The overwhelming urge Becca felt to seek comfort in Jake’s arms was another piece of irony she could do without. She wanted one of those briefly gruff hugs he sucked at. She wanted him to adjust the skewed skirt of her dress and send her back into the party. She wanted to grasp at the feeling of rightness that came simply from knowing he was near.
And that was why you didn’t put your heart in a man’s keeping, why you held fast to your promise not to grow attached. He was the one who’d hurt her, yet she’d fall into his arms if he walked around that corner right now.
He didn’t walk around that corner. But someone else did.
“It’s you.” Dana noticed her the same time she noticed him, though his surprise was much more palpable than hers. Backing away, his hands up, he said, “Don’t attack me. I was on my way out.”
“You’re still here.”
“Only because Jake told me to stay. He was very persuasive.”
Of course he was. Fixing Becca had been his duty. You didn’t get between a Montgomery and duty.
“I think it’s probably okay for you to go now,” Becca crossed her arms and leaned on the wall to show him she meant no harm. “You’ve served your purpose. No one here will miss you.”
Dana paused, looking warily at the open hallway. He reminded her of a dog trying to sneak past a particularly nasty housecat. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know what she was going to do.”
The familiar snag of loss moved through Becca. Unlike the first time she’d confronted Dana, the sensation didn’t catch on her insides. It moved through and lodged in her heart—a place she knew it would always be. No amount of vengeance against this man would change that, and she wasn’t sure she would get rid of that ache even if she could. It was part of her now, a reminder of Sara and how far she’d come in her grief.
“It wasn’t her fault either.”
“And it’s not like my life is a cakewalk now. You know how many women want to date the guy whose last girlfriend killed herself?”
She pushed herself off the wall, almost laughing when he visibly recoiled. Whatever else Jake had done here tonight, he’d certainly put the fear of the devil in this man. “I think it was better when you didn’t talk. Come on, I’ll walk you out. Let’s get your coat.”
Dana backed away even farther, her overture of a truce proving too much for his tiny, shriveled heart to contemplate. “What are you going to do to it?”
“Douse it in gasoline and then force you into it before I light a match. You can be the after-dinner fireworks show.” She rolled her eyes and walked away, sure he’d follow. Getting help in escaping this place wasn’t an offer you turned down. She was still looking for her own exit.
Since she had an actual destination this time, it didn’t take long to lead Dana to the first-floor study, where a good-looking young man—perfect for a pool boy—had set up a coat check.
“Please get this man his coat. He won’t be returning.” There were hundreds of jackets and wraps for the boy to push through, so she and Dana had a few minutes to themselves. Although she willed herself to keep her mouth shut, to not prod at subjects best left unaired, she couldn’t help herself. “What did Jake say to get you to come out here, anyway? I’d have thought this was the last place you’d willingly show your face.”
“He didn’t say anything. I got an invitation in the mail a few weeks ago.” He paused long enough to take his coat and slip the boy a bill. “I was sure he did it just to scare me—to show he had the upper hand. I figured I’d call him on it.”
Another snag made its way into her insides, but this time, it stopped in her gut. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s a little marriage advice from me to you. Always call Jake Montgomery on a bluff. Nine times out of ten, the bastard’s got nothing in his hand, but few people are brave enough to throw their chips in to find out.”
“You got an invitation? That’s it?” Becca tactfully ignored the bastard reference. Her mind was much more taken up with the first part of Dana’s disclosure. From the day the words “engagement” and “party” had first been uttered, her mother had guarded the task of sending out the invitations as if she was the head of security at Fort Knox. Becca hadn’t even been allowed to look at the prototype until they were already sent out. “Was it postmarked in New York?”
“I don’t know. Yes? What difference does it make?”
It made a difference. It made all the difference in the world. “So you never talked to Jake about coming? Never heard from him since that first day?”
“No, I haven’t,” he said with a look of loathing. “And believe me, I’d like to keep things that way. I might be the asshole who dumped a girl the night she committed suicide, but this whole family is fucking crazy.”
Those were all the parting words she got from him. Without waiting for the fucking crazy to make itself known again, he pulled his keys from out of his pocket and fled.
“Are you okay?” the coat check boy asked. She hadn’t realized until he spoke that she’d been standing there, unmoving, for several minutes. “Should I get someone?”
“No.” Becca’s voice sounded miles away to her own ears. “No, I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” he suggested. “You look pale. I have like twenty furs back here if you’re cold.”
She almost laughed at the absurdity of it, of someone telling her she was pale and weak, that her passivity was a cause for concern. So much of her life had been spent flying out in passion—anger and excitement, pain and euphoria—that the idea of her falling into a decline now, of all times, was preposterous.
What am I doing, just standing here? Rebecca Clare was not a woman to sit idly by while life happened to her. She wasn’t a woman to let the pain of loss define her. And most of all, she wasn’t a woman to run away and curl up with her pride when she realized she’d wronged the man she loved.
