Avoiding Temptation (Avoiding #3)(57)
Author: K.A. Linde

“Let me try to get this out. I…I had this idea in my head that it would never work out between us. I wanted it. I really f**king wanted it. But I just couldn’t see it happening, Lex,” he murmured softly.

Lexi’s heart tightened at his words. Just what she wanted to hear. He wanted it, but it was never going to happen. Hadn’t she known that from the start?

“Well, thank for your honesty,” she said sarcastically. She couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said, reaching out for her.

She moved away from him. He had said he didn’t want to hurt her, and then he tossed this out. Like she could handle anything else this week.

“I’ll try to explain. I can admit that I was really messed-up from my parents’ divorce. My parents were so completely, totally, madly in love. I’ve heard stories from family friends about how they were so cute that they were disgusting. I’ve heard it from both of them that they just got married too young, they were too in love, they didn’t know what they were in for. They thought that the love and passion were enough, that it would carry them through,” he said softly, “but it didn’t.”

Lexi gulped. She didn’t know this part of his history. She knew about the divorce, of course, but not about his parents being in love—at least not like this.

“I thought after it all went to shit that I was never going to be like them. Not ever. I wasn’t going to just give in to someone like that. I’d find someone solid, stable…”

“Predictable,” Lexi offered.

“Very much so. It wasn’t that I wasn’t invested or that I didn’t love the people when I was with them, but it wasn’t right. In every new relationship, I tried harder and harder, and it just seemed to get worse and worse. It seemed like I had to push at every step to make it work…when things should have just fit together.”

He sighed and met her gaze. She could feel the waves of emotions rolling off of him.

“Well, look, I pushed so hard that I married someone without that passion, without the burning drive, and it’s all f**ked-up, too, Lex. It didn’t matter that my parents loved each other because they let that love die. I never had it with Bekah…I’ve only had it with you. And I don’t want to let it die, Lex. Not ever.”

Lexi smacked him in the chest. “I can’t believe you would say this stuff to me right now. After what—nine or ten years, you finally realize how dumb you were? You finally realize that I’m the one you want? I’m no saint, but you’re an a**hole,” she whispered.

He grabbed her hand and brought it softly to his lips. “I am, but damn, Lex, I’m your a**hole.”

“Jack, please…”

“When you landed on my doorstep last week, you asked me what you should do,” he reminded her. “I asked you the same question on my wedding day. You should have told me to walk away. You should have told me to leave her. That’s what you should have told me. I think all along it was what I wanted to hear. I made the mistake…and I don’t want you to make the same one.”

His eyes blazed as the words he had been holding back fell from his lips. He reached out and rested his hands on her face, and she stopped breathing. Lexi had known that was what he was asking her that day, but she hadn’t been able to say it. She shouldn’t have had to say it. She had wanted him to come to the conclusion on his own, but he hadn’t. And he had married Bekah. Now, he was telling her it was all a mistake and that they had gone through all of that for nothing.

“So, you asked me what you should do. You should leave him. Because if you’re not happy now…you’re not going to be happy when you’re married.”

Lexi locked on to those baby-blue eyes, on to the face of the man she had loved for longer than she could imagine. He was telling her to end it with Ramsey. He was fighting for her happiness. His mistakes with Bekah were far from what she was dealing with right now with Ramsey, but they had their similarities.

But she didn’t know if she was ready to make that decision. She could work things out with Ramsey. She could make things right. She could be happy…right?

“I see what you’re thinking. You have it written all over your face. You’re making a terrible mistake,” he pleaded with her.

Jack Howard was pleading with her.

She felt years of need pressing on her from all sides. She had wanted this. She had wanted him to fight for her. And now that he was, what was she supposed to do?

Three years with Ramsey, an engagement ring, a wedding…

That she had asked him to postpone.

“I can’t make a decision like that right now. It’s midnight. I’m exhausted. I still have to talk to Ramsey. I can’t…”

“Excuses,” he said quickly. “You already know you’re not happy. You wouldn’t be here if you were. Why did you stay friends with me, Lexi?”

Lexi bit her lip and turned away. She didn’t like to answer that question.

“You could have cut me loose. You could have used me for the D-Bags show and then never saw me again. You probably should have walked away from all the bullshit that I put you through, but you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she whispered. “I don’t know what you expect from me.”

