by Maise, Ella
He took a step closer and I released my hold on his wrists. “Who is talking about closing? You have employees—they can take care of it. If not, we’ll hire someone else to help. Are you even listening to what I’m saying? We don’t know what’s going on yet, Rose. Let’s see what they say tomorrow and we’ll start thinking about the coffee shop then.”
My breath hitched as I managed a small nod with his hands on my cheeks. I must’ve looked like a mess, and I knew I felt like one. I tried my best to stop being stupid and listen to him, but my heart was clenching and I was starting to have trouble breathing. I forced myself to take a deep breath as Jack tilted my head back so he could look into my eyes.
“You’re not alone in this. I’m right here, Rose. We’ll figure it out together. We have each other now.”
Cue more tears, because this Jack was too close to the dream Jack. As a result, I couldn’t help but lean forward and rest my forehead on his chest again. His hands fell from my face even as I burrowed closer, deeper into him. Both my arms were flat against his chest yet his arms stayed limp at his sides. I didn’t say anything, just stood there and breathed in his scent, and for a good long while, at that. As my breathing slowly returned to normal, he didn’t say anything either.
I closed my eyes tight. If he didn’t wrap his arms around me in the next few seconds, I’d have to pull back and walk away from him, otherwise it was going to be too awkward. Then I felt his arms embrace me.
“I’m right here, Rose,” he whispered, his rough voice washing over me like a caress that fired something up inside me. “I might not be what you wanted or needed, but you got me anyway. I’m right here.”
There was a tightness in my chest when I answered him. “You said that, in the beginning, said you weren’t good at this kind of stuff. You’re doing wonderful, Jack.” I managed to push myself even closer to him as his arms tightened around me.
Maybe I would start to be greedy with this man.
I didn’t know how long we stood like that, right in the middle of his office, but when there was a soft knock on the door, I reluctantly stepped back and tried my best to wipe under my eyes. I could only imagine what I must look like. I glanced at my fingers and held back a groan when I saw the black smudges of what was left of my mascara.
Jack had turned halfway to glance at the newcomer so he couldn’t see me as I reached for a Kleenex and furiously started wiping at my face. The damage was done and he’d already seen the worst, but that didn’t mean he had to keep looking at it.
When I heard Samantha’s voice asking if everything was all right, I quietly groaned, still hiding behind Jack’s big frame.
“Yes. Do you need something?” Jack asked, his tone much more businesslike.
“No, I saw Rose earlier and was concern—”
“Thank you, Samantha, but I’d like to be alone with my wife if there is nothing else you need.”
I paused the wiping as a heavy silence followed his words.
“Of course,” she said tightly, and then the door gently closed.
I hurried and pushed the Kleenex into the pocket of my jeans before Jack could face me again.
“Feeling better?” he asked, eyes moving across my face. I hoped I was at least a normal shade of human.
“Mhmm.”
When he closed the distance between us with an unexpected smile on his face, I was surprised.
“Why did you really come here, Rose?” he asked, pushing my hair away from my ruined face. “Just to tell me you weren’t gonna be able to attend events with me? Just because you knew I wouldn’t let you break down?”
I stood still as he reached up and his thumb started a gentle stroke on my cheekbone, my skin breaking out in goose bumps.
I couldn’t answer a question I didn’t have a real answer to. “Don’t smile at me. Now is not the right time. I don’t want to lose my count,” I said instead, and he chuckled.
He actually chuckled—a low, deep, manly chuckle that caused a slow shiver to run up my spine when coupled with his touch.
“You look awful,” he said in a low voice, eyes boring into mine.
I repeated the same answer I had given him the first time he had paid me that specific compliment. “Thank you for noticing. As you know, I always try my best.”
With his left hand, he brushed my hair back again and pushed it behind my ear. When he lowered his head and pressed a kiss on my forehead over my bangs, I stilled. “Okay, Rose,” he murmured. “Okay.”
As I was still trying to process the aftermath of the low and deep sound of that chuckle and then the kiss, my eyes slowly widened as he leaned down farther and pressed a soft kiss on my tear-wet lips. My eyes closed on their own and my lips parted—partly in shock, partly because the response was automatic. He didn’t kiss me like he had the night before, didn’t leave me feeling hungry for more, but as soon as he had the opportunity, he molded our lips together and kissed me longer, gentle and soft. I tilted my head up, my heart hammering in my chest, and returned his slow kiss. As we kept going and the kiss became more than just gentle, bit by bit, I started to rise up on my toes to deepen it.
My hands found his wrists again because I needed to feel anchored to something—that something being him, specifically. When I felt him pull away, I reluctantly pried my hands off. Biting down on my lips, I swallowed down a protest and, with a little trouble, managed to flutter my eyes open.
“Is someone watching?” The question was nothing more than a whisper falling from my lips.
Eyes intently on mine, he shook his head.
I swallowed, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer to the question I was about to ask. “Then why—”
“Are you free for dinner tonight?”
