Page 91 of The Love Rematch
“Because he left the way he did, I never got to share my piece,” she continues softly. “I never got closure. I never got to tell him how it made me feel, how damaged he left me. So I told you, and the world, and maybe the message will get to him somehow. I don’t know what he thinks, and frankly, I no longer care. I needed to do that for me, so I can finally leave the past in the past. He’s not going to fight for me, and I need to stop hoping he will.”
Cooper thinks for a moment, studying her kindly. “You know what you said about not being enough?”
She nods, unable to speak from the sudden, sharp pain in her chest.
“I don’t think that’s why he left.”
“You don’t—”
“I know.” Cooper holds up both his hands in surrender. “I know. I don’t know him. I don’t know the situation. But I know you, Emily. You’re a sweetheart, and fun, and exciting, and damn near perfect even if you didn’t fall madly in love with me. I can’t imagine anyone thinking you aren’t enough for them. I broke a girl’s heart once—I mean, really broke. She thought I was proposing, and instead of giving her a ring I told her goodbye. But it had nothing to do with her. It rarely does. It was me, all me. My insecurities. My doubts. My issues. You say I’m a gentleman, but that’s not who they see me as back home. I’m a screwup, a playboy. And I tried to use this girl to prove to my father I’d mended my ways, but my mom saw through the act. When she got sick, she made me promise I wouldn’t drag this girl down the aisle to prove a point. She wanted me to find love, real love. So I ended it, breaking her heart and proving to my father I was exactly who he thought I was. My ex got engaged a year later, and now she has two kids. Because she was an angel, and I was the devil who messed everything up. You’re the angel, Emily. Trust me on that.”
She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until Cooper reaches up to gently wipe away her tears. It just makes more fall, and more, the floodgates unleashed. He gathers her in his arms, holding her close the way Sam would have if she were there, the way a friend would.
She’s crying for Jake, but she’s crying for herself, too, for all the things she’s too afraid to say. Though she doesn’t want to admit it, Jake isn’t the only one running. He walked away from her, twice now, but Emily never chased after. There’s so much Cooper doesn’t know. So much she hid from the cameras. So much she’s kept inside for the past seven years. No one outside of her family knows the truth, and she’s still too scared to be honest.
About what happened in New York.
About why she left school.
Why she never picked up the phone to call Jake.
Why she watched him walk down the streets of Rome, too terrified to follow.
Emily is a coward, same as he is. And she’ll keep running, and running, and running, until someone finally comes along who is strong enough to catch her.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
jake
“What the fuck…”
The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them as the door to the dream suite swings open. Books lie scattered across the floor. Clothes are tossed about the room. A black lace bra he really doesn’t want to be staring at hangs from a lamp, so obviously, he can’t stop staring at it. And are those feathers? FEATHERS?!
“What thefuck, indeed,” Nina muses by his side. Then she whispers to Phil, “Are you getting this?”
The cameraman grins. “Yup.”
“Did an animal get in here?” Jake growls and kicks at a pile of feathers.
“A sex animal.” Nina laughs, then points to a pair of boxers dangling off a chair. “Get that. And that.” She nods toward a pillow that’s been ripped in half. Her eyes widen at a pile of buttons on the floor. “Ooh, and that.”
“I’m getting it,” Phil mutters.
Nina, not realizing Jake has moved far past producer mode and into an actual panic attack, nudges him with her shoulder. “I had no idea the cowboy had it in him. Trish is going to love this. The only thing better than an all-American boy is an all-American boy who can fuck like America’s dirty little secret.”
“Jesus,” Jake snaps.
He didnotneed that mental picture. In fact, he’s been spending the past five minutes doing everything in his power to fight that mental picture. But now that it’s there, he can’t unsee it. Emily and Cooper on that cleared-off table. Emily and Cooper up against those messed-up curtains. Emily and Cooper doing god knows what with that torn pillow. Emily and Cooper naked in bed.
Except that one isn’t just in his head.
It’s real.
Right in front of him.
Burning his eyes.
Cooper sleeps bare chested, and Emily is curled into his side. Her hair is strewn across his pecs. Her face is buried against his skin. Her arm stretches across his abs as if hugging him closer. She looks happy, peaceful.
