I care for you.” His voice sounded as if it had been scraped over sandpaper.
Poor Jack. It was such a hard admission for him. And it was all she’d ever get.
She took a step back, wrapped her arms around her body. “It’s time I went home. I need to find another job, need to move forward with my life….”
He swore. “Go, then,” he bit out.
Her eyes filled with tears. “I still need my passport—”
“It’s here.”
Cara blinked. “You have it? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It came two days ago.”
Two days? He’d had her passport for two days and he’d not told her about it? Was this why? Had he wanted to avoid exactly the conversation they were having now?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she repeated.
He walked over to the kitchen island, retrieved an envelope and tossed it onto the bar near her. “Does it matter? You have it now.”
Cara picked up the envelope and opened it. Her bank card was inside, as well.
“Your clothes and other belongings will arrive soon.”
“You managed to get everything from Bobby?” She’d hoped she’d get her passport back, but she’d never expected she would see anything else she’d taken to Nice with her. Fortunately, it had only been two suitcases full. Nothing that wasn’t replaceable.
Jack laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Believe it or not, Cara, I’m quite frightening when I’m not bound and beaten. Bobby was only too happy to cooperate once the situation was explained to him.”
Cara shivered at the menace in his voice. Having spent the past couple of weeks with him, she could fully believe he would intimidate Bobby under the right circumstances. He was immensely wealthy and extremely powerful. All of which she’d shoved to the back of her mind while she’d been here. She’d cared about him as a person, and though she’d known how wealthy he was, she’d been able to forget it when it was just the two of them together.
A mistake, clearly. If she’d remembered, if she’d forced herself to remember, she’d have known this could never work out between them. She had nothing he needed—not even love.
God, could her heart hurt any worse that it did right this moment? Could she feel any more hopeless?
“Thank you,” she said. It was the only thing she was capable of. Her throat hurt with all she wanted to say. She wouldn’t let it happen, though. It was too late. Useless. He didn’t love her and he never would. He’d only wanted to control her, just as he controlled everything around him. It was his shield, she realized, his attempt at making sure no one could hurt him ever again.
He stood with his hands in his pockets once more. He looked … angry, helpless, frustrated. All the things she felt, as well.
“You don’t have to go,” he said.
Cara pulled in a deep breath. It was so tempting to stay, anyway, to cast aside her fears and doubts and go to him. They would be explosive in bed, as always, and she could forget that he didn’t love her when they were lost in each other.
She closed her eyes. No. She couldn’t forget. That was the problem. Everything had changed and she couldn’t turn back the clock no matter how much she might wish it.
“I’m afraid I do, Jack,” she said. “There’s nothing left for me here.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SHE’D been gone for a week. Jack shoved back from the computer and stared at the sky out the window. Why was the sky blue? It should be steel-gray, the color of sadness and tears and pain, not bright and happy and buoyant.
Unbidden, the memory of their last night together crashed into his mind. He’d been an ass. He’d seen the despair on her face when she’d turned to him in Rupert Blasdell’s house—and he’d simply known.
Known he was losing her. Known she was about to demand more than he could give her and that the end was fast coming upon them.
He’d been prepared to a
ccept it. He’d expected it, after all. But then, as he’d stood there and looked into her expressive eyes—as he’d seen himself reflected in them, not as he truly was, but as she saw him—he’d felt so damn desperate, so torn and aching and he’d wanted her again. He’d wanted to make her forget what she was about to say, forget what she was thinking. He’d wanted to keep seeing himself through her eyes.
Because that Jack was better than he was.
But he’d failed. Instead of making her forget, he’d pushed her farther and faster to the end. He’d taken her love and twisted it against her in an effort to keep her. He’d wanted to dominate her, control her, and he’d acted without thought.
He’d never forget the way she’d looked at him in the garden, when he knew he’d gone too far. She’d been so disillusioned, so angry. He’d done that to her, and he’d hated himself for it in that moment.
Damn her for making him feel so much. Damn her, because he missed her.
