Love In Secrets (Love Distilled #3) - Scarlett Cole Page 0,81
carefully. “What, do I have pastry in my beard?”
Emerson shook her head. “Nope. Just . . . I love you, Jake. You know that, right?”
“Em,” he warned. The last thing he needed was her looking at him like he was broken, even if he was.
She raised her hands in surrender. “Fine. Fine. I won’t do the overpowering, big sister thing. Yet. But it’s coming, brother of mine. It’s coming because I’m worried about you.”
The fact she cared melted the frozen edges of his heart. “I know. But I’m not ready yet. It’s still all a bit too raw.”
She placed her hand on his arm. “What if I remind you we’ve got a budget review this afternoon instead? Make you feel any better?”
Stupidly, it did. It was business as normal. “Never thought I’d see the day when I’d say this, but yeah, a budget review sounds peachy.”
He’d not seen Liv or Emerson outside of the distillery in a week. It wasn’t that they hadn’t asked. And he’d had invitations from Connor and Anders that he’d declined too. Workouts, bike rides, poker games. Right now, he couldn’t bear to be around gloriously happy couples. It was a painful reminder of the very thing that had slipped through his fingers.
Four hours later, as he jogged up the stairs to Emerson’s office, he had an epiphany.
He was never going to be able to get back to the guy he was before he and Cassie had fallen in love. There was no satisfaction to be had in crushing volume targets. His scale of pros and cons no longer showed staying here as the priority. At least, it wavered. On days when his home felt more like a prison, when text messages from Emerson felt like a personal insult rather than a business request, on days when he wondered if he even liked the taste of gin anymore, he realized he’d rather do something else and be with Cassie, than remain here and be without. He’d started to resent the way the distillery door stuck on damp mornings and the way Patience needed coaxing into action.
“Hey, Jake,” Liv said, already seated at the table. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” He pulled out the chair and took a seat. “You?”
Liv studied him, and he knew she could see straight through his glib answer. “I’m worried about you. We both are.”
“Well, no need. It’s done.”
“Is it?” Emerson asked, as she came into the office with three coffees on a tray.
Jake shook his head as if his sisters were both being foolish, but then he hated being dishonest. “I miss her more than I can deal with. I think I need to go and see her.”
The look on his sisters’ faces represented his own sense of shock. He hadn’t meant to say that. Heck, he hadn’t even thought about it. But now it was out there, a certain peace filtered through him and he knew it was the right thing to do.
Neither of them said anything.
“I mean. I don’t know. Things don’t feel . . . finished. At least not for me. I need to go see her and see if she feels the same.”
Liv put her hand on his arm, but it was Em who spoke. “Jake. We love you and we don’t want you to be unhappy, which you clearly are. If you need to leave to speak with Cassie, go. The extra production from the last few weeks can offset demand.”
Liv nodded. “I think you’re right. You need to go and see if Cassie is feeling the same way about things as you are. Hopefully she is, and you can persuade her to move back home. And if she doesn’t, well, then at least you can draw a line under things and find a way to move forward.”
She meant well, but she’d excluded one option. One option that scared the shit out of him more than anything else.
What if she wants you, and the only way is to stay in New York?
Liv was looking at him with her usual wide-eyed optimism, but Emerson’s eyes were narrowed and she bit down on the skin at the side of her thumb, something she only did when she was anxious.
Emerson realized what Liv had left unsaid, just as much as he had. He reached for her wrist and gently tugged her hand away from her mouth. “It’ll be okay, Emerson.”
“I hope so,” she said, quietly. “But I mean it, Jake. We did what we said. We put the distillery back