Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 128

Chapter 128

Jessica’s POV

I stood over the stove, the steam from the hot soup rising to dampen my forehead.

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Aunt Lydia had been complaining again-sharp, biting pains right where the surgeons had worked.

I chewed my lip, my mind racing through everything I had researched. It had been nearly three weeks.

From the research I’d done late at night, scrolling through medical sites on my phone, the pain should have subsided by now, or at least dulled to a mild ache, especially with the 24-hour care Aaron had insisted on providing.

He’d hired a private nurse to handle the massages and the medication, but despite the constant check-ups, she wasn’t getting better.

In the harsh light of the kitchen, I realized with a sink in my stomach that she seemed worse than before the operation: paler, more withdrawn, her energy fading like a candle burning low.

A heavy sigh escaped my lips, fogging the spoon for a moment.

I poured the broth into a ceramic bowl, added a spoon, napkin, and glass of water for her pills, then balanced the tray.

The hallway to her room felt longer than usual.

The air inside the house was thick and heavy with a tension I couldn’t quite name.

It felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the corridors.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder and stepped inside.

The room was dim, lit only by the pale, silver glow of the moonlight filtering through the curtains.

Adrian sat in the corner on the rug, engrossed in his airplane toy-a sleek model Aaron had brought during one of his tense visits for dinner.

The toy whirred softly as he zoomed it through the air, oblivious to the undercurrent,

I walked over to the bedside table and set the tray down.

“Aunt, I brought you the soup you requested,” I announced softly, my voice barely above a whisper to avoid startling her.

There was no answer. I reached for the plastic amber pill bottles on the nightstand, squinting to read the labels for her evening dose.

When she still didn’t move, I figured the pain had finally let up enough for her to fall into a deep sleep.

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Part of me wanted to just leave the tray in the warmer and let her rest, but something stopped me.

In the moonlight, her face looked like carved marble. Not just pale, translucent.

“She must be cold,” I whispered to myself.

I grabbed the remote and turned the heat up to 30 degrees, then reached down to pull the duvet higher over her chest.

My fingers brushed the skin of her shoulder, and I froze, my breath catching in my throat.

Something was wrong-terribly, horribly wrong.

She wasn’t just cold. She was ice. A type of cold that doesn’t come from a drafty window or a low thermostat. It was a cold that felt like it came from the earth itself.

“Addie,” I called out. My voice sounded thin and shaky, like a string about to snap.

“Yes, Momma?” he responded. He didn’t look up from his plane.

“Could you… could you switch the light on? Now, baby.”

I didn’t want to think it. I didn’t want to name the feeling rising in my throat. I stood paralyzed by the bed, staring at the silhouette of her profile.

The overhead light flickered to life, flooding the room with a clinical, yellow glare. Something in me recoiled at the sight.

Her eyes were half-open, fixed on nothing. Her skin had a blueish tint that the moonlight had hidden.

The scream tore out of me before I could even process the grief. It was piercing, broken, and loud enough to make Adrian drop his toy and scramble backward in terror.

Aaron’s POV

The city lights outside my office window were still on, even though I felt done for the night.

It was late-well past the time I should have been home-but Fiona had insisted on this meeting.

Across my desk, she slid a series of high-resolution photos and bank statements toward me.

I scanned the pages, my stomach churning as I realized how deep the rot went. It wasn’t just the “consultations” with our rivals-though the proof of her selling out Tyrone secrets for offshore kickbacks was enough to bury her.

It was the rest of it. The private life she’d scrubbed so carefully from the public eye.

There was a list-long, detailed, and humiliating. A body count that read like a directory of the industry, from high-level CEOs we did business with down to the low-class fixers she used to handle her dirty work.

Then there were the medical records. Abortion receipts from private clinics in Europe, drug habits funded by

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company accounts, the kind of reckless, messy behavior my grandfather loathed above all else.

The Tyrone name was built on a facade of old-money discipline and “perfect” legacy.

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This? This was filth. My grandfather might be a cold-blooded shark who wanted the Walters merger at any cost, but he was also a man of immense pride.

He wouldn’t just be displeased; he’d be repulsed.

He’d sooner see the company stock tank than see the family name dragged through the mud by a woman who had played him for a fool.

I let out a harsh breath, my mind racing to anticipate his reaction.

The old man was a paradox of pride and spite. Part of me knew he wouldn’t care about Lauren’s character; he might even find her ruthlessness admirable.

He’d likely still want to push the wedding through just to punish me-a final “fuck you” for walking away from the hockey legacy he’d built for me.

To him, my misery was a fair price for a powerful merger.

But then there was the other side of him. The side that valued the Tyrone bloodline above all else.

He was a man who obsessed over “purity” and the weight of our name.

He’d been played for a fool, and if there was one thing he hated more than a disobedient grandson, it was being the mark in someone else’s con.

He wouldn’t want a woman like this in his lineage, carrying the next generation of Tyrones, once he knew she had spent years dragging our reputation through the gutter behind his back.

I looked up at Fiona, my jaw tight. “You’re sure this is all verified? The medical stuff, the industry names… all of it?”

Fiona nodded, her expression grim.

“I’ve got the digital trails and the physical signatures, Aaron. She wasn’t as careful as she thought she was. She thought she was untouchable.”

I fisted my hand on the desk, the paper crinkling under my grip. Then I looked at Fiona. Really looked at her.

She looked tired. Subdued.

“Why are you doing this, Fiona?” I asked, my voice flat. “Why help me now?”

She stared at me for a long beat, her fingers nervously picking at the hem of her sleeve.

“I know I fucked up big time, Aaron. I know what you think of me.” She took a deep breath, her chest hitching.

“I realized what I did-how much I hurt you and Jessica. I was blinded by the thrill of it all. The money, the

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attention… the lust. I don’t even know who that person was.”

She looked away, but I could see the shine of tears in her eyes.

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“I know a ‘sorry’ doesn’t erase the past. It doesn’t fix the six years you lost. But a part of me still cares about you. This is my way of trying to build a bridge back from the mess I made.”

I stared at her, but I wasn’t really seeing her anymore.

My mind had snapped back to that night: the smell of the room, the sight of her with Eric, the way she had taunted me, the way she had looked at Jess with such pure venom and treated her bad….it was all still too vivid.

It felt like a lifetime ago, yet the sting was right there.

I broke our gaze, unable to offer her the forgiveness she was clearly begging for.

“I’m truly sorry, Aaron,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “For all of it.”

I looked up in spite of myself. Tears were actually trailing down her cheeks. She wiped them away fast, but the shakiness in her hands stayed.

For the first time, she didn’t look like the woman who played games; she just looked broken.

The silence between us was suffocating, heavy with everything that had been ruined.

Then, my phone shrieked on the desk, the vibration rattling against the wood.

I saw Jessica’s name on the screen and my stomach dropped. A call this late was never a “hello.”

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