Her lip trembled. She’d said it out loud. Had she meant it? “I-”
“Do you want me to leave?”
His words stung, unintentional or not. Caroline told herself to hold her tongue but couldn’t help it. He deserved to be in as much agony as she was, maybe more. Things were getting hot. Too hot. Which meant it was time to call in the big guns. The callous devil had appeared before. Maybe she could make a repeat performance. And make it count.
“Hey, you’ve had plenty of practice when it comes to ditching me,” Caroline countered. “Why not try it again?”
The slump of his shoulders. The line of his lips. She’d finally done it. Torn him in two. He brought his head up, staring at her until she was finally forced to meet his gaze. His expression was unreadable but she knew enough to realize a very bad thing when she saw it.
“I know what you think of me,” he said. “What you’ve always thought of me. That I never loved you, that I used you for my own ends, that I never really changed for you. That I abandoned you that night in February. And maybe I don’t deserve you. But you sure as hell don’t deserve me either. I can’t do this anymore. Not with you.”
She had poked and poked and poked and he’d finally had enough. She shouldn’t have tested him. It had only been a matter of time before her words would take her past the point of no return, when she would cut him so deeply that he would tolerate her no further. When he rejected her because instead of holding on too tight she hadn’t held on at all. And he would leave and she would be alone, and there would be no one to help her because no one would want to.
Caroline stepped toward him. She could make it right. Keep herself from lashing out. Force that big stupid mouth of hers to stay shut. Apologize for being such a goddamn fucking bitch. “Jack-”
He stared at the photo in the frame, his fingers pressed so tightly to the Plexiglas that she was convinced it would crack. Clearly Natalie had overestimated its strength.
“You’re right,” he said. “This picture is a joke. It was a silly, sentimental gesture by a vapid, egotistical man. That happiness was a lie. So I’ll set you free from it, Caroline. Right now.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She’d really fucked up this time. Her life might have improved over the past few days, but his had almost certainly gotten worse. He’d reached his limit, unable to indulge her flirtation with martyrdom any longer. “Jack, wait. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t-”
“I was a fool,” he said softly. “I’m not enough for you. I’ll never be enough. I don’t know what you need from life but it’s obviously not me.”
Caroline grasped one of his wrists. He had to wait. He had to see. He had to believe there was something decent in her. Because there was. There had to be. “Don’t do this. Please. Let’s talk.”
“What can we talk about? There’s nothing left. You’ve made that abundantly clear. Many, many times over.” He slipped free of her grip and started walking toward the door. “You can have this picture if you want. Take it to the range. Shoot the hell out of it. Maybe you’ll find your peace that way.”
Her breath caught in her chest as he tossed the frame on the coffee table. “Please, Jack.” She beat him to the door and grabbed both of his hands. “Please stay.”
He shook her off. “I’m leaving, Caroline. A man can only take so much. And I’ve taken enough.”
Oh, God. There were tears in his eyes. Real, actual tears. What had she done?
She shook her head. No, he was upset. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay. If he wanted to leave he would have pushed past her already. “Where will you go?”
“I can sleep in my office tonight. I’ll figure the rest out later.”
“Will you come back?” she whispered.
He turned his head toward the door and closed his eyes. The silence was deafening.
Caroline took a deep breath, trying not to lose control. “I can’t – I don’t want you to go. I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry. I-”
Jack blinked, his eyes riveted to the door. “I thought I was prepared for this. But I’m not.”
Her apology meant nothing to him. It was only fair, since nothing she’d done had ever demonstrated that she meant it.
Stop him. Tell him. Do it now.
But the words stayed jammed in her throat.
You don’t deserve him. This is what happens when you fuck up. You lose everything. About time you learned.
He moved slowly. So slowly. His hand creeping ever closer to the doorknob. His forearm tensing as he started to turn it. His heavy sigh.
You can try to stop him. It won’t do any good. He’s already gone in every way that counts.
No. It couldn’t end this way. She had to try. Caroline’s tenuous, feeble attempt to maintain an even keel crumbled apart. She fell to her knees and grabbed the waistband of his pants. The tattered remains of her dignity fluttered away and danced off into the night.
“Please don’t leave me,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean it. I swear I didn’t. Please, Jack. Please don’t leave.” She threw her arms around him and started crying. “Please stay.”
It took a long time before she felt him move. Too long. He knelt down until they were face to face and pressed his forehead to hers. “You don’t need me. You’ll be fine without me. I can’t do anything else for you.”
She grabbed his hands. Did she look as crazy as she felt? Maybe she wasn’t making any sense. Maybe he was trying to get away as fast as he could because he knew she was too far gone. “You’re the only one who can help me,” she said softly. “You know you are.”
Jack pushed himself away from her. “I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I wish I was.” He stood up and reached for the door again. “I hope you find what you need, Caroline.”
She had no ideas left. No words to say. Her desperation could only manifest in action. She flung herself at his feet, grabbing the leg of his khakis and pulling him toward her. Maybe he’d finally kick her when she was down. It wasn’t like she hadn’t earned it.
