The Dangerous Jacob Wilde

“Jacob?”

When he yanked his shirt over his head, she took a cotton robe from the back of a chair and pulled it on.

“What are you doing?” she said as he stuffed his feet into his boots. “Please. Listen to me. If you don’t want coffee, we could go back to bed for a while and then—”

He swung toward her. The look on his face made her catch her breath.

“Coffee’s not going to do it. Neither will sex.”

She winced as if he’d hit her. He knew it was a cruel thing to say, a vicious thing to say, but everything inside him was coming apart.

“I know that,” she whispered. “I only meant … I care for you, Jacob. You mean—you mean everything to me.”

“Wrong,” he said sharply. “I don’t mean anything to anyone, especially to myself.”

“No! You don’t mean that.”

“Go home, Addison. Go back to New York and your law practice and your life.”

“Jacob.” Tears blurred her eyes as she hurried through the door after him. “I don’t want to leave you. You don’t want me to leave you. I know you don’t.”

She was right. He didn’t. His life was a mess and so was his head, but he loved her, he would always love her.

That was the very reason he had to leave her.

She deserved a man who was whole. Not a sick, useless coward like him.

He went down the stairs quickly, heard the soft patter of her bare feet behind him. Halfway to the door, he felt the touch of her hand on his shoulder.

Jake hardened his heart and swung toward her.

“The thing is,” he said, hating himself for the lie, for the pain he saw shining like tears in her eyes, “this had run its course anyway.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“You’re leaving in a couple of days. I was going to hit the road then, too—I mean, I figured we’d go on having a good time until then—”

“A good time?” she said in a whisper that made him want to tell her he was lying.

He couldn’t let that happen.

“I’m sorry if you figured on more from me but you always knew this was a temporary thing. You knew I was moving on.”

“Jacob.” She sobbed his name, reached her hand toward him. “Jacob, please listen! You need help!”

Jake turned on his heel and walked out.

What he needed, he thought as he got into the Thunderbird, was the open road.

Nobody to question him.

Nobody to make him think or remember when, dammit, all he wanted to do was to forget.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CALEB WILDE sat in his Dallas office, staring out the window.

Any man would do that instead of tending to the letters and files stacked on his desk.