After all these weeks of feeling like my radar was off—like all the acting had scrambled all my signals—I suddenly realized I’d been underestimating myself.
I could read Jack just fine.
Kennedy Monroe was posing for the camera, and tossing her hair, and preening—and he was watching her and playing along. But the tilt of his head, the crook of his eyebrow, the squint of his eyes, the angle of his smile, the tension in his spine … they all said, Nope.
I’m paraphrasing, but still.
The point was, I could read him. What’s more, I could see the acting. All this time, I’d thought I couldn’t discern the truth about him. But it turned out I could read him as well as anybody else. Maybe better.
And one thing was clear as day. He was more attracted to that fiddle-leaf fig than he was to Kennedy Monroe.
Could this be a fake relationship, too?
When she flipped her hair, he barely noticed. When he smiled, it was mechanical. When she pulled his shirt to try to bring him in for a kiss, he twisted away like he thought he’d heard someone call his name.
“Jack,” Kennedy said then, turning back to the camera and looking straight into it. “I’m going to need your full attention.”
Jack turned back around. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve got it.”
“Because I’ve got a big question for you, and you don’t want to miss it.”
“Okay,” Jack said, putting his hands in his pockets. “Shoot.”
At last she turned away from the camera to meet Jack’s eyes. “My question,” she said, now leaning in closer, “is this.” She turned back to give the camera one more wink. Then she turned back to Jack and said, “Will you marry me?”
* * *
AT THOSE WORDS, I dropped my phone.
And by the time I picked it back up, the video was over.
Did I just see that? Did Kennedy Monroe just propose to Jack?
Suddenly, I felt a lot less sure of myself.
Had I been able to read him? Or had that all just been my own wishful thinking?
I rewound the ending, wanting to see Jack’s answer to the proposal. But my second watch was no more useful than the first. Apparently, they’d ended it on a cliff-hanger. Kennedy pops the question, then the camera zooms in on Jack staring at her, and then we’re done for the day.
I rewound it one more time. Just in case.
No answer that time, either. But on this third—and, honestly, not even final—viewing, I noticed something more interesting than the shock on Jack’s face.
At minute 8:03, just in the wake of her kiss attempt when she’d pulled on his T-shirt, as Jack turned back to the camera, his shirt was askew. Kennedy Monroe had pulled it forward and shifted the collar down.
Which revealed his leather necklace for the first time.
I zoomed in a little on his face, letting my eyes savor him for minute. Why not? A victimless crime.
And that’s when I noticed more than just Drew’s necklace.
Hanging from Jack’s neck, right there—colorful and defiant and unmistakable—was my beaded safety pin.
* * *
I DIDN’T EVEN have time to react to the sight of it before there was a knock at my apartment door.
I looked through the peephole, and it was Robby, still wearing his sunglasses inside, like a douchebag.
“Go away, Robby!” I shouted through the door.
“I can’t hear you!” Robby shouted. “Soundproofing!”
I cracked the door to shout Go away! again, but, as I did, Robby wedged his toe into the crack.
“I need to talk to you,” Robby said. “Let me in.”
“I’m not letting you in,” I said. I looked down at his shoe holding my door open.
Robby stepped back. “I really need to talk to you,” he said, taking the sunglasses off and glancing over at Taylor, stoic as hell.
“Talk, then.”
“Inside.”
“You’re not coming inside.”
“Look,” Robby said, glancing sideways at Taylor again. “I know that when you were out on the ranch you were in Jack Stapleton’s clutches, but I’m hoping now that you’re free, you can think a little more rationally.”
I kept my eyes level. “I was never in anyone’s clutches, Robby. Not even yours.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m in the middle of something, so—”
“I knew dumping you was a mistake as soon as the plane landed in Madrid.”
I paused. “So you went after Taylor.”
“I was sad! I was lonely! I was rejected!”