Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 81

Chapter 81

Aaron’s POV

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I was still staring at the ceiling, my hands clenched into fists against the duvet, when my phone buzzed on the nightstand.

The screen lit up the dark room, displaying a name I only called when I wanted the truth unearthed from the

grave.

“Speak,” I muttered, pressing the phone to my ear.

“She didn’t take the bus home, Aaron,” the voice on the other end said. It was Miller, the private investigator I’d kept on a retainer so high it was practically a salary.

“A man picked her up from the lobby. They sat together for a while first. She was crying. He was… comforting her. Hands on hers, the whole nine yards.”

The air left my lungs in a sharp, cold burst. My vision tunneled.

“Who?”

“Seth Turner. One of your mid-level analysts. He drove her to an apartment in the Silver Lake district. He didn’t go inside, but he stayed out front until her lights went on.”

I hung up without a word. I didn’t need to hear anything else.

The jealousy was a raw, stinging heat in my gut, a jagged edge that made me want to put my fist through the nearest wall just to feel a different kind of pain.

Seth Turner.

A nobody. A man who hadn’t spent a single night haunted by her ghost was now the one wiping her tears?

I didn’t sleep. I spent the rest of the night pacing the perimeter of my room like a caged animal, the question of why she ran shifting into a darker, more dangerous resolve.

I didn’t care who was ‘comforting’ her. She was back in my world now, and I wasn’t letting her until I had every single answer she’d stolen from me six years ago.

Jessica’s POV

The morning sun was a cruel intruder, bleeding through the gaps in my blinds and hitting me right in the

eyes.

I groaned, rolling over to find the other side of the bed empty.

Adrian was likely already in the kitchen, probably bribing Aunt Lydia for an extra scoop of sugar on his cereal.

My head throbbed with a dull, repetitive ache-a parting gift from the crying session in the lobby and the

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Chapter 81

heavy conversation with Lydia.

:

I stayed under the covers for a few more minutes, trying to steady my heart.

Yesterday had been a wreck.

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Finding out Aaron was engaged to some mystery woman had leveled me in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

‘Get it together, Jess,’ I told myself, throwing the duvet aside. You’re a professional. You’re a mother. You’ve survived worse than a wedding announcement.

By 8:30 AM, I was at my desk. I’d opted for a sharp, charcoal-grey blazer and tied my hair back in a sleek, no- nonsense bun. If I looked the part of the untouchable executive assistant, maybe I’d start to feel like it.

I kept my head down, focusing on the mountain of scheduling and emails that had piled up while I was busy falling apart the night before.

I was mid-sentence in a memo when my desk phone rang. The internal caller ID made my heart do a sickening somersault.

Executive Suite. A. Tyrone.

I swallowed hard, my throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper. I picked up on the third ring.

“Jessica speaking.”

“My office. Now.”

Aaron’s voice wasn’t just cold; it was iron. Strict and curt.

It wasn’t the voice of the man who had looked at me with tenderness in the supply closet. This was the CEO, and he sounded like he was ready to execute someone.

“I’ll be right there,” I whispered, but the line had already gone dead.

I sat there for a second, my pulse drumming in my ears.

Did he find out about something? Is this about the engagement? Or worse…does he know about Adrian?

My mind raced through a dozen worst-case scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last.

I stood up, smoothed my pants with trembling hands, and made the long trek toward the glass doors of the inner sanctum.

The walk felt like a march to the gallows. The other employees were buzzing around, oblivious to the fact that my world was tilting on its axis again.

When I reached his door, I didn’t knock. I couldn’t. I just pushed it open and stepped inside.

Aaron was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, the city skyline shadowing behind him like a kingdom he owned.

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Chapter 81

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He didn’t look up immediately. He was staring at a file, his jaw set so tight I thought his teeth might crack.

The tension in the room was so thick it felt like walking through water.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Tyrone?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

He finally looked up. His eyes weren’t just dark; they were scorched. He looked like he hadn’t slept a second, his shirt slightly rumpled at the collar, a sharp contrast to his usual perfection.

“Close the door, Jessica,” he said. It wasn’t a request.

I did as I was told, the click of the lock sounding like a bomb in the quiet room. I stayed by the door, keeping as much distance between us as possible.

“Is there a problem with the morning reports?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation on a professional

track.

He stood up then, his large frame casting a long shadow across the desk.

He didn’t move toward me, but he didn’t have to. His presence filled every inch of the space.

“The reports are fine,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous rumble that used to turn my knees to water. If I’m being honest with myself-it still does.

“But we have a problem with transparency. Or lack thereof.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He let out a short, harsh laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. He tossed a piece of paper onto the desk. It was a grainy, high-resolution photo.

I didn’t need to walk closer to know what it was. It was me and Seth in the lobby.

My face was buried in my hands, and Seth’s hand was resting firmly over mine.

“I don’t pay you to have emotional breakdowns in the lobby with my analysts, Jessica,” he hissed, his eyes pinning me to the spot.

“And I certainly don’t pay you to take rides home from men who have no business being in your personal life.”

The audacity of his tone sparked something in me.

“With all due respect, Mr. Tyrone, what I do after work hours and who I talk to is none of your business. I was upset, and Seth was being a friend. Something you wouldn’t understand.”

He was around the desk in three strides, stopping just inches from me. I could smell him-expensive cologne and the faint, bitter aroma of black coffee.

“A friend?” he echoed, his voice a low growl. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Is that what you told yourself six years ago when you vanished? That you were just going to find a new ‘friend’ to replace me?”

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“You have no right to bring up the past,” I snapped, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and fear.

“Not when you’re standing there with a ring intended for someone else. You’re engaged, Aaron! You’ve moved on. You made your choice that morning on the ship, so why do you care who drives me home?”

The silence that followed was deafening. Aaron’s eyes searched mine, the anger in them flickering into something raw and agonized.

He reached out, his hand hovering near my face before he dropped it, as if the contact would burn him.

“You think I moved on?” he whispered, the strictness in his voice finally cracking.

“You think any of this is what I wanted? I’ve spent two thousand days trying to figure out why the woman who told me she loved me disappeared into the night without a trace. I’ve lived in a cage of my own making, Jessica. And then you walk back in here, smelling like the past, looking at me with those eyes, and you expect me to just sit back while you find comfort in some pathetic analyst?”

“I didn’t have a choice!” I cried out, the words bursting from me before I could stop them.

“I saw you, Aaron! I saw you with her! I saw you kissing her on that deck! You think I wanted to run? I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and the man I trusted most was back in the arms of the woman who made my life hell!”

Aaron froze. His entire body went rigid, his eyes widening in genuine, soul-deep confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

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16:03 Wed, Jan 21