Beholden (The Belonging Duet, #2)(68)
“You don’t have to …” Watching him cry is too much.
“That last mission happened four months before my contract was up. I was on limited duty anyway, so I said f*ck it and I quit. She was happy and I thought that’s all that mattered. She gained complete control of the company and we bought out her brother. I had a lot of money saved from my missions. My only request was that I start the security company. She supported it—I think she knew there was a part of me that felt dead. I hated the messages from Mark and the guys about what they were doing. I f*cking wanted to crawl out of my skin staying in New York, so I made Cole Securities bid for contracts so that I could still use my skills. Of course, it meant I was gone from her again.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask as a tear falls from my face. I don’t want to hear about how much he loved his wife.
“Because I should’ve told you before. But I was terrified it would make everything real. It was the only piece of me I had left to give you. If you knew about her then you would see how f*cking wrecked I am.” He trembles as he speaks and another tear falls from his eyes. “I would’ve sold my soul to have the rest of this story not happen. I was flying between New York and Virginia constantly. We were trying to make it work. She was getting sicker, so I couldn’t leave as often and she had to resign from Raven. None of the doctors were sure why her medication suddenly wasn’t effective. There was a problem with something in Virginia and I had to handle it … she begged me not to go. She said she felt sicker than usual, but Maddie was dramatic. She said fine, go, that she’d call her mother. So I left. What kind of man leaves his wife whose heart was starting to fail?” he asks rhetorically before beginning again.
“As much as I knew I shouldn’t go, I couldn’t stay. I got on the plane and when I landed, I had thirty missed calls. Madelyn had collapsed and was in a coma.”
I gasp and he looks up. “See, we couldn’t have kids, Catherine. I knew this, she knew this. But she must’ve come off her birth control or I don’t know, but she was pregnant.” Jackson’s hand covers his heart and he grips at his chest. “Her heart failed because she couldn’t carry a baby. I killed her and I killed our baby. Knowing I was the reason she died is beyond anything I can describe.” Jackson’s tears fall silently as he relives his grief.
He looks up at me and I sink on to the floor with him and wrap my arms around him. He’s so broken. My heart drops and I join him with my own tears as I see the anguish on his face. This isn’t what I was expecting. I thought he was divorced, not that she’d died. And he lost a baby too. How much loss can one person handle? He’s lost so many people in his life by some form of tragedy.
“I’m so sorry,” I say with tears streaming.
“The doctors said she was about four weeks, but the increased stress on her heart was too much and she never woke up. Her family blamed me for being careless and hated me for a long time. But no one can hate me more than I hate myself.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Jackson.” A tear falls down my cheek at how much pain and death he’s dealt with. “You didn’t kill your baby or your wife. It was tragic and awful, but you didn’t know. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“In a matter of a year, there was five people’s blood on my hands. I was terrified of failing you too, and I did it anyway. I couldn’t have you look at me like that. It was my job to protect them and I failed every one of them.”
My throat aches and I try to get the words out. “Do you know what I see?” He looks up and then his eyes close. “I see a man who needs to forgive himself for something he couldn’t control. You didn’t purposely put anyone in danger. Bad things happened, but you didn’t kill anyone. You’re not capable of doing that.”
“I can’t lose you, Catherine. I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to see me that way. I left her, and she died.” Jackson’s hands cup my face. “I lost my wife and child and the last words I said to her were how I wished I was f*cking deployed again so I didn’t have to deal with Raven. I vowed after she died I wouldn’t ever give myself the chance to hurt anyone else. Then you fell into my lap—literally. I tried not to love you. I tried to keep at a distance, but when I’d see you … I wanted you more.”
“Our entire relationship has been one thing after another,” I sigh as his thumbs rub my cheek.
It’s been a lot of hurt, but we did have good times with laughter, playfulness, and love. I wish there was more of that because the bad times make those feel minimal. Watching our relationship fall apart has been agony, but Jackson taught me a lot. I learned how to love again when I thought I couldn’t.
“In the six years I was married to Madelyn, I never in my dreams imagined loving anyone as much as her—then came you. You make me feel alive. You give me hope that I can be more of a man than I was then. You showed me how to love again. I never felt like I did after you walked away. Doesn’t that say something?”
My heart sinks because as much as I understand him, I’m leaving. I move in four days and here is the man that I loved and still love, but now what? Everything’s different. Those weeks changed the course of my life and I don’t know if I can go back. It doesn’t negate the fact that if he’d told me all of this I wouldn’t be faced with this choice. Or if I was, we could’ve navigated this together. If I give everything up for him, then what? If in four months something else happens and our worlds fall apart, can we handle it then? All of the questions swirl around in my head, but I already know the answers.