Chapter 183

Sarah isn’t home when I let myself into the apartment carrying my case. I let Jefferson go, assuring him I can manage and despite his fatherly protests, he is finally gone. I still have a key to the apartment and want nothing more than the coziness of the couch and throws and space to mull over Jake’s asshole attitude.

I text Sarah informing her of my arrival, so she won’t be surprised when she gets home but my heart sinks at her response. Marcus has taken her to Florida for a few days to meet his family and she only left this morning. She tells me to help myself to the freezer contents and to call her later. My heart aches but I don’t tell her why I’m here.

Meeting the family equals seriousness. It signals forever!

Maybe Sarah and Marcus are really making a go of it this time, the thought bothers me, but not as much as it did before. I’m lost now that my stability isn’t here to lift my chin and help me get through my first meaningful relationship fight with Jake. Not that there is much of a fight. Just him acting out like the spoiled brat he can sometimes be and trying to domineer his own way as per usual. Sometimes I like Jake’s wealth and the confidence it gives him but at times like this, when his tantrumming, asshole moods and attitude that money has ingrained in him rears its ugly head, I hate it.

I submerge myself in catching up with Margo and work via email. Step one of showing Jake this is not how a relationship works. I’m going to reacquaint myself with the current tasks he’d been overseeing, touch base with Rosalie, and make it known I want to be involved again. I’ve become too used to being kept by Jake in eternal vacation mode and stubborn PA Emma is stamping her foot in defiance at his behavior today. He seems more than happy to slide me into his personal life more and more, taking me worlds away from PA mode and partly it’s what’s wrong with me lately. The weird moods and emotions, the tiredness, and listless feelings deep inside. I have lost my value as his partner in work and left only as his girlfriend with no real security the way I need it.

I want to be more than just his bed partner and cuddle buddy; I need that challenge back of being his partner in work; decision making and overseeing things. I am so out of touch with all of that and disappointed in myself.

The thought of making a home in the Hamptons with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs makes me terrified. I don’t know how to be nothing—a doting girlfriend and kept woman. I don’t know how to slot into a domestic life and leisurely existence, and I don’t want it. I want to be worth something, to be something worthwhile, for me, something to aspire to.

Margo soon dumps the email catch up in replacement for a real phone call and has me up to speed, lost in idle chit-chat and asking how life as Jake’s love is treating me. It feels so good to talk to her, to talk through everything, and even to confess to the fight at his parents. This opening up to people had slowly been getting more natural with me, shockingly so, and I’m finding it helps me right now.

She assures me that Jake will come around and realize that pushing me has never worked in the past and always sent me running away from him. To have a little faith in his ability to retrace his bad decisions and make things right. I smile when we hang up, more assured and less heartbroken. She’s right. Jake may be an impulsive ass sometimes but eventually his logical brain brings it back around and he sees the error in his judgment. I’m just not sure how long this is going to take him.

You made him feel like he wasn’t what you wanted in life, Emma, good move. That ego alone has taken a massive dint today, never mind his heart.

I sigh in exasperation and try to focus on anything that’s not him.

By late evening I’ve returned to despair at his lack of contact and check my phone endlessly. That pit of anxiety and tension coursing through me and the absolute agony of not knowing what he’s thinking anymore. Finally, I can’t stand it and call him, beyond hurt that my absence has been ignored.

So much for caring about my feelings!

“Jake?” After endless ringing, he finally picks up and all I get is noise and music all around him, it’s obvious he’s at a nightclub and my heart thuds hard through my chest, winding me painfully. Jake has never just up and gone out without me like this, not since he told me he loved me. He’s out getting drunk and ignoring my existence.

What the fuck?

“Hello?” his slurred husky voice comes through the noise, he’s extremely drunk, but he’s talking to other people in the background, some female voices too. Giggling and chattering and a lot of hilarity. My tears well up and anger flies higher.

“Hello?” He can’t seem to hear me over the music. My jealousy rages, my heart and temper sparring with one another and it engulfs me.

“Jake, where are you?” the pitiful tears slip out unexpectedly and warmly roll down my cheek, despite my rage. My heart’s breaking. I hate the way he can twist a knife in me this way. All he’s done is go out, but somehow it feels like a momentous thing considering how we left things.

What’s he doing and who with?

I suddenly feel so alone and so insecure it’s almost strangling me, cursing my inner stupid self and her eternal inability to believe Jake will never hurt me this way.

“Look, honey, I can’t hear you … I’m staying out, maybe see you tomorrow or something. We’ll see.” He sounds distant, cold, just like the Jake who left me on that boat to go have sex with other people. He doesn’t wait but just hangs up and leaves me staring numbly at a blank screen, my heart ripping free in screaming agony.

He obviously hasn’t been home, never realized I didn’t get there or if he has, then it doesn’t matter to him and now his attitude … calling me honey … The pet name he used on his casual sex buddies. The anger soars through me and I yank the phone back up calling again. This time when he answers the noise isn’t so loud as though he’s moved to another room or maybe the bathroom.

“Where the fuck are you?” I stand up, rage coursing through me, pacing hysterically. My body trembling with so much emotion ripping through me at one time.

Who the hell is he to treat me this way, like I don’t matter? He spent months making me believe that I matter more than anything in the world and on the back of one stupid disagreement, he’s treating me like one of his passing whores. Some of whom he’s probably with. I mean who in New York hasn’t he had sex with? Our relationship is more than this.

I’m so angry the pulse beating in my head is almost loud.

“Calm the fuck down and go to bed. I’m out. I told you. I need space to figure things out.” Is his reply and it only makes me seethe more. A girl says his name and giggles, the phone muffles as he replies to her and I can’t make out what either are saying. I see red, jealousy spiking to psychotic levels, and my lungs exploding to battle the pain I’m feeling.

Screw him. Screw Carrero and his stubborn, arrogant, dick-faced attitude! Screw him and his whores and playboy fucking lifestyle.

“Don’t worry I’m going to bed but it’s not yours, asshole.” I almost crack my screen with the force I hang up. I storm through to the kitchen to get a drink of water for my suddenly sand dry throat, my hands are shaking but I’m literally vibrating with anger. This is so stupid, so goddamn over the top dramatic, even for him. My phone rings again, Jake’s name flashing like a red flag on my screen and the urge to hang up bites at me. I pick it up and hesitate but then answer. Rage consuming me.

“Whose bed exactly are you climbing into?” his venomous, slurring, jealousy fueled erratic response winds me.

What the f—? Does Jake really believe me capable of climbing into someone else’s bed? I’m not him!

I glare at the screen; my inner logical self has jumped out a window but instead, this need to wound him raises her ugly head. My lowest pettiest reaction bites out, wounded.

How could he accuse me of something like that?

“I’m fucking waiting on an answer!” He shouts down the phone at me with so much hatred I recoil.

Stalking back to my room I haul the huge teddy bear out of the closet and pull him upright, he wears a tag around his throat with his name, I flip it over and read it before slamming my mouth back to the phone.