Fletcher stared at her. “Seriously? Those were the things you were worried about?”
Jordan lifted a shoulder. “Yep.”
He studied her. She meant it. What the hell?
He sat forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his thighs. “Okay, why are you good?”
She sighed. “Because you were right. I should have listened to you.”
“You should have.” He paused. “About which thing?”
She gave a soft laugh. “You were right that I shouldn’t have moved to Nashville with him. And I definitely shouldn’t have gone on this tour with him.”
Fletcher froze.
That night in Autre, when he’d asked her to stay, had replayed in his mind about four thousand times over the past four months. Fletcher shifted on his seat again, but this time not due to any increased firmness behind his zipper. He didn’t regret what he’d said that night, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to rehash it either. “What do you mean?” he finally asked.
“I think I knew, even when we first moved from Louisiana, that we were going to break up.”
“Really? Things were bad?” Fletcher worked on keeping his tone and posture casual.
He and Jason Young had had words about Jordan over the years. Jason had generally been a good boyfriend, which had been the reason Fletcher generally stayed supportive of their relationship. However, over eleven years’ time, there had been a few arguments and a few tears on Jordan’s part. Fletcher had always warned Jason that if he hurt Jordan, Fletcher would hurt him. And Jason knew the Landry boys’ reputation well enough to know that it wouldn’t be emotional pain.
It wasn’t particularly mature, at this point in their lives anyway, but Jason and Jordan had started dating when they were kids. From about fifteen to eighteen, Fletcher had cared a lot more about Jason treating Jordan right than he had about being diplomatic or mature.
“I wouldn’t say bad,” Jordan said. “We just started drifting apart. We’d been together for eight years when we moved to Nashville. I had figured by then we would be buying a house and planning for at least our first baby. Once we got to Nashville, it became clear pretty quickly that his plans had changed in those regards.”
“But he went to Nashville to pursue his music,” Fletcher pointed out. “You didn’t talk about the change in plans then?”
Jordan winced. “So I’m going to confess a really bad girlfriend thing right now.”
Fletcher didn’t say anything. They had so many secrets from so many years together that there was nothing she couldn’t tell him.
“When he said he wanted to go to Nashville to try to get a recording contract, I figured, I had to let him try. But…” She bit her bottom lip, clearly not proud of what she was about to say. “I didn’t think it would happen.” She winced again.
“You didn’t think he’d get a contract?”
She shook her head. “I really didn’t. And I know that sounds terrible. He’s talented. I’ve always thought so. I just never dreamed that he had what it would take to become an actual country music star. So I thought we’d move to Nashville and give it a try for a couple of years, then we could always move back home. But while we were there, we could get married and work on starting a family. Then when we moved back to Louisiana, we’d be ready to settle down.”
Fletcher couldn’t help the small smile that started to crawl across his lips.
“Don’t laugh,” Jordan said. “That’s terrible of me. I just assumed he was going to fail.”
“So why did you decide to go on this tour with him?” Fletcher asked. “That was a pretty good sign that things were taking off for him.”
She blew out a breath. “Yeah. Obviously. But then I was telling myself that lots of country music stars have families and houses and real lives.”
“Not a life like you want to have.”
She nodded. “I’ve been miserable on this tour.” She met his gaze. “As you knew I would be.”
Fletcher shook his head. “We don’t have to go there.” He’d been right, but it wasn’t giving him a lot of satisfaction at the moment. He really just wanted her to be happy.
She sighed. “Okay. But, I was unhappy even before the tour started. I thought maybe the tour would bring us closer together. I mean, we haven’t had sex in six months.”
Fletcher coughed slightly at that and shifted on his chair again. He hadn’t been expecting that. He was thrilled to hear it, if he was being honest with himself. But she’d just been dumped last night. This was not the time to be thinking about what this could mean for them. Even if that meant fighting the urge to entertain all of those thoughts every other minute.
“But he was proposing last night,” Fletcher pointed out. “And you knew it, right?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded.
“So, what was that? Had he told you about Vivian or something and you were trying to work it out? Was that some kind of—”
“Publicity stunt.”
Fletcher stopped and blinked at her. “What?”
She nodded and chewed the inside of her cheek.
“What the hell do you mean it was a publicity stunt?” Fletcher couldn’t explain the tightness in his chest suddenly.
Jordan blew out a breath, then pushed up from the chair. She set her cup down and paced to the window.
“It was all fake,” she said, looking out the window and hugging her arms around her middle. “We were going to pretend to be engaged for the next four months of the tour, then figure out a way to end it. After ticket sales didn’t matter anymore.”
Fletcher processed that. He ran the words through his mind three times. Then he shot up from his chair. “What?”
Jordan turned. She didn’t seem intimidated, or even startled, by his roar.
“You’re not going to like this,” she warned.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“Fine. Jason is up-and-coming. He’s doing well, but he’s just getting started and he needs to maintain the image that’s attracting fans. Thanks to Suzanne, one of his publicists, I’m all over his social media accounts and the fans love me.” She gave him an adorable modest smile.
He didn’t return it and she rolled her eyes.
“They love that we were high school sweethearts,” she continued. “They love that Jason’s first number one hit was written for me, they love that I’ve been there for him through it all, from the first time he took the stage at a talent show in high school to moving to Nashville with him and supporting him while he pursued his dream. Everyone has fallen in love with our love story.”
“Jesus, enough,” Fletcher muttered, shoving a hand through his hair.
“Anyway, the fans would have been devastated by a breakup, and that could have negatively impacted tour ticket sales, so somehow Ethan, Jason’s manager, convinced me to go along with a fake engagement for a few more months. Then I’d break up with him and he’d still get to be the good guy, probably write some sappy broken-hearted song that would go to the top of the charts, Vivian would be there to comfort him, and it would all end happily ever after.”