If he left her nightmares would return. She wouldn’t be able to sleep. And she wouldn’t have him anymore. At all. Her tears dripped onto his dress shoe as she locked her elbows around his leg. After a few agonizingly long moments, she brought her eyes to his. Jack had taken his hand off the doorknob and was looking down at her in alarm.
“We can talk,” she said. “I won’t yell. Please don’t go.” She gripped his leg tighter. If she held on, he wouldn’t be able to leave without dragging her out the door with him. She just had to do her best not to let go. “You can’t – you have to stay.”
Jack knelt down and cupped her face in his hands, wiping away her tears. His breath was uneven. Caroline closed her eyes, her lip trembling as she threw her arms around him. She heard him sniffle. Maybe he would stay if she held on.
“I’ll be good,” she whispered. “I promise.”
He tangled his fingers in her hair and made a strangled noise. “Oh, sweetheart. You’ve always been good. Always. You still are. And you’re beautiful. Every inch of you. I mean it.”
She started crying again. “Please don’t leave me. I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t go.”
“I won’t. I swear I won’t. I don’t know why I just did that.” He pressed his palms to her cheeks. “You should never kneel before anyone,” he said. “Especially me. Don’t ever do that again. You’re so much better than that.”
Caroline tried to keep herself from hyperventilating. He could still walk out the door. Ditch her in the heat of the moment. She entwined her fingers in his shirt. “You said you were going to leave. You told me so.” She gulped. “You said – you had your hand on the doorknob. You-”
“I know what I said.” He stroked her face with an unsteady hand. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not leaving. I’m never leaving.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Look in my eyes,” Jack said. “Do you think I’m lying?”
They were fami
liar words. Words she should have recognized. Words she was forced to ignore. “I don’t know,” she said finally, and started crying again.
He cursed under his breath. “I should have never left you that night. Look at what I did to you.”
Caroline let out a weak whimper, trying not to break down completely. “I don’t want to be alone. Please don’t leave me again. I can do better.”
“I know you’re frightened. I know you’re fighting the darkness. But you’ve always been able to see the truth. I’m not leaving,” he repeated firmly. “I will never leave. And if we’re ever separated again, no matter the circumstances, I swear to God I will come back for you. I was a bastard for threatening to go. I didn’t mean it. Please calm down. You’re starting to scare me.”
She tugged at his hair, practically crawling onto his lap. “I’m only now starting to scare you?”
Jack let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Caroline Joan, you are going to be the end of me.”
She didn’t know what to say so she didn’t say anything. Maybe that was the key. If she shut up he’d stay with her. She could stay quiet. She could keep it all inside if it meant she wouldn’t lose him. She let out another sob and he squeezed her tighter.
“I’m right here with you,” he whispered. “Where I’m always going to be.”
“I need you,” she said shakily. “I need you here with me.”
He kissed her near her ear, cradling her head in his hands. “I know. And I’ll sit on this damn floor, all night or all week or the rest of our lives if that’s what it takes. I swear I’m not going to leave. You know why.”
The wall had come tumbling down and she was trapped in the rubble. He was telling the truth but for some reason it wasn’t enough. “I don’t-”
“Don’t say you don’t know,” Jack said. “Tell me why.”
Caroline stared at him, tears streaming down her face. He wouldn’t let her break. He’d take care of her. She could trust him. He would stay. He’d protect her. She didn’t know why she’d ever doubted it. “Because-” She gulped back another sob. “Because you love me.”
“I always have,” he whispered. “And I always will. Tell me why you won’t leave.”
“Jack-”
He pressed his lips to her temple. “You could have left this apartment the instant you got here. You know you could have. But you stayed. Why did you stay, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
“Yes, you do,” he said. “Please say it.”
Why was he forcing her to do this now? She couldn’t take much else. “I can’t.”
“You didn’t have the heart to leave. You know why you stayed. And you know I stayed here for exactly the same reason.”
He was still so good to her. After everything she’d done to him. “I don’t deserve you,” she said.
“You do. I love you. Don’t you doubt that for a minute. You never had any trouble saying it before. I need to hear it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear from you. Please.”
She started crying again, her face pressed against his neck. Why was it so hard for her to tell him what he needed to know?
“Please, Caroline,” Jack said. “You’re frightening the hell out of me and I don’t know any other way to make sure you’re not falling apart. Why are you still here?”
She dug her fingernails into his back. “Because I love you too.”
He rocked her back and forth on the floor. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. We’ve cried too much already.” Jack kissed her cheek again, slowly moving his lips toward her ear. “There aren’t any proper words for me to express how much I love you,” he said. “You don’t ever have to be afraid to tell me how you feel. You’re safe with me. You’ve always been safe here.”
“I can’t do this alone,” she said.
