Page 77 of Jealous Stepbrother
The video rewinds under my thumb.
There she is, leaving to meet Annette, coat slipping off one shoulder, my heart in her hands without even knowing it.
I frown because everything looks okay.
I fast-forward. Surprised when she returns less than an hour later. Did dinner not go well with her mom?
Her movements are jerky, frantic, like a bird trapped in a cage. Icy fury rushes to fill in the holes dread has left behind.
If they upset her. If my love is hurting because?—
I freeze when she drags a suitcase down the hallway.
What the fuck?
No.No no no no!
Where the hell is she going?
I swear under my breath and fumble for my phone, ignoring the looks I’m getting in the first-class cabin as I dial, redial, leave frantic message after frantic message until my voice is ragged and my heart feels like it’s been run over by an armored truck.Repeatedly.
“Scarlett, please, baby, pick up. Just…just tell me where you are. I’ll come get you, I’ll fix it, whatever it is, I’ll do anything, I swear. Don’t shut me out. Don’t—don’t make me live without you. I don’t know how.”
The jet engines roar in my ears, but it’s nothing compared to the roar in my chest. By the ninth voicemail I’m not even coherent, I’m begging.
By the eleventh, my throat is gone. Unfortunately for us both, by the seventeenth, I’m threatening that cave at the bottom of the world, to chain myself to her if that’s what it takes. Peppered with pleas to just call me back.
When she doesn’t, and when I’m a fiery whisper from kicking a hole in the airplane window because I’ve filled her voicemail box and can’t leave any more messages, I swallow my terror and dial Annette.
She answers on the third ring.
“Annette, what…please…” The words won’t form.
“Asher.” Her tone is gentle, a little resigned, but pitying in a way that makes me want to punch glass. “She found the emailyou deleted. I think there was something else, but well…a young woman is entitled to her secrets, I guess. But I think we both know you did this to yourself, Asher.”
I grit my teeth, press my palm into my eyes. “I know, I know, Christ, I know. But I don’t—I can’t let her go.”
“She needed space. You didn’t give her any.”
I want to roar that the only space she needs is me. I’ll be her fucking space! But I throttle back my deranged demand.
“Please, Annette. Help me. Tell me where she is, I’ll make it right. I’ll make it right if it kills me.”
There’s silence. Then another voice comes through. My father.
“Asher.” Stern, weighted. But not unkind. “You’ve lost control. Over her. Over yourself. And now you expect us to fix it?”
The bottom falls out of me.
I slump against the plane window, forehead on cool glass, my heart undecided whether to race or stop. “I can’t lose her, Dad. I can’t. She’s not just my work, or my muse, or some obsession. She’s—she’s everything. If I don’t have her, there’s nothing. You have to help me.”
There’s a pause long enough to gut me. “Dammit, son.” Then Victor exhales. “She’s gone to Florence.”
I end the call and stare down at my useless hands. I thought I was playing chess with her life, moving the pieces just so, securing my win. But all I’ve done is shove her off the board.
And for the first time in years, maybe in my whole damn life, I feel the full scale of my fuck-up.
Epic doesn’t even cover it.
