So much of this was her fault. After that first kiss he’d tried to put distance between them, had specifically asked her not to pursue him, but she’d ignored his request, had done what she wanted because she always did what she wanted. And now look what had happened.
Shoulders sagging in defeat, Chloe shook her head.
A knock sounded at her door.
“Come in,” she called out, wondering if it was Beth coming to check on her.
The door opened. Jake stood in the doorway. Chloe’s pulse skyrocketed. She was so attracted to him, but one look at the way his lips were compressed had Chloe wondering what he had dealt with that morning.
“Hi,” she said as a tentative smile lifted the corners of her lips. “Do you want to sit down?”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t even be here.”
“What? Why not?” That was a dumb question. She knew exactly why not. Still, she wanted to hear what he had to say.
“I’ve been ordered to stay away from you.”
Ordered? That was serious. “Oh.”
He nodded. “But I wanted to give you the respect you deserve and tell you good bye.”
Good bye? The words sent a chill charging through her. She wasn’t surprised he wasn’t going to be her bodyguard any longer, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he would leave her. For good.
She leapt to her feet and hurried over to him. “Wait. Where are you going?” She had to use all of her self-restraint to not throw her arms around him and bury her head in his chest.
His lips tugged downward into a frown. “I’m being replaced. Today.”
No one could replace him. Not in her heart. But she knew that wasn’t what he was saying. She nodded. “I know. I spoke to Scotty. He told me he…he requested that someone else be my bodyguard.” It pained her to say it, especially when she saw several emotions flash across Jake’s face. “I told him I want you, but he…he wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s okay.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. “It’s for the best.”
Chloe was torn. Even though she’d thoroughly enjoyed having Jake as her bodyguard, if he wasn’t going to have that role any longer she could live with that. The caveat was that he still needed to be in her life. But at the look on his face, she wasn’t so sure that he was on the same page.
Maybe she could get him there.
“We’ll make it work,” she said with a confidence she didn’t feel.
His eyebrows bunched as he gazed at her. “Make what work?”
With hope filling her heart, she nodded. “Us. You and me.”
He shook his head, his expression unyielding. “There is no us, Chloe. It was a mistake. The whole thing.”
A mistake? Was what she was feeling inside a mistake? How could that be? “No,” she said, her head swinging from side to side. “No, it’s not.”
Telling Chloe that their relationship was over dug a deep trench right down the middle of Jake’s heart, especially when he looked at the hurt on her sweet face, but it was the right thing to do. He’d let things go too far and now it was time to correct it.
“No,” she said for a third time, her tone telling him that she wasn’t going to stand there and let him decide their future. But it was no longer up to her. He’d let her drive things for too long. It was time for him to take control. Even though he didn’t want to end it, he had to. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
He gently stroked her face. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but you’re just going to have to accept my decision.”
Tears sprang into her eyes and shimmered on her lashes. Seeing the hurt drove a stake right through Jake’s heart, and he wavered. Oh, did he waver. He wanted to drag her into his arms, hold her tight, and tell her that everything would be okay. But that would be a lie because he’d screwed up, he’d endangered her, and now he was being reassigned. Sure, they could keep dating, but then Tyler would fire him for sure. And Jake’s reputation as a bodyguard would be destroyed. No one would hire him. Of all the jobs he’d had in his life, this job, of being someone’s bodyguard, was the one he felt born to do.
“No I don’t,” she said as she shoved his hand away. “I don’t have to accept anything. I still want this. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
A knot had formed in Jake’s throat, and now, as he tried to swallow past it, the pain in his throat was exquisite, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his heart. He wanted her. So much. But it wasn’t going to work. It just wasn’t. Sure, he could toss his job away to be with her, but when she tired of him, as she was sure to, he would be left with nothing. Better to end this now before he fell harder for her. Even if it was painful.
A light filled Chloe’s eyes. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
She grabbed him by the hand, which sent a tingle surging through his body, then practically dragged him to the couch where they sat side by side. She kept his hands in hers. “What if I hire you myself to be my bodyguard? Not through Titan Security, but me, personally?”
For half a second, Jake considered it. But almost immediately ruled it out. “No.”
Chloe’s face fell, but then she smiled. “Why not? It would totally work. You’d still be doing your job and no one could fire you but me.” Then she wiggled her eyebrows as if to say she would be the real boss, which only proved Jake’s point.
“Right. When you get tired of me you’ll fire me. And then what?”
She made a scoffing sound. “Get tired of you. Why would I get tired of you?”
“Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t, but it’s not a chance I can take.”
She withdrew her hands and crossed her arms over her chest. “So this is all about your job, is that right?”
“It is, and at the same time it isn’t.”
Her arms dropped to her sides. “That makes no sense.”
How could he explain what he was feeling so that she would understand? “Okay, so you know how you sang your new song at that event to see how the crowd would like it?”
“You mean on the night you kissed me?”
Why had he brought up that night? He shook his head. “That has nothing to do with this.”
She tilted her head, her eyebrows rising. “I beg to differ. That night has everything to do with this.”
He was beginning to lose patience with her. All she could see was what she wanted. What mattered to him didn’t seem to matter at all. Working to get his frustration under control, he exhaled, then said, “I never should have done that and I still regret it.”
“I don’t,” she said before he could even finish his thought. “I’ll never regret it. Because if you hadn’t kissed me that night, I wouldn’t have kissed you later and then I never would have discovered how much I care about you and how much you mean to me. How much I want you in my life.”
Again, all about what she wanted. No concern about what he was dealing with. She really was the pop princess he’d labeled her from the beginning. As much as he cared about her, as powerfully as he was attracted to her, it would never work between them. Their priorities were too different, the chasm between their lifestyles too wide.