She had to find Jake. She had to find Jake and call him on the bluff of walking away.
* * *
“I should have let you explain.” Becca found him on the roof. It had taken over an hour of frantic searching before Ryan pointed her in the direction of the widow’s walk at the very top of the house. “You didn’t invite Dana here tonight, did you?”
He didn’t turn to acknowledge her. Silhouetted against the night sky, his dark figure could have been that of any man from any era, a Montgomery from over a hundred years ago. But she knew the long, lean lines of his bearing as though they were written in her hand. That was why she’d never been able to make much sense of her own palm readings before. It was him.
Cold but unwilling to let that slow her down, she wrapped her arms around her and moved forward. “Jake, I’m sorry. Would you believe me if I said I overreacted?”
“Everyone is still here,” he said, ignoring her apology and gesturing at the lights below. Laughter rose up through the still night sky, the glittering gowns and clinking of glasses signaling how well the party was going. “You didn’t send them home.”
“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to,” she said. “Is it time? Did you want me to have my big diva moment and end things?”
He finally turned, such a stark expression on his face she immediately ran forward to wrap her arms around his waist. He didn’t stop her, but he didn’t return the embrace either.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, this time into his lapel. “I talked to Dana before he left. I know it was just a misunderstanding. My mom probably sent the invitation, thinking he was a friend of yours.”
Jake gently pushed her away. With a sigh, he shrugged himself out of his jacket and dropped it over her shoulders. “It’s too cold out here for you to stand around in that dress.”
“Still taking care of me?” she asked, her voice wobbly. The jacket smelled so much like him, sandalwood and rose, its warmth
moving straight from his body into her own.
“Becca—” His voice broke off, and he gripped the railing of the walk. “Do you have any idea how you made me feel down there? This is our engagement party. Our big night.”
“I’m aware of that. But I saw Dana and panicked. How many times can I tell you how sorry I am?”
“None. A hundred. It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I know I’m not the most emotionally expressive man, but I thought you knew me better than that. I thought you, of all people, believed in me enough to know I’d never do something to hurt you.”
“I do believe in you.”
“No. You don’t.” His lips firmed into a line. “You thought I’d bring your worst enemy—a man both of us abhor—to confront you without even warning you first. You thought I’d subject you to that kind of pain and humiliation on what was supposed to be our night together.”
What could she say? She had thought he’d done that. She was half afraid he might do it again someday.
He wasn’t done. “That day at your apartment, the day we made love, you told me you trusted me. You told me that any power I have over you is there because you allow it.”
She nodded, remembering.
“But you lied,” he said starkly. “You don’t trust me. You don’t trust me at all.”
“Of course I do, Jake. All I’ve ever done is trust you. From the day I let you take me home from the club, I’ve put myself in your hands.”
“No. You haven’t. Not completely. You’ve allowed me to join you on your workouts and sleep in your bed at night and bring you home to my family, but there’s a part of you that’s been held back this entire time. There’s a part of you I can’t get near.”
And then he did it again. He watched. He waited. He pulled out the full Virgo and set it in the dead space between them.
“What are you afraid of?” he asked after what felt like an eternity. A long, cold eternity—one not even the devil could warm up. “What is it that you think I’m going to do to you?”
She felt tears welling up in her eyes. Not because he spoke harshly or because he was wrong, but because he was kind and he was right. And he deserved better.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve defined myself by my ability to take the blows life deals me.” She spoke slowly, carefully, aware she’d only have one chance to say this. “The media, my family, Sara—all of it. I don’t necessarily make the right choices, but I always own my mistakes.”
“I know. I love that about you.”
Oh, God. He couldn’t say things like that or she’d never finish. “But I’m not unbreakable, Jake. I have limits.” She’d been so good at pretending she could survive anything that she’d forgotten she had vulnerabilities too. And those vulnerabilities were a big part of her. The biggest part of her. “No matter how much I might want to be with you, you’ll always be a Virgo. No—don’t get mad. I don’t mean it in a negative sense. I just mean that you’ll always want to have everything perfectly lined up. You’ll always try to have everything your way.”
“I can do better. I can let some things go.”
“But can I?” She wasn’t so sure. “I think I’ll always see myself as a burden you picked up along the way. A wrinkled shirt. A disorganized closet.”
“Becca...”
She drew in a shuddering breath. She still had more to say. “And maybe I could handle that. Maybe that would be enough. But I’m not so sure I can just tie my happiness to yours and let it go. I can’t become the kind of woman who would rather take her own life than face a day without you.”
Jake understood in a flash of his brilliantly blue eyes. He pulled Becca close, crushing her, crushing both their outfits, crushing her heart. “You won’t. Of course you won’t. I won’t let you.”
“What if it’s not up to you?” she asked, her voice muffled by the press of his chest and her mounting tears. “As much as it will pain you to hear it, you don’t control the universe. What if you’re not there when it happens?”