“What?” I asked, frowning up at him, the fog his kiss had caused slowly dissipating. I was having just a little trouble following, that was all.
“You never answered my text.”
His… Oh.
“We got busy and then I…Jack, I don’t think I’d be good company tonight. Is it an important dinner?”
“It’d be just the two of us.”
“It’s not a…work dinner?”
“No.”
“Then I’d rather get some takeout as usual or actually cook something at your apartment as a thank you for dealing with me.”
“Our apartment. Stop calling it mine. And I’d like to take you out, Rose. We’ve done takeout enough. If you’re not feeling up to it tonight, tomorrow then?”
My brows drew together as I tried to understand what he was saying. “You…uh, you don’t mean as in a date, right?” I laughed nervously, searching pretty hard for an answer in his eyes and maybe hoping he said he did mean it that way.
He gave me his fifth smile and I got distracted.
“It can be called a date. It’s dinner. You can use any words you like.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what to say or what to think. Frozen in place, I just kept staring up at him. “I mean…” I mumbled, taking a step back. “Like a real-life date?”
He looked at me for a long beat, and I realized the smile on his face had disappeared. His expression was back to being unreadable. “If I read things wrong and you’re not interested…”
“No. No. No.” I was. I really, really was. “I just… Do you think that would be a good idea?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Who cares whether it’s a good idea or not?” That was not an answer I expected to hear from a guy like Jack. “It’s dinner, Rose. Say yes. Takeout or a restaurant, nothing much changes. We can just try, and if you think—”
“Okay,” I blurted out before he could say more.
“Okay?”
I gave him a nod. “Yeah. Yes. Okay.”
He opened his mouth, but my nose had had enough of a break. I instantly tilted my head back, eyes on the ceiling, and my hand latched onto his arm. “Jack—Jack! It’s coming again. Kleenex!”
In less than three seconds, I had another one in my hands.
&n
bsp; “Thank you.”
“Come on. I’m taking you home.”
“What? No. I need to go back to work and forget about all of this until tomorrow.”
He gave me a sharp look, which I could only see out of the corner of my eye as I kept my head tilted up.
“I mean the leak, not…not everything else.”
His gaze only softened a fraction. “Let me take you home, Rose.”
As sweet as that sounded, I couldn’t just sit at the apartment by myself with nothing to do. “I can’t. I need to work, Jack. I can’t sit around and obsess about what the doctor will say tomorrow.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to drop me off. I’ll take a cab—an Uber. It’ll be fine.”
Ignoring me, he walked over to his desk, closed the lid of his laptop, and picked up his phone. As I watched him, he made his way back to me and, to my surprise and delight, reached for my hand. I had to tighten my fingers around his to keep up with his strides before we stopped in front of Cynthia’s desk.
“I’m heading out. I’ll still take calls, but I won’t be here for the four PM client. Let’s try to reschedule that, or if he can, have him meet me at Around the Corner. You know the address. I’ll be going with Rose to the ENT specialist at eleven tomorrow morning, so try to get in touch with Fred and have him take care of whatever we have going on. Better yet, I’ll call you when I’m at the shop and we’ll reschedule things.”
Cynthia’s eyes moved from me to Jack and back again and then to our joined hands.
“Everything okay?”
He glanced down at me. “Yes. Everything is good now.”
Everything did feel good. Apart from my nose.
While we were standing at the very back of the elevator, heading down to the lobby with five other people, he called Ray to tell him to bring the car to the front of the building. When he pocketed his phone, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
Leaning against him, I tried to be as quiet as I possibly could and asked, “Jack?”
His hand gave mine a squeeze, which was his version of I’m listening, I supposed. My heart rate picking up, I whispered, “That just happened, right? You want to…you want us to date? As in be boyfriend and girlfriend?”
He gave me a long look. “More like husband and wife, don’t you think?”
Chapter Seventeen
Jack
The remnants of whatever guilt I was still holding on to that seemed to keep me back or make me hesitate when it came to Rose had disappeared overnight. I didn’t care about anything I’d done to be with her. I knew the truth, and that was enough.
She was sitting next to me on the spacious couch, leaning over a small cup she was holding in her hand. She didn’t want me to see her like this, but I wasn’t budging from her side no matter what she said. So, as a result of that, I was watching drops of a clear liquid—which was quite possibly brain or spinal cord fluid—very, very slowly drop into the cup. It’d already been twenty minutes since the nurse had brought us in there, and we still had at least another two inches to fill before it reached the point where it’d be enough for them to test the sample.
“If I tap the other side of my nose it comes out faster.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my thighs, watching her nose intently as her eyes flitted to me and then back to her slowly filling cup. I was so consumed with my thoughts that I didn’t understand what she had meant, so I didn’t think to stop her until I saw what she was doing. When I realized she could be harming herself, I caught her left hand before she could start tapping on her nose again.
“Stop doing that.”
She heaved a long sigh and leaned back, her right hand, which was holding the cup, slightly trembling, her left one tightly held in mine. She didn’t pull away, and I didn’t plan on letting her go.
