“There’s no way I’m doing this.” I was in shock.
I couldn’t actually believe that real people pulled this kind of underhanded, ignoble shit.
“You’ll do it.” He leaned in to me and there was a new hint of menace in his voice. “Or I tell Cooper the good doctor’s dirty secret.”
I stared at him, not hiding my revulsion.
He must have considered my silence agreement, however, because he gave me that smug smile, nodded his head, and turned on his heel.
I watched him walking away, feeling as if the world had suddenly ended.
In a way it had.
At least my new life in Hartwell.
With Cooper.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
When my sister died, a piece of my heart broke. When my parents refused to have anything to do with me after it, another piece snapped apart.
What was left of it shattered into a million little pieces because I suddenly knew what I had to do.
“Jess?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Bailey stood studying me, concerned.
“What did he want?”
She can’t know. She’ll tell Cooper.
Think. Think. Think!
I cleared my throat, trying to rid myself of any semblance of the agony that was pressing down on my chest and making it hard for me to breathe. “I . . . uh . . . I guess I should feel flattered, feel like one of you.”
“Why?” She stepped toward me. “What did that bastard say to you?”
“He thought somehow he would be able to convince me that Cooper should sell the bar.” I gave her a wry look as I moved toward her, calling on all my acting skills. “He gave some bullshit about Cooper being in financial trouble and said that I had to help him make the right decision.”
Bailey’s cheeks flushed red with anger. “That is bullshit. Cooper is doing fine.”
“I assumed, or he would have told me.” I let some of my pain leak through for the next part of my deception. “Anyway, even if he weren’t, Cooper and I are nowhere near a partnership. His bar has nothing to do with me.” I started walking back to the inn.
“What does that mean?” Bailey hurried to catch up to me.
“We just have a lot to talk about.”
“You mean the kids thing?”
“That and other stuff.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
I sighed, heavily, shakily, desperately holding on to my refusal to burst into body-shuddering sobs. “I’m not sure it is. That’s why I’ve been out of it all day.”
“Are you breaking up with him?” Bailey grabbed my wrist, looking horrified.
I shook my head. “I just . . . I just really need to talk to him, sort things out.”
She studied me carefully. “Jess, you look really upset and worried.”
I shrugged.
“Okay.” She squeezed my wrist. “I’ll be a pal and be on call tonight so that you can talk to Cooper after he closes up the bar.”
My stomach flipped, and not in a good way, as I imagined that very thing. “Thank you.”
“It will all be okay.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “Communication is the key.”
I felt sick.
“Right,” I muttered.
My heart was pounding so fast I was sure I could see my racing heart beat through my shirt.
And I felt like I was going to be sick.
Shivers moved through me and my teeth were chattering. I wrapped my arms around my body, feeling cold even though it wasn’t all that cool on the boardwalk.
If I didn’t make a move soon I’d miss Cooper.
I already miss Cooper.
God, I couldn’t catch my breath.
The front door to the bar suddenly opened and Cooper’s head popped around it. “Hey,” he called to me, “what are you doing out here?”
My feet started moving toward him as if of their own volition since my brain wanted me to run in the opposite direction. Or maybe that was my heart.
“Hey,” I said, but it sounded croaky. He stepped aside to let me in and I muttered my thanks.
“I was about to leave,” he said as he started closing all his blinds.
“Yeah.”
“You here to talk about why you’ve been avoiding me for the past few days?”
He had his back to me.
It would be so much easier to say it to his back.
Don’t you dare. You are not a coward.
I snorted.
Yes, you are.
“What’s funny?” Cooper said as he finished up and walked back over to me. He assessed me as he stopped at a table, leaning on it. He crossed his arms over his chest and one ankle over the other and just stared at me.
Clearly he was already pissed at me for avoiding him.
I knew because Cooper touched me all the time.
It made me feel cherished.
And I hated when he didn’t touch me.
I blinked back the sting of tears, but Cooper caught sight of the shine in my eyes and I saw him visibly tense. “What’s going on, Doc?”
As I drew in a breath, my chest shuddered and I exhaled shakily. So shakily he heard it.
“Okay, I’m worried now.” He stood up straight, coming for me.
I raised a hand to ward him off. “Don’t.”
Cooper stopped. “Jessica?”
I flinched. “I . . . Oh, God.” I pressed a hand to my forehead, feeling like I was going to be sick right there.
“If you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on I’m coming over there.”
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Believe me, after I say what I have to say you won’t want to.”
Silence fell fast and thick between us and then he saw something in my eyes.
“Jesus,” he choked out, sounding winded, like he’d just been punched in the gut. “Are you breaking up with me?”
I covered my mouth with my hand, my skin clammy. The tears I’d been trying to hold back spilled down my cheeks as I nodded.
