It felt like someone kicked her in the stomach, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t even move as he continued.
“…Not that I would ever let the campaign dictate something as big as this, but it did get me thinking. About how certain I am that I want you and the kids in my life. Because things aren’t going to get any easier in the next few months, but I don’t want you to have any doubts as to my commitment to you and this relationship.”
Pretty words following an ugly admission. She needed to be sure she understood. “So if your campaign wasn’t an issue would you be asking me to make this huge decision tonight?”
He hesitated again, seeming to struggle for the correct response. But she’d heard enough.
She stood, pushing away from the table. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she needed to move, to get some feeling back in her legs, her arms, her fingers since everything was feeling so numb.
“Daisy,” he called behind her, his pace steady with hers. “Hold up. Please.”
She whirled around. Unable to look him in the eyes, she focused on the pulse beating in his neck. Her self-doubt, anger, and pain threatened to overcome her. “Right now, I just need to get away, get some air, some time to breathe. Figure out if any of this has been real or if it was all part of some big publicity stunt.”
He looked like she’d slapped him. “You really think I would put you, your kids, my daughter through any of this just for a campaign stunt?”
“Well, that’s what this all started out as, didn’t it? A stunt in exchange for your cosigning my loan?” She pressed her hand to her head, trying to sort through everything she was thinking, was feeling. “I don’t know about anything, Jack. Not anymore. But I know that I can’t move forward with you on the loan. It wouldn’t be right.”
He nodded tersely, his usually light and brilliant eyes now cloudy and dark. “I’m sorry you think I could ever do something like playing on your emotions just to win an election. Maybe you’re right. About this being too soon for us. If you think so little of me, I’m not surprised you would say no.”
She’d hurt him, and she hated that. But she didn’t regret voicing her doubts.
This whole fake engagement thing was supposed to be the solution to their problems. Only now, it seemed to have made everything more complicated.
It was as if, from the moment he’d placed that ring on her finger, she’d suckered herself into believing that this fairy tale was actually real, despite knowing they came from two completely different worlds.
But just because you wanted something to happen doesn’t mean it could.
Her fingers rolled over the edge of her ring for a moment, as if memorizing the feeling of it, before she slowly pulled it off. She held it out to him. “This doesn’t belong to me.”
Jack didn’t respond immediately, his gaze on the ring held in her hand, almost stunned by the implication. Then slowly, he reached out and took it, and when he lifted his gaze to hers, the darkness and pain in their depths was almost too much to take.
“All right,” he said finally. “But let’s be clear about something. Everything that I’ve tried to give you, I don’t do it because I’m trying to take away your independence or your self worth. I give them to you because I love you and want to help take care of you. That’s what people do when they love someone. They take care of each other. They’re partners in every way. But I can see that you’re never going to let me be truly be your partner, and nothing I can do or say will change that.”
It sounded all so final and she took a step back, suddenly needing space. Needing air in her lungs that were gasping for breath. “I’m going to go. I need to go.”
He didn’t look as if he had any fight in him as he stared at her listlessly, nodding again, and she turned around, willing her legs to move one step at a time toward the door and her car beyond.
They’d created this bubble these past few days and weeks that had just started to show cracks—big, giant, canyon-size cracks. Cracks that, knowing what she knew about both of them, about their temperament, weren’t likely to ever heal.
And even though she knew she’d made the right call, it didn’t mean that, for a moment, she wished she had taken that leap and accepted his proposal. Just said yes, trusting that things would work out. That maybe her life really could be a fairy tale.
For a little while anyway.
…
Jack stood there long after Daisy left, her ring a heavy weight in his hand.
What the hell just happened?
This was not how he envisioned tonight going when he first set out to plan it two short days ago.
For a moment, his hand clenched over the ring, a ring that once had signified so much hope and that now felt like a lie. Trickery. Made him see things that maybe were never there.
The pain was sharp and in an irrational and pointless move, he threw it across the room, the sound of it bouncing off the wall and falling to the floor echoing. Taunting him.
He sank to the couch, remembering her accusation. That he could be someone so calculating as to manipulate people’s feelings all to suit his campaign.
It had been a hard blow then and it still hurt now.