“I won’t let it happen because I’m never going to leave you. And because you’re a survivor.” He pulled back and lifted her chin, the move that was so condescending and delicious and totally him. “I know I’m overbearing and overprotective. I know that marrying into my family is like becoming part of a cult. But the good news is that they like you a hell of a lot more than they like me. You’re not Sara, Becca. You’re not alone. You’re strong. You’re beautiful. And you’re fantastic.”
She choked on a watery sob and examined his shirtfront, stained from her makeup and disheveled from her touch. She pointed at it with a frown. “You’re a mess. You always will be if you keep me around, you know. There will always be scandals and public breakdowns and cameras there to catch them. There will always be wrinkles. You hate wrinkles.”
“Yes, but I love you more,” he said. “I might not have always been open to the idea of such a disordered existence, but I can’t imagine anything else now. You may not be aware of it, but when you put your life and your struggles in my keeping, I received an unexpected, heavy, glorious gift. I know you’ve been through a lot this year. I know you may never get over what happened to Sara, and that you’ll have just as many bad nights as good. And I know that all of this—the joy and the despair, the process of rebuilding your life—will take place in the spotlight. All I’m asking for is a chance to share the spotlight with you.”
A sob filled her throat. He did love her. He did mean to see this through. He was asking her to give him the power to hurt her, and she couldn’t think of anything else in the universe she’d rather do.
“Trust me with your happiness, Becca. Please. Let me be there to catch you when you fall. And be there to catch me when I do.”
The sob escaped, and she didn’t wait for him to lift his arms this time. She fell into him, colliding with the warmth of his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist, determined never to let go. “I’m sorry for not believing in you. I’m sorry for not believing in myself. After everything I built up inside my head about tonight, I saw Dana and thought—”
“Yes?”
“I thought it was the end. I thought you were trying to figure out a way to fix me so you could move on. I thought all my fears were coming true.”
“Goddammit. Don’t you know by now? I don’t want to move on from you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Without waiting for her reply, he reached in his pocket and extracted the ring. Even under the half-moon sky, it was sparkling, radiant, protected by the diamonds she couldn’t ask Piers to remove. “Won’t you please marry me?”
His proposal—long awaited, so anticipated—was terse almost to the point of nonexistence, not even remotely as romantic as traffic stopped on a bridge.
It was perfect.
“Yes!” she screamed out and grabbed him, more forcefully than she intended. He winced and backed away, his ribs not quite up to their full capabilities yet. “I’m sorry. I’ll be gentler next time.”
“It’s okay,” he said, looking at her with so much warmth she thought she might go up in flames right there. “You can’t hurt me. In fact, you’re welcome to try as often as you like.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you. I want to take care of you. I want to support you in the manner to which you are accustomed and bind your wounds and read your tea leaves and help you calm down when you’re about to attack harmless cameramen in trees. You’re my tiger, Tiger.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Is that really the one we’re sticking with?”
“Yep.”
“You know that tigers bite, right?” He wrapped an arm around her waist, his hand slipping under the jacket and into the cutaway panel on the side.
“Go right ahead.”
His hand skimmed over her stomach, his fingers moving over the taut lines of he
r belly and heading inexorably southward. “And they growl.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“No, Becca.” He brought his lips to hers in a warm kiss, promising a lifetime of such embraces. “I’m looking forward to it—and to spending the rest of our lives getting into messes together.”
Epilogue
“I swear to God, if you bring that shrimp scampi anywhere near me right now, I’m jumping overboard.”
“You have to eat, Becca. I promised Max I’d get three square meals in you every day. Even though he’s busy getting your stupid Better than Therapy Boot Camp up and running, I don’t care to cross him right now. That man needs to get back together with his girlfriend. Soon.”
She glared at him from where she lay curled on the deck, the spray of the ocean on her face doing little to ease the overwhelming nausea she’d known would hit her. She hadn’t been kidding about being prone to seasickness. Even looking at pictures of boats made her dizzy. “I told you this was a bad idea. There’s no way I’m making it to Nice. Drop me off somewhere on the Amalfi Coast. I’ll swim the rest of the way.”
Jake laughed, and she was pretty sure she’d never heard a more cruel sound. This wasn’t funny. She was dying.
“I’m not abandoning my wife in Italy because she can’t find her sea legs.”
He set down the plate of food he’d been bringing her—downwind, thank God—and settled on the boards next to her. Sara’s Voyage, as the yacht had been re-christened before they’d set sail, was a gorgeous expanse of hardwood and complicated rigging. She hated it almost as much as she loved it.
It was kind of like being married to Jake Montgomery, now that she thought about it.
“Here.” He lifted her head and settled it in his lap, his pants wrinkled and his shirt askew. He was wrinkled all the time now. That part she didn’t hate so much. “I brought you something.”
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