“No, I’m not!” Struggling with his own feelings, Sean backed away. Where would she have gone? Not to him, surely. Maybe this was his fault. He’d accused her of hiding, hadn’t he? “She still owns an apartment in Paris. It belonged to her mother.”
“She told you that?”
“She told me a lot of things. She hasn’t been back there since she left. What if Pascal finds out she’s back? Will he hurt her? What if he hasn’t moved on?”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed warily. “She told you about that, too?”
“Yeah, she told me.”
“She’s never told anyone else that. Not even Kayla and Brenna.”
“Well, she told me. And she also told me she’d never go back to Paris. She was scared.” And guilty that she’d let her mother down. Lonely. Frightened. Sweat pricked the back of his neck. “Do you have an address? Do you know where that apartment is?”
“No, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Seems like you didn’t just rip up the sheets with her, you let her get close to you. You encouraged her to spill her secrets, something she has never done before by the way, and then you did your usual thing and told her you didn’t love her.” Jackson stood, legs spread, glaring at him. “You broke her heart.”
Sean felt the ache in his chest throb. It was the same ache that had been there every day for a week. “That is not what happened.”
“Really? Then why don’t you tell me your version, and tell me fast because right now I feel like putting a few dents in you. If you didn’t break her heart, why isn’t she still at Snow Crystal?”
“Because she broke mine!” His tone raw, Sean paced to the other side of the room. “She broke mine, all right? And it fucking hurts, so don’t come here and lecture me about causing her pain.”
There was a stunned silence. “She broke yours?”
“Yeah. And now if you don’t mind I need to be on my own to think this through.”
“I drove here to find out what’s going on and I’m not leaving until I find out.”
Sean gritted his teeth. “I told her I loved her. She told me she didn’t love me. Do you need more detail than that? And you’re welcome to tell me I deserved it and that I finally got what was coming to me but I’d rather you waited until I’ve sorted this out.” He saw the astonishment in his brother’s face and gave a humorless laugh. “You’re thinking this is justice. Well deserved for all those women who cried on your shirt because I wouldn’t tell them I loved them. The first time I actually say those words to a woman it’s to one who doesn’t want to hear them.”
“You actually told her you loved her? And she left?” Jackson’s brows rose. “I’m confused.”
“Then you don’t know her as well as you think you do.”
“I assumed she’d fallen in love with you and it wasn’t mutual. I assumed she’d left so it wouldn’t be awkward. If you’re in love with her, why did she leave? That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. We’re her family. Or rather, you are.” Sean gave a grim smile. “Family is the most important thing to her. She’s spent the whole summer trying to get me to fix the damage with Gramps. Pushing me to talk to him, to heal things.”
“And you did. So why would she leave?”
“Because she thinks if she’s there, it will keep me away. She thinks I’ll come home less. That the family will see me less.”
“Because you didn’t show up to family night?”
“That was probably what put the thought in her head. Having just been rejected I wasn’t in the mood for family togetherness.”
“And you’re sure you said those words? You didn’t just imply it, or assume she knew or—”
“I said those words! Those three words I never thought I’d say. First time ever, well apart from Gramps but I don’t count that.”
“Gramps?”
“Never mind. For the record, I said them more than once to Élise, just so that there could be no misunderstanding. And no, she didn’t say them back, she didn’t run into my arms and no, we’re not going to live happily ever after. Can we stop talking about it now? Living through it the first time was hard enough. Reliving it isn’t much fun, either.”
Jackson ignored him. “I’m surprised, because I actually thought—” He shook his head. “Never mind. It explains why she was so quiet at family night. And why she kept saying it was her fault that you hadn’t turned up.”
“It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I wasn’t in the mood for company, but I didn’t for a moment think she’d blame herself for the fact I wasn’t there, or that she’d decide she was a threat to our family.”
“She was behaving very oddly. She told us all how much she loved us.”