“What happened on the show?” He drew circles on the back of her hand with a surprisingly soft index finger.
Finding it soothing, she concentrated on that motion as she went down memory lane. “I thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. An adventure. And it was! I never expected to fall in love.”
Donovan’s circling motion stopped. “And did you?”
Jada was glad she didn’t have to look him in the eye. “I thought I was, or could be. I mean I liked him. The dates were fun. We laughed a lot. Some of the other contestants told me I was a shoo-in. That I was clearly his favorite. I always tried not to get ahead of myself, to take each step as it came. That attitude actually worked to my benefit. I made things easy for him. He told me he could relax around me.”
He resumed stroking her hand. “But you turned down his proposal.”
That decision had changed her life forever in ways she’d never been able to imagine. Jada sighed. “Yeah.”
She held her breath, her whole body tensing. Was he going to ask why? That was always everyone’s next question. The question she still had trouble answering.
“Did you realize the reaction was going to be so brutal?” He shifted to cradle her body even more, causing her to sink into him. His strength buoyed her.
Jada shook her head. “Not at first. When the show started airing, my social media follower numbers blew up. Which was good. Viewers were rooting for us and messaging me to tell me they couldn’t wait until the final episode because they knew I was going to win, and we were the cutest couple. As the weeks went on and I got more and more messages, I knew it was going to be bad.” She grimaced. “But I still wasn’t prepared for the backlash. Or maybe my skin isn’t as thick as I thought it was.”
“Thick skin can be overrated.”
Jada twisted to meet his gaze. “Yeah, my therapist always tells me I’m allowed to feel what I feel. It’s sometimes hard to remember, let alone take that advice. She has me do affirmations when I really start to beat myself up. Apparently, I’m not supposed to be so hard on myself.”
“You’re not. You’re amazing.” He squeezed her waist. “One more question—why did you say no?”
Ah, there it was. But she wasn’t upset. He made her feel safe. Understood. Unjudged. She scoured her brain to conjure up her emotions and thoughts from that night. She wanted to give him as honest an answer as possible. She settled back against his chest, letting his heat soak into her. “Something wasn’t right. He and I weren’t right together.” Her voice quieted. “It wasn’t any one thing I could point to, but my gut was screaming at me to get away.”
“You followed your gut. Nothing wrong with that.”
Jada let out a mirthless laugh. “Except when you have producers in your face constantly asking what went wrong. Lila, the one in charge, wasn’t trying to hear gut instinct. So I invented someone at home.”
Donovan pressed a kiss to her temple. “You sound like you’re not too fond of your instincts.”
“You already know my parents aren’t that tolerant of my dyslexia. They want me to find a real job. A job that makes sense to them. They’re very analytical. Humanities as a major made no sense to them. Being a deejay in Europe made no sense to them. Going on reality TV made no sense to them.” She huffed out a laugh. “They’re not very understanding of things that don’t make sense to them.”
“You have a hard time getting their voices out of your head.”
She faced him again, taking comfort in the understanding in his expression. “Yeah. They’ve been there for twenty-five years.” She ducked her head. “They cut me off as a result of going on the show and further embarrassing them. According to them, I needed to grow up.”
He frowned. “What do you mean they cut you off?”
“It means I’m lucky to have a job to buy groceries and pay my electricity bill. They didn’t kick me out of my condo, at least, but only because they own it outright.”
Shock flashed across his face. “Wow.”
“Yeah. And I can’t tell Grams because she would be furious with my mother, and why am I protecting my mom again?” She chuckled. “In my own way, going on the show was listening to them. It made sense to use what I’m good at—being personable—to launch a new career. Then it all blew up in my face because I couldn’t control my natural tendencies.”
“Your natural tendencies make you you.”