Page 37 of Unofficial

He sighs. "You didn't think she was just going to sit around and wait for you to change your mind, did you? For someone who said he didn't want a relationship? I mean, would you have waited for you?"

"But I'm ready now."

"And she was ready months ago."

His chest aches, and he can't take his eyes off the shadows as she lets another man make love to her. Make love to her in the bed he used to spend nights in. He knows he should look away, but watching them together like this feels marginally like what she must've felt like seeing him with Lena. He deserves this stabbing pain.

"Drew?"

"Yeah?"

"This is worse than Sam."

Drew gasps. "Kade-"

"I can see them. Their shadows, anyway. She let him into her bed, and I want to rip his damn head off. He's going to sleep on the side I slept on. He's going to have his arms wrapped around Jess. The girl who should be mine."

"Drive away, Kade."

"She's having sex with him. I can tell by how the shadows are moving, and I want to kill someone."

"Kade!"

Being the son of a man who actually killed someone makes his statement a little harsher than when others say it.

"If this is how I feel seeing shadows, God, imagine what she felt seeing it in person. How could I do that to her? How could I not realize I was in love with her before causing this type of pain?"

Drew shouts his name through the phone a second time. "Kade!"

"What?"

"Drive home. Don't go to the door. This isn't the same as Jess walking in on you with Lena."

"I know," he says and shifts his car into gear. "She believed we were together when I slept with Lena. I let her walk away, and she's with Landry now. I did this, Drew. I did all of this."

Chapter Fourteen

Monday morning, Jess wakes up and heads downstairs. Landry spent most of Sunday at her place, and even though they spent a good majority of it naked, she can't help but feel a little under satisfied. The fact he seems completely smitten with her, though, makes her smile.

Landry is also everything she's looking for. He seems devoted to only her, he wants a future, and he was patient and waited until she felt comfortable enough with him to give into sleeping with him. That and the fact he thinks he could be falling in love with her doesn't hurt. But something about the way he still puts his guard up and comes across aloof, even lying naked together in bed, reminds her there's still something that doesn't feel quite right with him.

The other issue she has is with the fact her heart feels like she betrayed Kade by sleeping with Landry. She should be over the moon finding a man like him, but she's fooling herself and everyone else, acting like she's moved on from Kade. Her head knows she needs to get over him, and she's not betraying the man who still holds her heart because he doesn’t want her, but she can't just turn off the feelings. And she has tried. Man, has she tried.

"He didn't want you," Jess says as she looks in the mirror and touches up her mascara. "At least, not just you. And you deserve someone like Landry who wants to give you a monogamous relationship. Suck it up, buttercup."

Applying the final touches to her Monday morning look, she heads downstairs and realizes she hasn't looked at her phone since Saturday night. At least that's one bonus to having a man like him around. She didn't feel the need to check in on work or Noelle or social media this weekend.

When she pulls the phone from her purse, she finds it dead. Again, not the worst start to a Monday morning. "I'll just have to charge it at the office. Hopefully, there were no emergencies."

The drive to work feels weird. Off. The small amount of traffic as she heads to the office doesn't bother her, but it gives her much too much time to think. Her mind can't decide if she's not ready to move on with Landry, or if she’s picking up on something not quite right with the relationship. Something more than just not being over Kade yet.

If you're not ready, that's one thing, but are you overlooking giant red flags in an attempt to prove something? Is Landry right for you? And are you trying to fit a round peg into a square hole by trying to fit him into the image you have for your life? Do you really think he's the man you want to marry by thirty and have kids by thirty-two with?

Pulling into the parking lot, she lets out a sigh. She won't figure it out right now, and she's happy to find a reprieve from her intrusive thoughts. It tells her something that she’s not over the moon right now.

As she walks into the office, Tiffany tilts her head and stares at her. Hard.

"Hi, Tiff."

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