Tina didn’t answer her questions. Instead she said, “So are you going to do as I ask and break up with him?”
“No!” Amanda said. “I’m not breaking up with him just because you can’t stand that he’s with me. Jacob is worth any shit you can throw at me, Tina. Do your worst.”
Amanda shoved Tina aside and headed for her front door. Her hands were shaking so bad she dropped her keys twice on her way up the brick path.
“Having him between your thighs is worth your parents hating you?”
Amanda figured they’d get over it pretty quickly. They were the type of parents who forgave their children, though Amanda didn’t really think there was anything to forgive. She’d fallen in love with someone they didn’t particularly care for—they still believed he was a horrible man who’d done their youngest daughter wrong—but if they saw how good she
and Jacob were together, they’d eventually understand. Maybe.
“Is he worth your niece turning against you?” Tina called after her. “I’ll find a new babysitter for her. You’ll never see her.”
Amanda stopped in her tracks. Tina wouldn’t really manipulate her four-year-old daughter to get what she wanted, would she?
“I wonder if Jacob thinks you’re worth losing his daughter’s devotion over. Maybe he’s willing to risk it. And by the time he realizes how much Julie despises him, it will be too late to fix their relationship.”
Amanda pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. Her throat tightened, choking a sob from her. She tilted her head back and blinked up at the darkening sky to keep the tears in her eyes from streaming down her cheeks.
Jacob was worth any adversity to her life, but to Julie’s? Amanda wasn’t cruel enough to hurt her Julie Bean in any capacity, but she knew Tina was. Tina wasn’t making veiled threats. She would keep Julie out of Amanda’s life. She would find a way to keep Jacob from seeing his own daughter. Make his little girl hate him. Tina would do anything in her power to destroy Amanda’s fledgling relationship with Jacob, even if she had to use Julie as a pawn.
The fucking bitch.
“If I break up with him tonight, you’ll leave Julie out of this.”
Amanda could picture her sister’s smile of victory, even if she didn’t have the stomach to turn around and look at her.
“Of course,” Tina said brightly.
Rage boiled in Amanda’s gut. She wondered how much time she’d have to serve for murdering the cunt on her front lawn. Surely it would be deemed a crime of passion; that had to carry a lighter sentence than cold-blooded, premeditated murder, didn’t it?
Or maybe there was a way to prove Tina was an unfit mother and have her lose custody of Julie. Was using a child’s happiness to manipulate your sister into breaking up with your ex-husband grounds for a custody battle? Amanda doubted it. She couldn’t see a way out of this. The only door open to her was the one Tina was holding wide.
With Tina watching over her shoulder, Amanda fished her phone out of her purse and dialed Jacob.
Chapter Fifteen
Jacob was searching his fridge for items to round out a chicken dinner when his cellphone rang. He smiled indulgently when he saw who the caller was: Amanda. She missed him already? He knew the feeling.
“Hey,” he answered. “Did you get lost?”
“Um, not exactly,” she said. “Can you meet me at Jack’s Grill? The meat in my fridge is beyond saving.”
“I can probably find something here to cook.” Would she mind having pancakes for dinner?
“You just don’t want to be seen in public with me.” Her teasing laugh sounded breathless, but maybe it was just the phone connection.
“Of course I do,” he said. “I want the whole world to know you’re mine.”
“So you’ll come?”
“I’ve already done that with you several times today, but I can probably go for another quickie.”
“Jacob,” she chastised.
He scowled, puzzling over her lack of reciprocal flirting. One of the traits that he loved most about her was that she always countered his teasing with a comeback.
“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes,” he said. “I still need to put on pants.”
She hung up without saying goodbye.
The entire drive to Jack’s Grill, Jacob couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Not only was it odd that Amanda wanted to meet for dinner in a public place when she knew he was naked and waiting for her, but he’d sensed a tension in her that he’d never felt from her before.
He spotted her car in the parking lot, but it was empty, so instead of dragging her into the back seat for that quickie he’d mentioned, he entered the noisy establishment and scanned the crowd for signs of her. He smiled when he spotted her, but she was staring into a bright green cocktail with a tight expression on her lovely face. Had her cat died while she’d been at his place or something?
Jacob sat on the stool across from her and reached for her hand. She tugged it away and hid it between her knees.
“I can’t see you anymore,” she said.
His breath caught in his throat, threatening to choke him. “What?”
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” she said, her words hurried, almost practiced, as if she were reciting a speech. “The sex is great and all, Shade, but our little fling isn’t worth destroying my family over.” Her lips pressed together, and she looked down at her lap. “It’s best if you just stay away.”
“Where is this coming from, Amanda? We both know this is more than a fling. I love you.”
She flinched away from him as if he’d slapped her.
“And I know you love me too.”
She released a brittle laugh. “Yeah, well, I don’t or I would have said so. I always thought you were hot and all, but now that I’ve had what I was after, I’m moving on. You need to move on too.”
She slipped off the stool, but he grabbed her arm.
“What the hell?” he said. “An hour ago we were trying to figure out how to spend more time together and now you’re cutting me off entirely? What happened between then and now?”
She tugged at her arm, refusing to meet his eyes. “Why are you being so stubborn? I said I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
“But what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. You can’t just turn off your feelings like a switch.”
She laughed. “You can if you never had feelings to begin with. Now let go of my arm.”
“I’m not letting you go, Amanda. Tell me the truth. What’s going on?”
“Don’t you get it?” she yelled. “Or are you too fucking stupid to grasp the simplest concepts?”
The background noise went silent, or maybe his ears just stopped working. The confusion holding his hurt at bay shattered. Anguish clenched his gut, expanded within his chest, and clawed up his throat.
“Do you really think someone like me would fall for an idiot like you?” she spat at him. “I just wanted to get laid by a rock star. That’s all this was.”
The strength melted from his fingers, and her arm slipped from his grasp. She backed away several steps, but apparently felt the need to deliver another blow to the metal stake piercing his heart.
“Thanks for the nice time, Shade, but I have better things to do than you.”
He was too stunned to fight for her. For them. Who was this person? It wasn’t Amanda. Not the Amanda he knew. Not the Amanda he loved. But maybe she was just like her sister and kept her inner bitch at bay to get what she wanted and then unleashed all her darkness and cruelty when it served her purpose.
“I’m going to the ladies room,” she said, “and when I get back, I want you to be gone. Don’t try to contact me. You’ll only make it harder for yourself. I’m through with you, Shade. Do you understand?”
The only thing he understood was how it felt to have his heart ripped from his chest and kicked around a dusty wooden floor, but he nodded anyway.
“Good,” she said. “Leave. Now. No one wants you here. Least of all me.”
She turned—golden brown hair dancing around her shoulders with the motion—and stalked away. That was when Jacob noticed everyone in the bar was staring at him. More than one person was recording his misery on a cellphone. He was sure that within the hour, the entire world would be able to watch him—Shade “Rock Star” Silverton—get his heart broken on YouTube.
Why had Amanda done it in public? Why had she done it at all?
Jacob pulled the sunglasses from the neckband of his T-shirt, flicked them open, and crammed them onto his face. Jaw set, Shade made his exit through the bar’s front door, giving everyone watching a one-finger salute as he went back to the life he knew best.
Thank God he could still rely on his fucking band.