His face hardened. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Why?” he bit out.
“I’m . . . I’m not happy here,” I lied.
“Bullshit!”
I flinched again at his tone, and my whole body locked with tension as he suddenly strode over to me. He didn’t touch me, although he looked like he wanted to wring my neck. “It’s not,” I lied.
“It’s a fucking lie. For once, Jessica, tell me the truth.”
I shook my head, the tears coming fast, too fast to keep up with.
Cooper glowered at me. “Look at you. Your whole body is telling me you’re lying, so fucking tell me the truth!”
I couldn’t. Literally. My throat was choked with sobs that wanted to break out.
“You owe me,” he said, his voice lowered, so deep and thick with his own emotion that it made me cry harder. “You owe me that much.”
At my continued silence he gripped my arms and pulled me close, his lips just a whisper from mine. Everything he felt for me shone in his eyes and I’d never felt such a strange mix of exultation and agony in my life. “You told me,” he whispered. “You told me when we met that the reason you became a doctor was so you could leave this life saying, ‘I was here,’ because someone out there that you’d helped would never forget you . . . and you’d made your mark on the world. Well”—his grip on me tightened to painful as he leaned his forehead against mine—“Jess, you can rest easy . . . because you’ve made your mark. You made your mark on me. No matter what happens between us now or in the future, I will never forget you. You’re inside me. Always will be.” He pulled back just enough so I could see his love for me, open, beautiful, and so incredibly heartbreaking that the sobs I’d been holding in burst out. “So you owe me.”<
br />
Needing to feel him, needing him to feel how I felt in return, even if I couldn’t say it, I buried my face in his chest, my sobs muffled against his shirt as I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight.
He held me just as tight. No hesitation.
I memorized the moment. The feel of his hard, strong body against mine, the musky, earthy scent that would forever make me think of him and what it was like to hear him whisper my name. I tried to trap the sound in my mind, praying that time would never take it from me.
“You’re still leaving me,” he choked out.
I sobbed harder.
He gently but firmly pushed me away.
I thought my heart couldn’t break any more but then the look on his face. The pain. All those shattered places in my heart, they shattered some more.
“Tell me why.”
I swiped at my tears, trying to get a hold of myself. He was right. I owed him that much. “I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I can’t tell you. That’s the point. You’ll never really know me. I’d just be another Dana, Cooper. Just another woman in your bed that you don’t really know.”
This time it was his turn to flinch.
“I’m sorry.”
Anger hardened his expression. “That’s fucking up to you, Jess. You could let me know you. What happened in your past? Does it have to do with your family? Your sister?”
Just like that my blood went cold, and I started to tremble harder. My tears dried up, and I wrapped my arms around my body in an attempt to control the shaking.
“It is,” he said. “Every time I mention them you change.”
And that was why I was leaving.
I couldn’t physically or emotionally bring myself to tell him the truth. I’d never been able to unburden myself with anyone.
Not even him.
If he knew the truth . . . well . . . he’d never look at me the same way again—my black-and-white kind of guy.
It was my own fault.
I’d seen it coming weeks before.
But I just couldn’t resist getting close to him and exploring the connection between us.
Now . . . now I’d hurt us both.
Not so smart for a smart girl.
Finally Cooper turned away, unable to look at me. “I should have walked out that last night you had a nightmare. I should have kept going.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You begged me to stay.”
“It was wrong of me.”
He looked back at me. “What the hell are you hiding?”
I dropped my gaze. “I should go.”
He was silent for what seemed like forever and then he said, his voice hard, “You go now, you don’t ever come back.”
His warning moved through me and chilled my body to ice inch by inch.
And, like the coward I knew I was, I didn’t look at him again as I hurried from the bar. As soon as the door slammed shut behind me, I ran.
I ran and ran until the boards came to an end and there was nowhere else to run.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jessica
Only an idiot would have stayed in Hartwell.
I was a damn idiot.
Bailey hadn’t thrown me out. She’d been confused and upset by my breakup with Cooper and hurt when I refused to tell her why, but she hadn’t thrown me out. Instead I quit and packed my things.
Now she was mad at me.
I watched the porch door slam behind her as I stared up at the inn from the boards, my suitcase by my side.
I should leave.
I knew it.
But tucked into my pocket were Sarah’s letters to George, and George was apparently due back in town at the end of the week.
What the hell I was going to do until then I had no clue.
I’d have to find somewhere cheap to stay because cash flow was kind of a problem.
And it turned out news traveled really fast.
Walking down the boardwalk, suitcase in hand, trying to figure out what to do, I saw Iris opening up Antonio’s and I waved to her.
She glowered at me, stuck her chin in the air, and turned her back on me.
Hurt, I almost stumbled over my own feet.
“What did you do?”
