The Best Man (Jasper Falls 2)

He was a manipulative monster hiding beneath the mask of a beautiful charmer. She wasn’t even sure how he did it. The devotion it must take to chip away at a sane person until they feel completely insane… Lance had been controlling the narrative for so long, she no longer felt like the author of her own life.

Her phone buzzed on the dashboard, and she didn’t need to look to know it was him. He’d filled up her voicemail a hundred miles ago.

Funny, when she announced she was leaving him, she was nothing but a waste and she’d never find someone who loved her as much as him again. No one would want her… But now, he wanted her back.

If she was so terrible, why would he care if she left?

The books said this whiplash reaction often happened because a narcissist saw others as toys. For years, she acted as a ricochet point for Lance to sound off his self-inflating ideas. She’d listen and agree and be the perfect audience for his egotistical masturbation. He said she needed him, but really, it was he who needed her.

She didn’t care if he moved on. But, in a strange way, she did. It was like he was two people in one, the charmer and the monster. She hated the monster. But the charmer…

It hurt her stomach to think of him touching someone else or loving someone else. Why couldn’t he have stayed the charmer and always been nice? Why wasn’t she enough—

No! That was her self-blaming again. She was enough. Their issues were the result of a deficiency in him. He was a charmer, but he was also an abuser, and she needed to remember that.

When she left, he was so out of his mind enraged by the thought that someone like her could reject someone as incredible as him. He flung the most hurtful diatribe at her, attacking her body, her intelligence, her sexual performance. But most hurtful of all, he attacked her relationships with others—making her wonder if anyone would ever want her, to a point that she even doubted her family’s love.

“Too late to go back now,” she muttered, glancing at the screen of her phone where several notifications waited.

She swiped the device and quickly skimmed his texts, a long jumble of apologies, begging, and attacking slurred into one. He was so off-kilter by their break up he’d already made his rounds with their mutual friends, trying to poison the waters to make sure she would come out the villain.

The books all said to expect a break up to be brutal and sudden, mentioning the necessity of getting out quickly. They suggested that several things may need to be left behind, but they weren’t just referencing possessions. They meant friendships, too.

She’d have to disentangle her life from his completely, if she truly wanted to be finished with him. Eventually, he’d stop calling. He’d move on, because once she stopped feeding his ego, he’d feel desperate for a new audience and find someone else to stroke him.

This break up wasn’t about her. Their relationship was never about her. Everything a narcissist did, they did for themselves. People were chosen, not for who they were, but for what they could provide.

It would be nice to find someone who actually valued her. But she was a long way from dating. Right now, she needed a safe place to think and heal, a place where she could process and recover and teach herself how to make decisions again.

There was no place safer than Jasper Falls.

Chapter 5

“Oh, will you look at that?” Pat’s restful peace shifted at the rasp of his mother’s voice. “Like two wee pups, curled up together to keep warm. Remember when we used to cuddle like that, Liam?”

His father’s grumbled reply had Pat cracking open an eyelid. He should have known better than to pass out on the sectional with Jo last night. He spotted his mother sitting across from him on her recliner, watching them sleep.

She grinned and sipped her tea, holding the mug in two hands as the steam curled her faded red hair. “Mornin’ Patrick.”

“Do you have to watch me sleep, Mum?”

“I carried you for nearly a year, gave up my youthful figure, and nursed you ‘til my nipples were sore. If I gain the slightest comfort from watching my baby sleep, I’ll do it without censure.”

He groaned and rolled his eyes, turning to face the back of the sofa and disturbing Jo.

“Why are your knees so boney?”

“Good morning, Josephine,” his mother greeted.

“Morning, Mrs. Clooney.”

“Oh, now, we won’t be havin’ any more of that, love. You call me Rose—or Mum.”

Reality came hurtling back to him and he internally winced at the reminder that they were living a lie. Maybe now was the time to come clean, before his mother did something crazy like booked the church.