I Wish You Were Mine (Oxford #2)(75)

“Coach didn’t want me,” he said gruffly. “No one did. Every last contact said that with my rep, I’d bring a bad name to the team, that the guys wouldn’t listen to me. That the media would be focusing on me instead of the players. I was NFL kryptonite.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “And Madison was able to fix that for you. One phone call confessing her sins to Jerry, and you had your dream job.”

“Not my dream job,” he said before he could think better of it. “Never my dream job.”

She snorted. “Right. There is no dream job other than being a star quarterback, right, Jackson? That’s the only life worth living?”

“Don’t,” he commanded, angry now. “Don’t belittle my entire life.”

“Your entire past life. You had to have known it couldn’t last forever.”

“Of course I knew!” he shouted. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell when it was taken too early.”

“Fine,” she said, holding up her hands. “You wanted your football life to last a little bit longer. I can respect that, even if I don’t get it. But why not just tell me? All those late nights we spent talking?”

He held out his hands, feeling helpless. “I was trying to avoid this. I didn’t want to see that hurt in your eyes.”

Mollie lifted her chin. “Why? Why didn’t you want to hurt me?”

Jackson clenched his teeth. He wanted to snap that he wasn’t an animal—that he didn’t want to hurt anyone if he could help it. But he knew that wasn’t what she was asking. What she wanted him to say.

She was asking why he didn’t want to hurt her in particular.

He could tell her that he cared about her, and it would be the truth. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not for Mollie.

Mollie wanted love. It had been written all over her face last night. And while he could probably take the cheap out that they’d only been a thing for a few weeks, that wouldn’t be the full answer.

The full answer was that he didn’t believe in love. At least not the lasting kind that Mollie was looking for. Not after his disastrous marriage. He’d loved Madison Carrington with everything he had, and it had turned his life upside down in the worst possible way. He couldn’t survive something like that again.

His silence stretched on too long, and the hope in her eyes extinguished altogether.

“Do you still love her?” Mollie asked in a small voice.

“God, no,” he said savagely. “Is that what you think this is? That I’m still hung up on Madison?”

Mollie pressed her hands to her head. “I don’t know! I don’t know what to think! You guys were together for so long, and she says these things—”

Jackson reached for her again. “Forget her. This isn’t about her. I don’t know when it happened, but I want you. I want to figure out what this is.”

She stared at him in misery. “And yet you’re moving to Texas. You’re leaving.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted them both. Mollie and the coaching gig. His old life back and Mollie.

Jackson swallowed. “Can’t we just…we can figure this out. Maybe try long distance, or…Fuck, I don’t know what you want me to say! Football’s been my entire life, Molls. You know that better than anyone. And this thing with us, it’s new, and—”

“It’s not new to me!” she shouted.

Jackson took a step back, unnerved by the blazing passion in her eyes. “What?”

“You’ve been seeing me as more than a friend for a few weeks,” she said. “I’ve been seeing you that way for years.”

He felt joy mingle with disbelief and panic. “Mollie—”

“Don’t,” she said wearily. “Please don’t tell me it was just a crush. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to convince myself that it would pass, but it didn’t, and it hasn’t, and—”

Her voice broke off on a hiccup before she drew a deep breath and forged on.

“I’ve always been in love with you, Jackson.” Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “I love you.”

Her words tore through him, leaving Jackson feeling like someone had ripped his heart out. He’d suspected that her feelings had run deep these past few weeks, as his had, but she was saying…the whole time. The whole damn time.

Holy hell.

He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to say.

He knew what he should say: that he loved her back. It was the expected response.

But he couldn’t.

Couldn’t risk that he and Mollie would end up like him and Madison. That he would lose her and go through the darkness again. Because if that happened, there’d be no Mollie to pull him out of it, and he needed her…he couldn’t risk losing her.

“Shit, Mollie—”

The fire in her eyes slowly faded to flatness. She shook her head tiredly as she bent to pick up her purse. “It’s okay, Jackson. My heart’s a pro at handling unrequited love.”

She headed toward the door, and he moved to stop her. “Don’t. Don’t go like this.”

“You know,” she said, spinning around, her eyes snapping with anger, “I should actually be thanking you for your whole secret Texas job. I think it’s exactly what I needed.”