hearing his admission of how he’d felt about me. I’d been with him long enough to observe his little ways, how he looked when he was embarrassed, horny, angry and frustrated; and that thing he did with his hair told me he was embarrassed with the conversation, not that he was lying.
“I owed the guys … they’d been patient with me being here, but there was no way I could let the band down.”
I wanted to believe him; and from the way he looked at me, I was almost convinced, but I shook my head because the least he could have done was to have told me he was leaving.
“It’s been over four months, Jamie. You just— went.”
I shrugged my shoulders helplessly and remembered how crucified I’d felt when I found out he had gone.
“You’ve been gone for longer than you were here,” I reminded him, feeling hurt all over again. “With no contact, what was I supposed to think? And supposing you were making an album, were you saving your precious voice for that? You could have gotten a message to me.”
“I’m trying to tell—” he ground out.
“Oh, and how do you explain the photographs?” I asked ignoring his protests. “How do you think I felt when Frances showed me the gossip magazine photos of you out on the town with ‘Stunning Starlet’ and ‘Fontaine Cozies Up To Debut Singing Sensation,” I scoffed. “Do you think we can’t read here in Ireland?”
“Stop … just stop. Take a breath, Daisy. I can explain all of that, too,” he pleaded, moving down onto the couch cushion next to me, and reaching out for my hand. I pulled it away and he flinched with my rejection. “Those photographs were staged. Our management company arranged photo opportunities with up and coming wannabees to keep the band’s profile in the media. It's pretty standard practice. I’ve had no outside contact with the world whatsoever.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t just tell me you had to go,” I reminded him. He sighed, his face displaying the obvious torture at that decision.
“If I’d spoken with you, I knew you’d have been upset and I would never have left. Believe me, it was a struggle to go, but I owed it to the guys to get the album done. I couldn’t allow what I felt for you to get in the way.”
“You couldn’t have messaged me? Emailed? Anything?”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed and he eyed me suspiciously before he locked his intense gaze into mine and he stared me down.
“When I knew I was leaving, I asked Frances for advice because I had no idea how to tell you. She thought it would be best if I just left you the letter.” He shrugged, like it explained everything. “She’s your best friend … I thought she knew you better than me, and I’ll admit I was a coward because I knew if I told you in person, and you’d cried, I wouldn’t have gone.”
I blinked as my breath hitched when my heart stalled for a beat. “I didn’t get any letter. What letter? I haven’t seen one. She really told you to leave without telling me?”
“She did. I explained it all in that letter to you, but it’s now dawning on me Frances isn’t the amazing friend she’d have you believe. She should have given you my note the day I left, and it would have set you straight.”
My heart beat erratically. “Well … Now I don’t know what to think about her,” I admitted after mulling over what he’d told me.
My anger shifted immediately from him toward my so called friend. The way she’d insisted on sharing those gossip magazine images flashed through my mind. Jealous bitch.
I sighed, feeling both betrayed by Frances, and heartbroken for the hatred I’d felt toward him. For a minute I considered how devastated I’d felt and cussed Frances upside down for deceiving me. I’d had an inkling she felt jealous about Jamie and me; some friend she’d been when she’d held back his letter and allowed me to think the worst … or perhaps she had secretly banked on him not coming back.
Wait until I see her.
“Right then, there’s only one way to deal with this,” I told him, fury filled my veins as I pulled my cell out of my jeans pocket and called Frances’s number. Jamie frowned and for a split second I wondered if he had made up the story to get himself off the hook for leaving