Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Aaron’s POV

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1 sat in my office, watching the late afternoon sun cut through the blinds in sharp, golden lines.

Usually, this room was the only place I felt in control-surrounded by trophies, medals, scouting reports, sports memorabilia, and the quiet hum of the city twenty floors down. But today, the silence was too loud.

I took a swallow of the scotch in my glass, the burn in my throat a welcome distraction from the jagged mess in my head.

I leaned back in my leather chair, the springs creaking in the silence of my office, and stared at the photograph in my hand.

It was Jess. It was always Jess.

The photo was from a carnival we attended in her second year with me. It was a candid shot where the wind had caught her hair and she was laughing at something I’d said.

She looked so light. So happy. The corners of the print were soft and white from years of me thumbing the edges, trying to make the image give me answers it didn’t have.

I felt a familiar, ugly surge of betrayal. Six years. Seventy-two months of being haunted by a ghost who didn’t even have the decency to leave a goodbye note.

My mind, as it did every night when the sun went down, drifted back to that morning on the cruise.

We’d had sex that morning-mind-blowing, intimate, the kind that felt like sealing a lifetime vow.

Her whispers, her tears as she came undone… I’d started to see her as more than a roommate, more than a friend.

She’d cracked through my walls, made me feel something real after Fiona’s knife in the back.

And then-poof. Gone.

The cruise CCTV had been a dead end; a clean, professional wipe. It was the work of a ghost, or a specialist. It made no

sense.

How could someone be that happy, that connected, and then disappear into thin air three hours later? If this were some mafia flick or gangster novel, I’d assume she was a seductress planted to extract secrets or sabotage me.

But this wasn’t the movies. This was real life.

Sometimes, in my darker moments, I wonder if she’d flipped the script on me.

Had she wanted me all those years just for… what? My dick? Played me for years just to get a taste of the Tyrone life, and then moved on when the mystery dissolved?

The bitter, ugly thought curdled in my head.

Fuck. No. That didn’t sit right-especially not with someone like Jess.

She could be stubborn, she could be shy, and she could be maddeningly sassy when she wanted to be, but she wasn’t capable of that kind of manipulation. She wasn’t built that way.

I’m furious at her-damn, I’m livid-but beneath the anger is a dull, constant ache. I had started to feel something real for

her.

I was finally seeing her-really seeing her-not just as my roommate, but the way she’d get so excited over a crazy work of

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Chapter 62

fretion or the way she stood her ground without ever raising her voice.

And then, just as I was falling under her spell, she was gone. She left me haunted, circling the same drain for years.

Was it something I said or did that morning? Was I too much? Not enough?

The “why” is the thing that keeps me up at night; it’s a shadow in the corner of the room that never quite goes away.

She hadn’t even taken money. If she were a gold digger, she would have finished school on my dime or squeezed me for a settlement.

Instead, she abandoned everything. Her degree, her belongings, her life in Florida-all gone.

Even her deadbeat family in New Orleans claimed to know nothing, and believe me, I’ve had people watching them for

years.

If they were hiding something, they would have slipped up by now-but their confusion actually felt real. That was the most frustrating part.

They were just as much in the dark as I was.

Then there was Grandpa. I’m convinced he’s behind this, I just can’t prove it.

He hasn’t let a single crack show in that “perfect patriarch” act he puts on. But I can’t shake the memory of that “talk” he had with her right before we left for the cruise.

She wouldn’t tell me what it was about; she just got quiet and looked away every time I brought it up.

Somewhere deep in my gut, I know he was the catalyst. He’d done something to spook her, to drive her into the dark.

If he truly is the reason she ran, I’ll tear his world apart.

I’ve searched everywhere. Florida, New Orleans, every major city in the US. Nothing. It’s as if she vanished from the face of the earth.

Sometimes the thought creeps in-the terrifying, cold possibility that she might be dead, but I refuse to let it take root. She has to be alive. Somewhere, she’s out there, breathing the same air I am.

The sudden rattle of my office door handle jerked me upright. It swung open before I could even draw a breath, let alone pull myself together.

With frantic hands, I tucked the photo under a stack of scouting files. My heart pounding like I’d been caught red-handed.

