Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 312

Chapter 312

JASON

I wasn't devastated. That was the thing I was testing, sitting with the discomfort to see what was actually underneath it. I was processing this in the way that I processed things that were hurting me, but pointing out the hurt was diabolical because I knew what I was getting into.

I'd been paying attention. I'd known, some careful observational part of me, that there was something complicated in the architecture of Ivory's life that I didn't have full access to. Had chosen to proceed anyway because she was worth knowing and the time with her had been real regardless of context.

"The thing about the other books," I said carefully.

Ivory looked at me, and there was a wariness in her expression that was genuinely endearing. "Yes?"

"I noticed two of the titles," I said.

A pause. "You noticed two of the titles."

"I did."

Another pause, longer. The wariness had become something between mortification and the resigned acceptance of someone who knew they'd been caught and was working out how to proceed with dignity intact.

"I will neither confirm nor deny the content of any reading material that may or may not be in my possession," she said, with the precision of someone constructing a legal statement.

"That's completely fair," I said. "I will neither confirm nor deny having seen anything."

The corner of her mouth moved. "You're a good man, Jason."

"I've been told," I said. "By you, actually. Earlier today."

"It bears repeating," she said, and she looked at me with something that was genuine and direct and not performing anything. "I mean it. You've been — the months we've spent talking, you've been genuinely good for me. Not just as a placeholder for something I couldn't access. As yourself. That's real and I don't want you to discount it."

"I don't discount it," I said. "I just — need some time. And some clarity. And maybe some distance before the friendship version of this becomes natural instead of something I'm actively building toward."

"That's fair," she said. "That's completely fair."

We sat in quiet again, and it was a different quiet than the one before Margo had arrived. Less weighted, somehow. Something had been named and it had made the unnamed things easier to carry, which was generally how it worked when you had conversations like this with people who were capable of having them honestly.

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