Jack stood and went into the kitchen. It was empty, as always. The living room was empty. The balcony. The bedroom.
And suddenly, he didn’t want to be alone. He was so damn tired of being alone. Grabbing his keys, he left the apartment and took the elevator down. Then he walked to the pub on the corner and went inside. It was still early, and though the pub was occupied, it wasn’t as lively as it would be later.
He wanted the noise, the press of bodies and yes, even the empty companionship of a woman, if he met one who interested him. A few hours in bed with another woman would surely take his mind off Cara.
Except the thought of taking another woman to bed was strangely abhorrent.
Jack found a corner table and sat down. A waitress came over and he ordered a pint. He closed his eyes and leaned back on the booth seat.
Cara.
“Hello, Jack.”
His eyes snapped open. Jacob stood in front of the table, an apparition from the past. The old anger and pain roiled in his belly, but he didn’t feel the instinctive need to lash out that he had only a couple of weeks ago. He was too drained from thoughts about Cara to work up more than a mild dislike for his brother.
“What the hell are you doing here, Jacob?”
Jacob’s dark hair was tousled as always. His black eyes seemed so bleak that Jack almost softened.
Almost, but not quite. If Jacob was tortured by what he’d done, it was nothing less than he deserved.
“I came to talk to you.”
Jack snorted. “What’d you do, lurk outside my apartment and follow me here? How the mighty have fallen,” he finished sarcastically.
One corner of Jacob’s mouth lifted in a mocking grin. “Hardly. I was on my way to your place when I saw you leave. So yes, in that sense I followed you here. Sue me.”
He was on the verge of telling Jacob to get the hell out, but then he thought of Cara. “What do you think your brother wanted? Maybe if you talked to him … you could move forward.”
He had moved forward. But his curiosity was piqued for the first time in years. What was Jacob so intent on saying? It wouldn’t change anything, but maybe if he listened, he could tell Cara he’d done so.
Tell Cara?
“What do you want?” Jack bit out. “I want to apologize,” Jacob said. “For leaving.”
A chill crept over Jack. “It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
Jacob’s nostrils flared. A sign of annoyance he recognized from their childhood. Jack practically laughed. So Jacob wasn’t here to play the penitent, after all. It was a relief, in a way. It made it easier for Jack to shrug off Jacob’s reappearance in their lives. He didn’t know what Jacob was up to, but he stuck by his belief that his brother wasn’t here to stay. The minute it got difficult, Jacob would run. Just like before.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Jacob said. “I know what it took for you to fill my shoes, and I’m sorry you had to do it.”
“Not sorry enough to come back, though.”
Jacob took the seat across from him. Jack would have protested, but his beer arrived. He took a drink and waited for what Jacob would say next. But Jacob looked away, like he was thinking of something, and Jack’s temper frayed.
“As touching as this reunion is for me,” he said, “I’d really like to be alone. So if you have something to say, say it. If not, get out and let me drink in peace.”
Jacob’s dark head swung back around. His black eyes glittered with anger. “You’ve turned into quite a bastard, haven’t you, Jack? Is that why the pretty lady left you?”
Everything inside him went dark and still. The urge to reach across the table and plant a fist in Jacob’s face was strong.
“Leave her out of this,” he growled.
“Why? Is she important to you? Is anything important to you, other than your own grief and rage?”
Jack’s gut burned. The beer went down hard and he signaled the waitress for another. “You’re a fine one to talk about what’s important, aren’t you, Jacob? You can’t do important. You’d rather run away from it.”
“My God. You’ve been shutting people out for so long you just don’t know how to do anything differently.”
A prickle of awareness slipped across his soul. Cara had accused him of shutting people out. Of shutting her out. It was safer that way, wasn’t it? If you didn’t let anyone in, they couldn’t hurt you when they left.
The waitress arrived with his beer. “He’s leaving,” Jack said when she asked Jacob what he wanted. She shrugged and went away.
