Avoiding Temptation (Avoiding 3)

“Not yet. I wanted to talk to you,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot since you’ve been here, thinking about how we were, how we are.”

She turned her head and assessed him. He was staring at her with some fierce intensity. He hadn’t been waiting up to tell her about Ramsey. He had been waiting up to talk to her about whatever was on his mind now.

“What about us?” That word felt so foreign yet so familiar.

“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 ass**le,” she whispered.

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

“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.”