Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(94)

She was too busy thinking about Jacob.

As in, Mariah Carey’s “Through the Rain” blaring from her speakers, the aforementioned journal in her hands, one sad, used tissue on the bedside table—thinking about Jacob. She was trying to write something horrible and scathing about him, but she couldn’t quite manage it. Every time she put pen to paper she’d remember something terrible, like the way he forced himself to say soft, gentle things when she really needed it, or the way he threw himself around to rescue her from minor disasters in clumsiness, and then she’d cry a little tiny bit. Again.

Although, at this point, she was getting sick of crying. Because yes, Jacob was lovely and blah, blah, blah, but he’d also been monumentally shitty yesterday, and actually, she was rather fucking pissed about that, too. The more she thought about it, the more she suspected she was furious.

She remembered his iron expression as he’d asked, Did you tell anyone? and wanted to shout, This isn’t fucking chess. Stop trying to checkmate me.

She knew she’d done wrong. She’d lied, and she’d lost his trust, and she’d pressed down on a barely healed scar without ever meaning to. But he’d done the same right back, acting as if all she cared about was having her cake and eating it, too. Acting as if she was some sort of spoiled brat, after everything.

So, yes: Eve was pissed.

Satisfied, now that she’d identified the burning in her diaphragm, she put down her pen and flicked back through her journal—back through all the other times she’d been pissed off. Because that was the theme, she realized, as she combed through random dates. Something happened, she didn’t like it, so she ranted about it in silence.

Hello darling,

Olivia was absolutely frightful today, so I put coriander in her lemon drizzle cake and then I blocked her phone number.

Hello darling,

The festival coordinator called me an imbecile for putting up the map boards incorrectly—can you believe that? Well, good luck to him with putting them up right, because I’ve come home and that poxy little festival can carry on with one less volunteer. I didn’t really want to meet the Dixie Chicks anyway.

Good morning, darling,

It’s been eight days since Cecelia’s wedding. I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner, but you are an inanimate object, so it doesn’t really matter.

She remembered writing that last entry, just like she remembered the wedding itself. The rush of success that had soured so easily, and the familiar lick of fear when everything started to go wrong. It had seemed easier to give up completely than to face yet another fucking failure. Had been such a relief to come home and vent in her journal and then forget it had ever happened.

But Eve didn’t feel that relief anymore. Now, she read over that last entry and wanted to call Cecelia, apologize for the dress, then demand the slander against Eve Antonia Weddings be removed from the internet because those doves had needed rescuing, and all that aside, Eve had done a bloody good job.

Her mind stumbled over the words a little, the first time. But the more Eve repeated them to herself, the smoother they came. She’d done a bloody good job. She knew she had. She’d tried her hardest, she’d been organized and capable, she’d bent over backward to make someone else’s dreams come true. She’d been good.

Just like she’d been good at Castell Cottage, no matter what Jacob said.

Yes, you’re good. But that doesn’t make you irreplaceable.

The old Eve might accept that statement. The new one wanted to throw a chair.

How dare he think the worst of her, after treating her like she was the best? How dare he push her away after making her feel needed? How dare he act as if she was the same scared, thoughtless woman he’d first met when he must know by now that she was so much more? If he’d given her a chance to explain, she could’ve told him that she was passionate about Castell Cottage, that her commitment meant something.

Although . . . it suddenly occurred to Eve that, despite Jacob’s devotion to the B&B, maybe it wasn’t her commitment to Castell Cottage he’d wanted to hear about.

Hm.

Hmmm.

It was too soon to tell him about the little seed of love sprouting in her chest, putting down deep, delicate roots. It had to be too soon. That’s what Eve had thought, anyway.

But what if she’d been wrong?

A knock at the door startled her out of her tangled thoughts. “It’s only me, darling,” Gigi called, just like she had yesterday evening.

“Come in,” Eve said, but her mind was still churning, replaying that last edgy, uncertain conversation with Jacob. Everything had come crashing together without warning, two sides of her life that she’d been learning to handle separately, and she hadn’t known what to do for the best.

“Shivani made you breakfast,” Gigi said, shutting the door behind her. “A cheese and sun-dried tomato omelet, you lucky thing. She’s always shoving spinach at me.”

“Tell her thank you,” Eve murmured absently, but the words were just a reflex. She’d thought—she’d wanted to make it clear to Jacob that she wasn’t messing him around, work-wise, and then he’d told her to fuck right off and quite frankly broken her heart. (At least, Eve assumed the throbbing ache in her chest was heartbreak. If it wasn’t, it must be the start of some other cardiac event.) When he’d gotten rid of her so easily, she’d felt as if her bones were too fragile to carry her. She’d had to leave. She’d had to run. Except now she was wondering if getting rid of her had been easy for Jacob at all.