“It wasn’t your decision to make,” I whisper angrily.
He frowns. “My job is to look after you and make the hard calls, ones that you can’t make for yourself.”
“Jameson.” I stare at him through tears.
“But something happened while I was away from you.” He leans in and cups my face in his hand. “I realized that I didn’t want any of those things either.”
My eyes search his.
“I can’t live without you, Em. I’ve been so fucking miserable that it’s been unbearable.”
He leans in and kisses me softly; his eyes search mine as he dusts his thumb over my bottom lip. “If you don’t want me as I am now, I’ll resign from Miles Media immediately, and we can move to bumfuck nowhere and, I don’t know, live in a fucking tent somewhere.”
I smirk. “You idiot,” I whisper.
He smiles as he holds my face in his hand.
“I love you how you are. I don’t want you to change anything.”
“You do?”
“But I don’t . . .” I pause as I try to articulate my feelings. “How can I move on from how you’ve treated me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t just pretend that this hasn’t happened, Jameson. You’ve hurt me too deeply.”
“I know; I don’t want you to,” he stammers. “But can’t we just . . .” He shrugs. “Start dating again? Take it slow.”
I stare at him as confusion fills me.
“I know it’s going to take time to get back to where we were, but we have the rest of our lives. We can date and get to know each other properly this time.”
I sit back as I consider his proposal, and I sip my wine. “You know, I always imagined that I would find my dream guy and fall in love, and then it would come to this big cheesy climax.”
He scrunches up his nose. “Cheesy climax? That just sounds wrong.”
I giggle as I imagine what he must be thinking about. “No, I meant proposal.”
“You want a cheesy proposal?” He frowns. “Wouldn’t you want a romantic proposal?”
“Not really. My point is, this isn’t how I imagined things would go.”
“Me neither.” He takes my hands in his. “Far from it. I’m officially an idiot. Give me another chance, Em. I won’t fuck it up, I promise.”
I stare at him.
“I love you; you love me.” He shrugs. “We can work through this, and then hopefully in time, you can forget it ever happened, and you can live happily ever after with an outdoorsy Kung Fu Panda.” He smiles hopefully.
“You’re an idiot, Mr. Miles.”
“Who’s hopelessly in love with you.” He leans over and kisses me softly, and I feel my resistance fade. “I love you, cheesecake,” he whispers.
“Don’t call me fucking cheesecake.”
He chuckles against my lips. “Too far?”
“Way too far.”
Chapter 26
We walk down the street toward my apartment, hand in hand. Jameson is being overattentive and talking nonstop, and I am quiet. I’m annoyed that with just one dinner meeting, I find myself here with him.
I’m officially a pushover.
Weak as water.
His phone beeps with a text, and he shuffles around in his pocket to retrieve it and smiles. “Tristan.” He reads the text out loud “How did it go?”
I roll my eyes. “Text back, ‘Not out of the woods yet. Still may be found dead in a ditch tomorrow.’”
Jameson smirks. “No, I’m not writing that. If it actually happens, I don’t want you to go to prison.” He turns to face me and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “You wouldn’t kill me.” He leans in and kisses me softly.
My eyes hold his. “Wouldn’t I?”
He smiles and then takes my hand as we walk toward the door. I stop on the spot. “Good night,” I announce.
“What?”
“You’re not coming in.”
“Why not?”
“Jameson, I am still eighty percent pissed off with you.”
“Yes. I know. Let me make it up to you.” He smiles darkly.
I pull out of his arms and step back from him. “There is nothing sexual that you could do that would make up for how you have treated me.”
His face falls.
“When I agreed to try again, it was just that . . . to try again. I’m not promising anything, and I don’t know how this is going to turn out. I honestly don’t know if we can get back what we had. The morning you left me after the second stopover, you broke something between us. I have never been so upset in all of my life. It was devastating for me. Having sex with you now is the very last thing that I want to do.”