Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Aaron’s POV

I sat on the sofa, the leather creaking under my weight as I leaned forward, my elbows resting on my knees.

Across the room, Jessica was sprawled across the king-sized bed, bathed in the soft glow of the bedside lamp.

She was staring at her phone, her thumbs flying across the screen, and then-the sound that was currently shredding my. patience-she giggled.

It wasn’t just a polite laugh. it was a genuine, airy sound that came from a place of comfort.

I felt my jaw tighten until it ached. My fist clenched and unclenched against my thigh, a physical manifestation of the war raging in my head.

I wanted to be the cool, composed man she thought I was. I wanted to pretend that the mystery of her life for the last few years didn’t gnaw at my insides like a starving animal.

But seeing her that happy, that distracted, and knowing it wasn’t because of me? It was a poison in my blood.

Was she talking to Adrian? His name felt like a thorn. Or was it someone else?

I tried to look away, tried to focus on the game stats on my own device, but my eyes kept snapping back to her. She bit her lip, smiling at the screen, and another soft laugh escaped her.

That was it. My restraint snapped like a brittle twig.

I stood up, my movements predatory and silent, and strode across the plush carpet. Before she could even register I was there, I reached down and plucked the phone from her hands.

I didn’t look at the screen. I couldn’t risk seeing a name I didn’t recognize-and simply pressed the lock button, plunging the room into relative shadow.

“Hey!” she gasped, sitting up abruptly.

I didn’t move.

I stood over her, my shadow stretching across the silk sheets, my gaze locked onto her shocked, wide eyes.

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The air in the suite grew heavy, charged with the kind of electricity that precedes a lightning strike.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Jessica?”

The question was gravelly, torn from a part of me I usually kept under lock and key. I expected her to flinch, to look guilty, or to grow angry.

Instead, she stared at me for a beat of stunned silence, and then her eyes crinkled.

She started to laugh.

It started as a titter, then grew into a full-blown belly laugh that had her clutching her stomach.

I felt my face turn to stone. I wasn’t in on the joke.

I was standing here, vibrating with a possessive territorialism I hadn’t felt since I was twenty years old, and she was treating me like a comedian.

“Jess, I’m not joking with you,” I said, my voice dropping into a dangerous, low warning.

12:10 Thu, Jan 22 G

Chapter 97

Her laughter devolved into a wheeze.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” she gasped, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye. She sat up fully, her hair a messy halo around her face, and she looked at me with a smirk that was entirely too knowing.

“Are you jealous, Mr. Tyrone?”

I didn’t give her the satisfaction of an answer. I didn’t need to. Instead, I grabbed her waist and hauled her up, pulling her frame flush against my body.

She let out a soft gasp, her fingers instinctively clenching the fabric of my tank top as she tried to find her balance.

“Answer me, Jessica.”

I looked down at her, my pulse thundering in my throat.

I needed the truth. I needed to know if there was some ghost standing between us, some man who had touched what was mine while I was busy building an empire of ash.

She stared at me, the laughter dying out of her eyes as she saw the raw, unpolished edge of my seriousness.

She exhaled a long, shaky breath, her chest rising and falling against mine.

“No, Aaron,” she whispered, her voice finally steady. “I do not have a boyfriend.”

I didn’t move. I kept my eyes locked on hers, searching. I had made a career out of reading people-opponents on the court, sharks in the boardroom-but Jessica was the only one I ever truly cared to decipher.

Her eyes were like the ocean during a storm; they were dark, turbulent, and honest. They didn’t hide.

I saw the truth in them. There was no other man. The tension in my shoulders began to bleed out, replaced by a warmth that felt far more dangerous than the jealousy.

I believed her, but the curiosity was still there, a dull ache in my chest.

“Are you lying to me, Jess?” I pressed, my thumb tracing the line of her hip.

She shook her head slowly, her gaze dropping to my chest.

“I have no reason to lie to you, Aaron. My heart belongs to someone else. It always will.”

She said it quietly, almost to herself, avoiding my eyes. My heart skipped a beat, then slammed against my ribs.

I knew what she meant. I knew who she was talking about. Even after the years of silence, the distance, and the pain we’d inflicted on each other, that tether was still there.

It made my blood run hot, a triumphant, arrogant fire spreading through my veins.

She was mine. Even when she wasn’t with me, she was mine.

But that realization brought the one question I had been burying for days to the surface. It was the question that turned the air cold again.

“Why then did you run away, Jess?”

The words stayed suspended between us, forming a wall neither of us moved to breach.

The playfulness, the heat, the smirk…… it all vanished in an instant. I felt her body stiffen in my arms.

12:10 Thu, Jan 22 G

Chapter 97

We were locked in an intense, immovable gaze, the past finally crashing into the present.

I saw the flicker of pain in her eyes, the same pain I had seen the night she wanted to end it all with suicide.

I wanted to shake the answer out of her; I wanted to beg for it.

I had spent years wondering what I had done that was so unforgivable that she had to vanish into thin air without a trace.

“Why?” I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. “If your heart was still here, why did you leave me to burn?”

Jessica didn’t look away this time. Her eyes filled with something heavy; a secret she wasn’t ready to tell, or perhaps a truth she thought I couldn’t handle.

The silence stretched, the only sound the distant hum of the Madrid traffic far below our balcony.

She reached up, her hand trembling as she touched the side of my face, her palm warm against my skin.

“Aaron…” she started, her voice breaking.

I waited, my heart stilled, my soul hanging on her next word. This was the precipice.

We could either step back into the safety of the illusion we’d built for the last few days, or we could fall into the truth.

I gripped her tighter, refusing to let her go, refusing to let her run again.

This time, I wasn’t just watching her from a sofa. This time, I was holding onto the only thing that had ever made me feel alive, and I wasn’t letting go until I had every piece of her.

“I didn’t just run from you,” she whispered, her eyes searching mine for a mercy I wasn’t sure I possessed. “I ran for us. But I was wrong. I was so wrong about how much I could handle alone.”

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. Alone?

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