“The only thing you’ve ever expected from me, Lex. The truth. Why? Why, after everything, did you stay friends with me? Why did you still see me? Why are you helping me with the divorce?” he asked, following her as she walked a few steps away from him. “I just want to hear what you have to say.”

“Because I couldn’t, all right?” she cried. “I couldn’t walk away. I was bound and determined to leave you in the dust after you married that f**king Bitch. You gave her a duplicate of my ring, and then you married her! I didn’t even want to think about you, let alone see you. And still, you managed to wiggle your way back in.”

She turned around and smacked his chest again. He let her lash out without even trying to stop her. She wasn’t really hurting him, but she wished that she had the energy to. She wished she had the energy to fight him and not cave to his words.

“I wanted you gone, but then when I was around you again, it felt right. It always feels so right and so easy. Then, you were my friend…even when I thought you were going to try something…even when I f**king wanted it, you held back. You were the only person aside from Chyna that I could count on. Do you know how f**king strange that has been? But I didn’t just like it…I started craving it. You were always there to pick me up. You even defended me against Bekah…your own f**ked-up wife. I let you be that person. And now what?”

Lexi stopped fighting him and hung her head low. Her hands still rested on his chest where she had been hitting him.

“You’re still here. You’re still a part of me. I can’t seem to get rid of you, Jack. And I don’t want to,” she whispered, defeated.

“And I don’t want you to either,” he said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Seth has always said that you’re my girl. Well…I’m your guy. I always have been. I’ve just been too damn scared to do anything about it. But I’ll be damned if I let you slip through my fingers again. I’m yours. You’re mine. Just…be mine.”

“It’s not that easy, Jack,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes.

His thumbs brushed against her cheeks, sweeping away the fallen tears. “Nothing is ever easy with us, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting for. The best things in life are worth fighting for, and you’re the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.”

She couldn’t breathe. It was just like Jack to flip her world upside down. It was just like him to make her feel the most intense emotions. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jack continued, “I don’t want it to be easy. I just want it to be right, and the only way it’s ever going to be right is with you.”

“I need to…I need to sleep on it. I need to talk to Ramsey. I can’t…I’m not in the right mind-set to make a decision,” she said, trying to forestall this, trying to hold back. Because if she let loose, then she didn’t know what would happen. She had to change the subject, or she might combust. “What are you going to do about work?”

Jack waved off the question. “I don’t care. I’ll get another job. I’ve already been looking.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Does it even matter? I’ll go anywhere as long as I have you,” he said with earnest.

“Jack, you’re still married,” she reminded him, hoping to put some much-needed distance between them.

Jack groaned and shook his head. He looked like talking about his marriage at the moment was the last thing on his mind.

He wanted her. He f**king wanted her. How long had she been craving those words?

But could she even trust that they would last? Could she trust that if another predictable blonde walked by, he wouldn’t walk, too? Two years ago, she would have said with certainty that he would run scared. He would find another Danielle, another Kate, another Bekah. He would look for something stable and solid, just like he had said, and leave her behind in the dust.

Second-best.

That was what she had been for so long. But she didn’t feel second-best any longer. Sure, they hadn’t been working toward a romantic relationship for the past two years, but they had been working toward a relationship. They had been working toward a friendship. And it was as solid and stable and perfect as she could have ever wanted from anyone…let alone, Jack.

He hadn’t put her second.

He had exchanged the D-Bags tickets for the front row because he knew she wanted to be closer. He hadn’t put a move on her, and he had respected her relationship with Ramsey. He had defended her to Bitch Bekah against Elisa. He had followed her that night on the beach. Even drunk and desperate, he had told her to leave his place. He hadn’t wanted to f**k up her relationship. And then, when her relationship was in shambles, he had still waited four whole days before telling her how he felt and risking his feelings. And she was almost certain that he wouldn’t have said anything at all if he had thought that she was going to go running back to Ramsey on that first day.

“I’ll be divorced in three weeks. I’ll let Bekah say whatever she wants. I’ll just get it over with, and then I’ll be free.”

“You can’t let her win like that,” Lexi said, the lawyer in her coming out automatically.

“She’s not winning when I’m gone.”

“She won’t see it like that. You need to fight.”

“I don’t want to prolong the proceedings. I just want her gone,” he said earnestly.

Lexi bit her lip and closed her eyes. She couldn’t do this right now. She couldn’t think about this with Jack’s words spiraling through her mind.