She cut him off. “What hurts the most is that you don’t know me.”
He could explain. He could take all the emotion down ten octaves and fix this.
“Give them space,” said Grip, but the only ones who backed off were the men Jay paid to protect him.
In this, no one could protect him. His face throbbed. He could feel his hand swelling. The back of his throat was tight, and he was hot and a little dizzy; too much adrenaline, or being smacked in the head, or the creeping knowledge that he’d irretrievably fucked his life up and he was going to lose Evie again.
“Evie, please, give me a chance to explain.” He blinked, put his hand to his forehead. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The last thing he wanted to do was pressure, her, hurt her.
“What’s not to get?” She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself. “You blasted my face, my name, my music everywhere without my permission.”
“I was—”
She cut him off. “You thought you were doing me a favor. Kickstarting my career with a grand public gesture. But I have a career and now everyone who was thinking about hiring me is going to wonder what kind of commitment I’m going to give them.”
Jesus suffering fuck. This was a disaster, a bomb he’d detonated in his own face. “I can—”
“No, you can’t fix this, Jay. You made it about what you wanted. I thought you knew me. I thought you, of all people, had my back.”
“I do have your back. I want you to have everything, Evie.”
She opened her eyes and locked on him, her hurt a thousand mirrors reflecting his crime. “If I wanted that, I’d have gone for it. You had no right to push me, to make that decision for me.”
His guts clamped his, his chest squeezed. He had to force words out past the panic. “This doesn’t have to change anything.”
“It changes us. And you know what, I made a mistake. The thing that hurts the most is that I had everything I wanted. I had you, and now I only have the idea of you because I can’t love a man who sees me as someone I’m not.”
He had to stop her leaving. He reached for her, but she stepped away, taking shelter between Abel and Isaac.
“And you only have an idea of me,” she said, as she turned away, her brothers and Grip shielding her.
He might’ve lost his tongue down the back of his throat; he was voiceless.
He watched her leave him, bile in his mouth, white noise screaming in his head. He only just made it to the bathroom before he convulsed, sick to the heart, vomiting up a whole universe of wrong intentions, crashed hopes and dreams.
TWENTY-ONE
Teela failed so badly at whispering, Evie, pretending sleep under a soft blanket on Tee’s couch, had a new reason to be annoyed.
“Jay tried to Star is Born Evie,” Tee told Haydn.
That was one way of putting it. It made Evie tear up again and that wasn’t on. She was not crying over Jay freaking Endicott or her own stupidity in thinking they had a second chance together.
Before last night, she’d loved Jay with a strength so deep, she’d been able to deny there was an edge of dread to it. She didn’t deserve the happiness of having him back, had done nothing to earn it, and there was no way she’d be able to fit into his world and hold on to him.
Some of that dread had a basis in reality. They’d failed each other once. They lived on opposite sides of the world and Jay’s life was fame and touring. The rest, well the rest of it was her own messed-up head and lack of self-worth.
Hearing the applause for Lost Property every night for weeks and knowing Jay had wanted
to lend them his fame despite the additional hassle had made her pack that dread away. She’d been left with the purest glow inside her. Love in the shape of a man who understood what was important to her, and who’d never let her down. Toxic dopamine overriding common sense.
Until the moment he’d betrayed her in front of the world.
That was when her world ended.
“I can hear every word you’re saying,” she called to Teela.
“Shhh,” Teela hissed. “Evie can hear us.”