I jerked my head around from Iris to find Vaughn in my path. He kept doing that. Appearing out of nowhere.
“Huh?”
“Well, even I get a hello out of Iris.” He smirked at me. “What did you do?”
“Cooper and I broke up last night.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re still here? Everyone will know by tonight.”
“I . . . I can’t leave just yet.” My mouth trembled as I tried to hold in my tears. I’d already cried more than I knew I had in me. Enough was enough. I cleared my throat. “I have some business with George Beckwith. As soon as he gets here, that gets done and I’ll be gone.” To what and where . . . I had no idea.
Vaughn scrutinized me for a moment and then his eyes dropped to my suitcase. He frowned. “Miss Hartwell kicked you out?”
I heard the disbelief in his voice. “No. I left. She’s pretty mad at me right now.”
He looked at me again. “Where are you planning on staying?”
It occurred to me that Vaughn probably had a good idea about local rates. “Do you know where the nicest but cheapest place is?”
He made a face. “Ouch, no time for pride, huh?”
“If you’re going to be an asshole, get out of my way.”
Vaughn chuckled. “I’m not being an asshole. I’ve just . . . I’ve been there.”
“Oh, I’m sure with all of your money, you’ve been there. Yeah, I can see that.”
He tsked me. “And here I’m trying to help.”
“By making digs at me about my lack of pride?”
“No.” He stepped closer to me, his eyes losing some of their usual glacial superiority. “You can stay at my place.”
I shook my head. “I’m not staying on the boardwalk.” I didn’t want to chance bumping into Cooper.
“My place, not my hotel. And my place isn’t on the boardwalk. It’s on the outskirts of town.”
Confused by his generous offer, I said suspiciously, “Why?”
“I spend most of my nights in my suite at the hotel. My house is just lying empty.”
“But why? Why are you helping me?”
My question made him look away. He stared out at the water. “Let’s just say I know what it’s like to be the heartbreaker, the villain.”
I sucked in a breath at the label. “How do you know I broke up with Cooper; that it wasn’t him who did the heartbreaking?”
Finally Vaughn looked back at me. The shrewdness in his eyes had never unsettled me more. “Because any fool can see he’s in love with you.”
I winced.
“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have let me go.”
“When the woman you love lets you into her bed, you don’t let her go unless she wants to leave.”
I surveyed him, happy to be distracted from my own heart for a second. “Speaking from experience?”
“Didn’t I just say I was the heartbreaker?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Do you want a free place to stay or not?”
I thought about it. It would be incredibly helpful not to have to pay for accommodation. Plus, he’d said his house was on the outskirts. It sounded far enough away from town to be perfect. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Where is your car?”
My car.
Right.
“Oh. Um . . . in Bailey’s parking lot.”
“So you’re wandering on the boardwalk, why?”
Feeling sh
eepish, I shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Something akin to concern flickered over Vaughn’s features. “You sure you’re up for driving?”
“Yes.” I nodded quickly. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
“Well, a bigger lie you’ve never told,” he said dryly and then gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Meet me in my hotel parking lot. You can follow me out to the house.”
“Okay.”
He gave me a sharp nod and then turned, swiftly striding away.
“Vaughn!”
He stilled, shooting me a look over his shoulder.
I swallowed past a new lump of emotion in my throat. “Thank you.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Vaughn Tremaine looked uncomfortable with my thanks. He made no reply and instead just walked away.
Some of my worries eased, I turned around to head back down the boardwalk to my car. Iris was standing in her doorway, arms crossed over her chest, frowning at me.
She was probably wondering what I was doing talking to Vaughn.
I didn’t attempt to wave again, knowing it wouldn’t be welcome.
Instead, I dropped my gaze and hurried away from her.
The sight of Emery standing on Vaughn’s porch gave me the first moments of lightness I’d felt in a few days.
I had not been surprised to find that Vaughn’s home was on an isolated patch of land right on the waterfront. It was down the coast from the boardwalk, out of sight, and private. Architecturally it was like most homes in Hartwell but on a larger scale. White cladding, wraparound porches on the first and second floors, pretty garden. But inside it was anything but traditional.
It had a huge chef’s kitchen with high-end appliances, glossy floors, and contemporary furniture, all black, chrome, and white with splashes of color in the artwork and minimal soft furnishings.
It was beautiful but cold.
It was a bachelor’s house.
But it was my safe haven until George got into town.
No one had called. And only Emery had texted me to see if I was okay. Glad for a friendly face, I’d asked her to come out to Vaughn’s to see me.
“You came,” I said, opening the door for her.
“Of course.” She gave me that quiet smile of hers and walked in, her gaze moving around the open-plan space. “Wow.”
The One Real Thing (Hart's Boardwalk) Page 30