“And you won’t,” he assured her. “I’m with you every step of the way. As your partner and your husband. Because I want to be by your side through everything, not because I’m obligated. I’m here, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”
She wanted him to keep talking. To say more soothing things. To remind her why she’d never stopped believing in him. “Say that again,” Caroline whispered.
“Say what?”
She looked up at him. “Call me baby again.”
Jack smiled at her. “Anything you want. I love you, baby.”
Caroline pulled him closer, tugging at his shirt, weeping softly. “You’ve been so nice and I’ve been so rotten. You don’t deserve this. I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I want it to stop hurting,” she whispered. “It hurts so much sometimes.”
He kissed her forehead. “I know. I want to help you with it. And I feel very inadequate, sweetheart. I don’t know how to help you. I thought I could handle it. That my love would be enough. That all it would take would be my presence. That somehow I could whisk you into my arms and make everything better again. But I know that’s not possible.”
“I hate what I’ve become,” she said. “I hate how people say that you shouldn’t regret anything – because all of your life decisions have made you the person you are. But what if you don’t like who you’ve turned into?” She sniffled. “I hate what I’ve done to you. I hate what I’ve done to the people I love, to our friends, to our children. I’d go back and change it in a heartbeat if I could.”
“But we can’t,” he said softly. “We have to move forward from where we are.”
“I wish I could be the woman you need me to be. And I hate that all I’ve done is hurt you.” Caroline covered her eyes. “That night in the woods, I killed us both.”
Jack yanked her hand away. “Don’t say that. You can’t let yourself feel that way.”
She looked up at him. “It’s true. I ruined us. Especially you.”
He stroked her cheek. “You didn’t. You couldn’t if you tried.”
Except she pretty much had, for the past several months. “I don’t know why I keep doing the things I’ve been doing. I don’t know why I keep hurting you.”
“None of that matters. I’m sorry I had that lapse. I shouldn’t have even suggested I might leave. Not when I knew it would be the one thing that would scare you the most.” He let out a harsh breath. “I’m a goddamn asshole.”
“You’re not a miracle worker, Jack.” Caroline leaned into his chest. “And you’re not an asshole either. You never were.”
“I try not to be, with you,” Jack said. “But I came damn close to making a terrible mistake a few minutes ago.”
“Promise you won’t leave me again,” she whispered. “Even if I beg you to.”
“I promise. And I’ll keep telling you that again and again, if it’s what you need to hear. Because it’s true.”
Jack lifted her to her feet and they sat down on the couch, with her wrapped in his arms. Caroline had learned to dread the quiet, but now it seemed peaceful. Welcome, even. She snuggled into his chest and closed her eyes.
“Do you know how many times I turned around that night?” he said. “How many times I wondered if I’d done the right thing, if I should have overridden you, if I should have stayed and dealt with the consequences? But I got confused every time I doubled back, and it started snowing again and I couldn’t find you. And I knew-”
She pulled back to look at him. “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s completely my fault. Every step, every mile, every week, every month took me further away from you. And I knew I’d never see you again. I knew I’d signed your death warrant.” He turned away from her. “I may not be an asshole but I’m such a fucking coward.”
She caressed his cheek and he slowly pivoted to face her. His eyes were red. “Jack, stop.”
“I have to tell you,” he said. “You have to know. Because tonight when I saw you break down I thought, this is my fault. This is what I deserve for fucking you over like that. And you don’t deserve any of it. I have to li
ve with the fact that this is what happens when you throw away someone you love. You bore the brunt of my poor judgment. The one person I love more than anyone else. If you’re broken it’s because of me.” He took a shaky breath. “And I’m terrified that I can’t fix it.”
“Please don’t feel that way.”
“You think I don’t know what I did to you? That I’m the one who’s responsible for the way you are now?”
“You didn’t cause this,” Caroline whispered. “I made you do it.”
“I should have stayed,” he said.
“If you’d done that we’d both be dead.”
He shook his head. “If we’d been killed that night we would have been together. Or if we’d both gone to that prison we’d have had each other. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do and I wish I’d never done it. I may never be able to let that go.”
Caroline shivered. “It would have been a million times worse if we’d both been in that place.”
“I should have protected you,” Jack said softly. “Even if it meant dying.”
She hated thinking about The Fed. She’d done her best to block it out but felt the memories closing in again. “You don’t know what they would have done to you. What they would have done to me in order to hurt you. I couldn’t have borne it if they’d caused you harm. I have a hard enough time dealing with what happened. I don’t think I could take if it they’d wrecked you too. Or if they’d killed you. I can’t-”
Her nostrils were filled with the foul odor of The Fed and she was flooded with panic, chilled by the fear of how far they would have gone to try to make her talk if Jack had been there too. Caroline put her head in her lap and started pulling at her hair.
Jack knelt down in front of her and put his hands on her knees. “Breathe, sweetheart. Calm down. Clear your mind.” He tipped her chin until they were face to face. “Look at me,” he said. “Focus on where you are. You’re safe. No one can hurt you.”
Rhapsody (The Bellator Saga Book 5) Page 15