And suddenly Jack was tired of being angry. He just wanted this conversation over with. He wanted to drink until Cara was a blurry memory, and he wanted to be alone.
“Look, whatever you’re here for, whatever you think you’re going to accomplish by renovating Wolfe Manor, I don’t care. It’s been too many years, and there’s too much water under the bridge to go back now.”
“You think I’m leaving again,” Jacob said.
Jack shrugged. “You know, I really don’t want to do this. You don’t have to come here and talk to me and apologize and try to fix anything. It’s too late for that. As soon as you run across something you don’t like, some difficulty, you’ll leave again.”
“I don’t blame you for thinking so, but I’m not leaving, Jack.”
“The others may have fallen for your lies, but you’re wasting your time with me.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Jacob stood. “Maybe we can talk about this some day, but clearly it won’t be today. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.”
Jack looked at his brother, really looked at him for the first time in twenty years. There was anger and sorrow and regret in his eyes—and determination. Maybe that determination would see him through. Maybe he’d find the strength to face whatever demons he’d been running from.
But Jack still couldn’t accept that Jacob wouldn’t pull up stakes when things got tough. He’d spent too many years living in the shadow of Jacob’s mistakes, too many years trying to make it right again.
And yet a part of him wanted to believe. A very tiny part that missed the way they used to be close. It surprised him, that feeling. He hadn’t looked back in years. He made decisions and moved forward because it was a waste of time to dwell on the might-have-beens.
“We’ll see,” was all he could say.
Jacob nodded. Whether he took the words as an admission that a conversation was possible or a challenge that he would leave again, Jack didn’t know. Or care.
After Jacob had gone, Jack toyed with the cold mug of beer but didn’t take another drink. His head was tangled up with Jacob, with Cara, with events of the past. He thought of his brothers and sister, of the hell they’d been through. He thought of Cara, with her wide green eyes and her kissable lips—and he missed her like hell.
She’d filled that empty space inside him. She’d made him laugh. She’d made him think.
But not enough, apparently. Because he’d completely missed what she’d been saying to him about love and living
and being. She was right that he never let anyone inside. And he suddenly wished he hadn’t pushed her away.
Because he realized, as he sat there, that she wasn’t just a woman he’d met in a casino in Nice. She wasn’t just a woman he’d taken to a wedding, a woman he’d had incredible sex with.
She was the woman. The only woman who’d ever gotten to him on more than a superficial level. She was the one who filled his thoughts when he woke, his thoughts when he went to bed at night and his thoughts every moment in between.
She was the only woman he’d ever considered committing to, the only one he’d ever thought of marrying—even if his offer had been sullen and desperate and merely an attempt to keep her from leaving.
It hit him then that he was just like Jacob. That when he’d encountered something he couldn’t handle, he’d run away from it. Emotionally, he was a coward. He’d castigated Jacob for leaving, and yet he’d left, too. He’d left the only woman he’d ever loved because he feared what loving her would mean.
He hadn’t left her physically, but he’d pushed her away. Because he’d been determined not to fall in love with her, not to need her on an emotional level because needing meant vulnerability.
But the joke was on him because he did need her. Hell, he loved her! He’d been able to mask the emotional truth behind the physical, to convince himself that’s all it was, but the truth was shining down on him now with the force of a thousand brilliant suns.
He couldn’t hide from that kind of illumination. He couldn’t escape it, even if he wanted to. Jack shoved up from the booth and tossed a couple of notes on the table. He didn’t want to escape the truth. He wasn’t running away ever again.
New Orleans was far muggier than London had been. Cara hopped from the streetcar and walked the block to work. She’d only been home two weeks, but she’d managed to get a job in the casino. If Bobby had been planning to blacklist her, he must not have gotten around to it yet. She’d fully expected, when she’d applied, that she would never get a call back.
Instead, the manager had called her a few days later and asked when she could start. Tonight was her fifth night, and though it wasn’t as exciting as Nice had been, she was happy enough. She was through with adventures for the time being.
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