“I pushed him off of me, Jack! I told him no! I told him I loved you. ” She started to cry.

It tugged at my chest, the sound of her crying, but I pretended not to care. “Why didn’t you tell me about the kiss?”

“Because we haven’t even talked. Because it meant nothing. He apologized. He was scared to death of losing his job with us. ”

“He should be. ’Cause I’m either going to fire him or fucking kill him. ” Or both. “You know what, Cass, I don’t blame another guy for falling for you. I don’t. But you… I never expected this from you, of all people. I feel like I don’t even know you. ”

“Don’t say that, Jack. Of course you know me. I love you. I’ll come home tomorrow. We’ll fix this. I’ll tell you everything. ”

“Don’t. ” I stopped her rant.

“Don’t what? Don’t come home?” She sounded like she couldn’t believe what I said.

“I don’t want to see you,” I admitted, my guts feeling like they had just been shredded.

“What? Don’t do this. Jack, please,” she begged.

I leaned against the granite countertop, thoughts racing, emotions clashing. I was pissed off. I’d worked so hard to break down this girl’s walls, but no matter what I did, it was never good enough. She always ended up blocking me out, and I didn’t deserve it.

“This is bullshit, Cassie! I haven’t done anything since I came back into your life except try to be a better man for you. I try every single day to do right by you. It’s all I want, to be good enough. To make up for the mistake I made. I’d do anything for you. ”

My frustrations mounted as I vented. “But you walk around here constantly keeping shit from me. And when things finally get to be too much for you, what do you do? You run away. I know you’re used to being let down and disappointed, but we’re supposed to be a team. We hold each other up when the other one’s about to fall. We don’t run away and leave our other half to fend for him or herself. ”

She stayed quiet, clearly having no defense for her actions, so I continued. “You left me here to deal with Chrystle and her shit all alone. I know you’re hurt and angry, but I am too. Did you even once stop to think about how I felt? How her article affected me and made me look? No. Because you left me here and took off. ”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said with a sob.

“Yeah? For which part?” I asked, and could hear her sobbing in the background.

“I’m sorry for all of it, Jack. You’re right. I don’t deal with things well and I promise I’ll work on it. ”

I exhaled through my nose as I stared out the balcony window. “It’s more than that. You keep things inside and…”

“Because I don’t want to bother you with stuff I think is stupid. I don’t want you to worry about things when you’re on the field. You have enough to worry about. ”

“You don’t get to decide what’s stupid and what isn’t. If it’s bothering you, then you need to tell me. You need to communicate with me. I fucking tell you everything. I share everything with you because I don’t ever want there to be another secret between us again. I don’t like keeping things from you, and I don’t appreciate you keeping things from me. ”

“I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. I know I’m not good at being an open book, but I’ll try to be better. ”

“And I know I let you down before and you don’t trust me completely. But this goes beyond that, and I think we both know it. ” She sniffed, and her breath hitched repeatedly as I continued. “After tonight’s game, we’ll be on the road for few days. I think we should take this time to figure out what we both want. ”

“I know what I want,” she insisted.

“I don’t,” I lied. Of course I wanted Cassie, but I was hurt. I lost her trust in one terrible decision-making moment, but she lost pieces of mine every time she shut me out, kept me at distance, or didn’t care enough about our relationship to stay put and fight. I wanted to know we were solid, but her actions only confused me.

“OK,” she said with hurt in her voice. “I’ll do anything to fix this, Jack. Tell me what you need me to do. ”

I took a long, deep breath. It was finally my turn.

“Prove it,” I said before ending the call. Now she would know how it felt to be on the other end of that fucking request.

I immediately dialed the car service where Matteo worked and asked for the owner. “Hi, Mr. Lombardi, Jack Carter here. I need to cancel all services with Matteo and request a new driver starting today. ”

“Of course, Mr. Carter. Did Matteo do something wrong?”

The media would inform him soon enough, if he didn’t know already. “I just want a new driver. Do not send Matteo here today or I’ll lose my shit. Do you understand?”

He cleared his throat. “I, uh… understand. ”

Tags: J. Sterling The Perfect Game Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net