Lauren waltzed in, her heels clicking sharply on the hardwood.

She didn’t knock; she never did.

Lauren was the “proper” choice, the one my grandfather had hand-picked from some high-society shortlist to ensure the Tyrone name stayed prestigious.

She looked exactly like the woman she was raised to be: every blonde hair in its perfect, expensive place.

She was wearing a white dress that looked like it had been tailored onto her body, showing off the kind of athletic curves you only get from high-end Pilates and having nothing else to do with your day.

Her makeup was so seamless it didn’t even look like skin anymore; it looked like a filter. She was a walking, breathing vision of perfection, and looking at her just made my head ache.

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Chapter 62

Since I’d refused the hockey tradition, my grandfather had pivoted, trapping me in this arranged engagement. It was the price of my inheritance, the ransom for the empire I’d built.

I’d agreed to it because, frankly, it didn’t matter. The one person who had made me consider giving love a second chance was gone. I knew I’d never find another Jessica.

I looked at Lauren as she approached. She was striking in a very different way. Where Jessica was bold curves and milky skin, Lauren was all sharp angles and bronzed, model-toned perfection.

Where Jessica’s blue eyes were expressive and deep, Lauren’s were a cool, polished gray that always seemed to be calculating the social value of everyone in the room.

Jessica was shy yet sassy; Lauren was loud, demanding, and utterly convinced the world was her stage.

She wasn’t a bad person, necessarily-she was just an inhabitant of a world where everything, including marriage, was a

transaction.

“You’ve been working too hard, Aaron,” she purred, perching on the edge of my desk.

Her fingers trailed up my arm to catch my jaw, her touch bold and a little too possessive.

Her nails were a deep crimson, and matched her lips perfectly.

She leaned in, and her perfume wafted over me in an expensive, floral cloud that felt like it was trying to choke out the smell of my scotch.

I kept my eyes locked on my laptop screen, the scouting stats blurring into a mess of useless numbers.

Her fingers were warm against my skin, but they did absolutely nothing for me.

“What do you want, Lauren?” I asked, cutting right through the act.

My voice was flat, the kind of tone that usually tells a person to get out, but she just sauntered around the desk anyway, using that practiced sway she’d probably spent years perfecting in front of a mirror.

She huffed, pulling her hand away. Sometimes I wondered if she even noticed the sheer lack of enthusiasm in my eyes. Or maybe she just didn’t care as long as the Tyrone name was on the marriage license.

“Always so charming,” her sarcastic words trailed out in a mutter.

She leaned against my desk, and her hip bumped the stack of files that hid Jessica’s face.

“Our grandparents and parents are inviting us to dinner this Sunday. They want to finalize the details for the spring wedding. It’s going to be the event of the season, Aaron. Luxe & Line is already asking for exclusivè rights.”

I didn’t say a word. I just clenched my fist beneath the desk.

Years ago, when I’d finally realized I loved Jessica, I had fantasized about this process-but with her.

I had imagined a quiet ceremony, maybe on a beach, far away from the cameras and the social climbing.

Now, it was just a corporate merger with a veil.

I nodded stiffly. “I’ll be there.”

She didn’t leave immediately. I could feel her stare, heavy and searching, as if she were trying to find the man behind the

mask.

She knew I wasn’t “all there,” but she was smart enough not to ask why. She didn’t want to know about the ghost that lived in

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Chapter 62

my office.

Finally, she leaned down, and kissed my cheek. It was a dry, sterile gesture.

“I’ll be over at your place later tonight,” she said excitedly. “Don’t be late. I bought that new silk set you. well, the one you

should like.”

She turned and left, the click of her heels echoing down the hallway like a countdown.

I waited until the sound faded completely before I let out a long, ragged sigh.

My hand trembled as I reached under the files and pulled the picture out again.

I smoothed a thumb over Jessica’s face, my vision blurring for just a second,

“Where are you, Jess?” I whispered to the empty room. “Where the hell did you go?”

I stared at her smile until the scotch was gone and the ice had melted, trapped in a marriage I didn’t want, in a life that felt like a well-furnished cage, still waiting for a girl who had no intention of being found.

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13:20 Mon, Jan 12