He has the decency to look at me now, really look at me, and my heart is shattering. He’s defeated. It’s there in his eyes, in the slump of his shoulders, the tremble in his fingers.
‘Please, Cait, don’t make me tell you.’
‘Why? What are you so afraid of?’
He presses his fist to his mouth and drags in air through his nose.
‘Jackson, whatever it is—’ I soften my tone ‘—you can trust me with it.’
He eyes me over his fist. The silence stretches and then, finally, he lowers his hand. He is so broken in his surrender that I’m winded. Tears prick the backs of my eyes as I clutch my arms around my middle.
‘What did she do to you?’ It’s a pained whisper and he walks away from me.
He perches on the edge of the sofa and I follow, apprehension weighing me down as I sit beside him. My fingers itch to reach for him and I clench them together, knowing they wouldn’t be welcome.
‘We had an affair,’ he says eventually, ‘a long time ago.’
I let out a trapped breath. He’s talking. Thank God, he’s talking. ‘When she owned the club?’
He nods, his eyes glued to his drink, his knuckles white as he grips the glass tight.
‘But I met her while I was waiting tables in another bar they owned, in the city. I was young, impressionable and she...’
‘She was married?’
Another nod.
‘People have affairs all the time, Jackson; it doesn’t make you a—’
‘I was sixteen, Cait.’
The blood rushes between my ears. My stomach lurches.
‘Sixteen?’ I shake my head. ‘No—no, it’s not possible. You were a child, not even—’
‘It was legal.’
I want to clutch my gut, my mouth, I want to retch, but I daren’t. I need to hear this.
‘True.’ It’s quiet, so quiet, because to say it any louder feels like approval and I’m so far from that.
‘I felt like the luckiest person alive back then.’ His laugh is cold. ‘It was hedonistic, intense. She seemed so sure of the world, so confident, and she wanted me... Compared to my home life, to growing up with zero attention...’
‘She gave you all of it.’
He nods into his glass. ‘I was ready and willing...and I had a choice. She never made me do anything I didn’t want to.’
I shudder, sensing where this is heading and wanting to close my ears and leave them open at the same time. ‘What does that mean?’
‘She...she had certain...tastes.’ His throat bobs. ‘Sexually.’
‘Like?’
He looks at me and shakes his head, his eyes so pained. ‘Don’t make me tell you, Cait.’
‘If you want this to be over, you have to tell me. You have to make me understand.’
I stare into his eyes and his own tremble back at me.