Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 77

Chapter 77

Jessica’s POV

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“Soak it,” he commanded, guiding my hand into the bowl.

The cool water hit the burn with a relief so sharp it made me sigh.

A

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After a few minutes, he lifted my hand out, water dripping from my fingertips. He picked up a pair of tweezers, his touch steady as he went after the shard.

“Ow!” I flinched as it came out, a fresh bead of blood blooming on my skin.

“Easy,” he murmured. He wiped it away with a gauze pad, his thumb grazing my palm in a way that sent a tingle straight up my arm. “Just breathe.”

The gentleness in his hands was dangerous. It started a slow burn in my chest, a warmth that pushed back against every wall I’d spent years building.

He finished by wrapping my thumb in a neat bandage, securing the tape with ease.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I looked up, and our eyes locked. The air in the room suddenly felt thin, the silence stretching out until it became heavy with everything we weren’t saying.

Six years of questions, anger, and unresolved pain hung between us. He didn’t look away; he was searching my face, and for a split second, I actually thought he was going to say it, the one real thing that would change everything.

“Aaron, the sports-” David’s voice cut through the air as he stepped into the office. “Oops. Sorry.”

He stopped short, his hand still on the doorframe. He made a move to back out, but not before I caught the sly, knowing grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I looked down at the carpet, wishing the floor would just swallow me whole.

“The sports what?” Aaron asked. His voice was cold and clipped, the intimacy of the last few minutes vanishing instantly as he snapped back into boss mode.

David paused, turning back with a mischievous glint in his eye. He started to take a step forward but caught himself just before his shoe hit the puddle of coffee and broken glass.

His

gaze flicked from the mess to my bandaged hand, then back to Aaron, who was still sitting much too close to me on the couch.

A look of pure realization crossed his face.

“I’ll just… go get one of the cleaners to handle this,” he murmured, quickly disappearing back into the hallway.

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Chapter 77

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It was just the two of us again, and the silence felt heavy. He stood up and turned his back to me, his shoulders tense under his shirt.

For a second, I let myself look. It reminded me so much of our old apartment, those nights I’d lay in my bed, staring at his back across the room while he slept.

I’d spent so many hours wondering what it would feel like to just reach out and touch him. That same old pull was there now, but I forced myself to stay still.

I stood up and slid my bag over my shoulder.

“Thank you for… taking care of that, sir. I’ll get back to work,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

I was halfway to the door when he spoke. “Jess.”

The way he said my name stopped me cold. It wasn’t the voice of my boss; it was soft, raw, and sounded almost pained.

I turned back slowly. He was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite name-a storm of something that looked a lot like longing.

“Yes?” I asked. My pulse hammered in my throat as I waited for the apology, the explanation, the mention of everything we’d lost. But it didn’t come.

He just stared at me, his eyes searching mine. I watched a brief flicker of vulnerability start to surface, but before he could speak, it was gone.

As if snapped back by an invisible force, he blinked, and the cold mask slid back into place.

“Go to work,” he said flatly, turning away and heading for his desk without another look.

My heart sank, and I felt the familiar sting of tears. I bit my lip hard, forcing the disappointment down before it could show.

“Okay,” I whispered, turning for the door.

I paused with my hand on the frame, looking back one last time. “Should I get you another coffee?”

He didn’t look up. He just gave a small, dismissive shake of his head.

I stood there for a second, staring at the side of his face, before stepping out and quietly closing the door behind me.

I managed to hold it together until I reached my office. The second the lock clicked into place, the damn broke.

I sank into my chair, my forehead hitting the cool surface of the desk as the tears finally came-hot, fast, and messy.

I bit down on my sleeve to muffle the sound, terrified that someone in the hallway would hear me unraveling.

16:01 Wed, Jan 21

Chapter 77

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The room felt small, the walls closing in on me. I tried to focus on my screen, but the spreadsheets were just at glowing blur through my watery eyes.

My head started to throb, a sharp ache building behind my temples, but I welcomed it. I’d take any physical pain over this. I’d take a fever or exhaustion any day if it meant I didn’t have to feel this hollow, wrenching weight in my chest.

Everything felt distorted. It was like I was trapped in a thick bubble that wouldn’t pop, walking through a fog of pure confusion.

One part of me wanted to storm back into his office and scream. I wanted to demand answers-to ask why he’d even bothered to find me if he was just going to treat me like a stranger.

But another part of me was louder, more practical: Just move on, Jess. It won’t change anything.

I was reminded of that night six years ago: the way I’d poured my heart out, the heat of our bodies, and the brutal heartbreak that followed when I saw him with her.

It had shattered me into a million pieces, and I’d spent the last six years painstakingly putting myself back together.

I wasn’t ready to go through that cycle again. I knew how it ended: I’d open up, I’d get hurt, and then I’d lose everything.

If he knew the truth, he wouldn’t just leave me; he’d take Adrian. He had the power to take my son and leave me with nothing but a handful of regrets.

I couldn’t risk it. I’d rather live with the elephant in the room, letting the silence suffocate us both, than lose the only thing that mattered.

Sniffling, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, forcing myself to focus on the screen.

The clock in the corner of my monitor ticked away, hours slipping by in a blur of emails and spreadsheets.

My desk phone buzzed, the sudden vibration jolting me out of my haze.

I stared at the unknown number for a moment before clearing my throat a few times to steady the tremor in my voice.

I couldn’t sound like a mess. I couldn’t sound like the broken single mom who’d just cried her eyes out over her ex-if he could even be called that.

I’d liked him, I’d confessed it, and we had slept together, but I never actually knew how he felt.

We never had a label. In this world, sex didn’t make people a couple; it just made things complicated- especially in a situation like mine.

I pushed everything else down. Professional and composed, that was the only Jess I could afford to be right

now.”

“Hello, Aaron Tyrone’s office. How can I

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Chapter 77

“I want to speak to Aaron,” a sharp, piercing voice cut me off.

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The air left my lungs. The voice was a ghost from a nightmare, one I recognized with a sickening jolt in my gut. I prayed I was wrong, but the cadence was unmistakable.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “But you need to schedule an appointment. If I may ask, who is calling?”

She hissed, the sound sharp with impatience.

“I’m Fiona Macron. I need to speak with him immediately. I can’t get through on his personal line because I was blocked…” She trailed off, as if realizing she’d said too much.

“Actually, why am I even explaining our business to you? Just put him on. It’s important-it’s about his fiancé’s family.”

“Fiancé?” The word was barely a breath, a faint gasp that felt like it had been punched out of me.

Fiona kept talking, but I didn’t hear another word.

My heart didn’t just ache; it felt like it was physically trembling in my chest.

Aaron-engaged? To someone else?

He has Fiancé? Not just a girlfriend, not just a mistake, but a future. A life he was building while I was hiding in the shadows raising his child.

Suddenly, the oxygen in the room became thin. It felt like I was standing on a mountain peak with nowhere to go but down.

The room started to spin. I reached for the edge of the desk, but the surface felt miles away as my balance gave out.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Fiona’s voice echoed through the speaker, tinny and distant.

I tried to steady myself, but my vision frayed at the edges, the bright light from the window blurring into long, jagged shadows.

My head grew too heavy for my neck to support, and the world simply started to dissolve.

“Fuck! Incompetent assistant,” I heard her snap, her voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the desk, but I couldn’t reach for it.

My world was shrinking, the blackness bleeding in from every corner until the desk, the light, and the crushing pain in my chest simply vanished into the dark.

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