“What’s wrong? Does it hurt?” I asked, trying to understand what was going on.
Her eyes glanced to me and then back to the ceiling. “My head is spinning too much, Jack. I think I need a break. How long has it been?”
“You chose this instead of the MRI. It was either this or that.” Our shoulders brushed as I let go of her hand and reached over to take the cup from her.
“I know, Jack. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. She had no idea how angry I was, how helpless and useless I felt because there wasn’t anything I could do to help her in this situation other than sit my ass right next to hers and make her understand that I would be there no matter what happened, which didn’t seem to do anything.
“You’re sure you don’t need to be at your office?” she asked to the ceiling.
“I’m not leaving, so you can stop trying to send me away. Come on. We only have a little more then we can get out of here.” I glanced at her, waiting with the cup in my hand. I wanted to get out of there just as much as she did, if not more.
“This isn’t an allergy, Jack. I am leaking CSF. You know that, right?”
I agreed with her. I’d never seen anyone go through anything like this before, but I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut. “We don’t know that yet. You heard what the doctor said.”
She shook her head from side to side, slowly. “Actually, I didn’t. I just zoned out when you started asking all those questions.”
I reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Come on, just a little more. Then we can go.” She licked her lips and I noticed her eyes getting all glossy again. “If you start crying, I’m going to lose it and we’re going to have a problem.”
She chuckled, wiping at her eyes. “I’m not crying. I’m not gonna cry.”
She tried to take the cup from me, but I held it up for her, my arm resting across her leg. “Let me hold it for you. Come on.”
Her eyes met mine and I gestured to the cup with my head. She dropped her head forward and the first few drops started coming. A few seconds later, her left hand curled around my wrist. At first I thought maybe she was trying to line up the cup right under her nose, but when I looked closely, she had her eyes tightly closed and was biting her lip.
I cursed myself for not being better in a situation like this. My family hadn’t been any better than hers. Not as bad maybe, but still not better. I had a family, but not really. I didn’t know exactly how to be there for someone because I hadn’t seen anything like it in my family. This felt much like trying to find my way in the dark. But it was Rose. I didn’t mind if I crashed into everything as I tried to find my way, the only thing that mattered was being there for her. She had me now.
I wanted her—that was crystal clear to me. That first time I’d seen her at the party, I’d been intrigued by her, but it had been different then. It wasn’t love at first sight. Like she had said the day I proposed our business deal to her, I wasn’t romantic enough for that, but that first night, seeing her with her fiancé, and not even that…just seeing her smile at him—I’d wanted that smile she had for her fiancé to be mine. That was it. That was everything.
That was how it all had started, me wanting her in my life, and now after our fake marriage, things had started to change. It was more than I should help her out of this situation. I was starting get to know her—her quirks, her likes, dislikes, the way she reacted to the things I said. It was now more than just wanting to have her in my life. I wanted her to want to be in my life. As much as I knew I was a bastard for lying to her and knew I was going to keep lying to her, I wished I could be someone different, someone who would know all the right things to say to make her stay.
I knew that wouldn’t be the case when it was all said and done, because I was not that guy. She deserved someone warm and open, and yet, selfish bastard that I was, I couldn’t and wouldn’t think of her being with someone else. Cold and distant was what I’d grown up with, and cold and distant was what I had become. It didn’t bother me in any other part of my life, but with Rose, it
did.
When her hair dropped and curtained her face, I pushed it back again and curled it behind her ear. Instinctively, I ran the backs of my fingers along her jawline, and her fingers tightened around my wrist. My jaw clenched, and I moved my hand behind her neck, trying to massage her muscles and help her relax. The more our skin stayed in contact, the more I had trouble keeping myself in check and not pulling her head up so I could kiss her again. Both times we had kissed, I hadn’t gotten enough of her taste. She somehow left me wanting more, each and every time, and she was like that with everything, not just the way she kissed. It was even that way with her smiles. Ever since that first night, this whole thing had started because I’d wanted more. Would I ever get enough?
“One drop every seventeen seconds,” she murmured, drawing me out of my thoughts. “A single drop comes every seventeen seconds. We’ll be here for hours.”
Her tight hold on my wrist hadn’t loosened a bit. “It’ll be over soon,” I murmured, my hand still on her neck.
“My head is spinning so much,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
I couldn’t help it. I slid closer to her and found myself pressing a lingering kiss on her temple. Her head snapped to the right and we lost one drop to the ground. When she caught my eyes, she looked down again, clearing her throat.
“Talk to me, Jack.”
I gentled my voice as much as I could. “What do you want me to talk about?”
“Just let me hear your voice. Distract me. You never talk about your family.”
“There isn’t much to talk about. We don’t talk.”
It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable talking about my family, I just didn’t see the point. Rose had been closer to me these last few weeks than they’d ever been. I wouldn’t lie and say I never wished to have a more close-knit family, but wishing didn’t change anything.
“Why?”
“No specific reason. We all work a lot, and none of us have time to spare or the inclination.”
“What do they do?”