Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) - Talia Hibbert Page 0,107

those people, all those strangers. He stormed past Eve and slammed out into the hall, drawing alarmed looks from two guests heading up the stairs.

Heart pounding, breaths coming a bit too fast, Jacob pulled himself together and offered them a smile that felt more like baring fangs. Their alarm didn’t fade. Actually, they seemed to head up the stairs a bit faster.

“Fuck,” he repeated, and then the door behind him opened and Eve was there.

Her fingers fluttered up to his shoulder. “Jacob—”

“Don’t touch me.” Her hand felt like a boulder. He jerked away and whirled around to face her, forcing himself to ignore the expression on her face.

The expression that said she was crumbling.

Clearly, his interpretations couldn’t be trusted when it came to this woman. Clearly, he always got her entirely, overwhelmingly wrong.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why would you—” He didn’t even know what to say.

“You didn’t give me the job.” Her words were rushed, fumbled, as she fiddled frantically with the ends of her braids. “At first. I—you didn’t—before I hit you, you didn’t give me the job. So then Florence called me, and she did give me a job. But I had to stay because I hit you, and you needed help. So I thought I’d just stay here until the festival was over. The job—”

“I don’t give a fuck about the job,” he roared, and in that second, it was absolutely true. “You—” You said you wanted me. You were supposed to be with me, not make plans behind my back and stay here out of obligation. Were you still going to leave, after last night?

He couldn’t ask. He couldn’t ask, because experience dictated that the answer would be yes.

But only children whined when they were left, and only children waited, night after night, for the ones they loved to change their minds. Jacob was not a child anymore. Nor was he some pathetic thing to be abandoned and beg for an explanation. He wasn’t pathetic at all.

Even if he had been foolishly, hopelessly in love with this woman, dreaming of a future, while she’d stumbled into his bed and been ready to stumble right back out.

He took a deep, deep breath, and felt like himself again. Felt like he was in control.

“Jacob,” she said softly. “Don’t. You’re . . . don’t.”

He knew exactly what she meant, but he ignored her. It was far better to be like this, to be distant and safe, than to be—whatever she’d made him. Far better indeed. “I appreciate your commitment to your work here,” he said coldly, “and I understand why you felt responsible, after what happened. But I don’t need you.”

She rocked back a step, her inhalation sharp. “I’m saying this all wrong, aren’t I? I know I am. Jacob, I wasn’t going to leave. I’d changed my mind. Okay? I wanted to stay. Here. At the cottage.”

Jacob’s shriveling heart leapt at those words, tried to run right for her—but it slammed into a wall of experience. He screwed his eyes shut because he couldn’t process all this and look at her, too. She was so beautiful and so precious and so obviously placating him, saying whatever it took because she could see him shattering and her soft heart couldn’t take it. Saying exactly what he wanted to hear. Just like she had all along.

It had been a lie all along.

Opening his eyes, he echoed flatly, “You’d changed your mind.”

“Yes.” The word came out in a rush, more air than substance.

“Did you tell anyone?”

She stared. “I—what?”

“Did you tell anyone?” he repeated, his spine like steel, his stomach roiling. “Like your sisters, or, I don’t know—whoever hired you to plan this party? Did you really make the decision? Or did you start to feel bad, and think about staying, and now this is happening and you need to fix it so you’re just speaking those thoughts out loud?”

“I . . .” She stuttered, blinking rapidly, looking so crestfallen it actually broke his heart. Or maybe something else was breaking his heart right now. It was hard to tell.

“You need everything to be sunshine and rainbows,” he said. “You don’t want me to be pissed. You don’t want me to end this.” Because he could see that. He’d be a fool not to see that. Eve looked ready to cry, which was really fucking with his resolve. There was something young and raw in his chest snarling and clawing at him, demanding he let this whole mess go and just have her