Watch Me Fall (Ross Siblings, #5)(40)
“You need a backup plan in place first, right? Somewhere else to go?”
“Yeah, but I want to tell him I’m leaving before I start looking. I don’t want to look for another job behind his back.”
“Gotcha.”
“It would help tremendously if I knew what the hell I wanted to do. I love what I do. Love it.” Such passion filled her voice that he didn’t doubt her for a second. “We have friends in Dallas who own a parlor. I’ve thought about going there before, but I don’t want to move that far. But I guess I need to shut up and do what I have to do, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s no reason you should do something that makes you unhappy. The idea is to improve things, right?”
“Right,” she said glumly.
“You should talk to Brian, Starla. There has to be another solution. You don’t want to leave that job. I can tell you don’t.”
“I don’t, but…”
“But what?”
She drew a deep breath, held it. Cast her gaze down at her lap. “Getting away from Brian Ross is the only way I’ll be able to move forward with my life.”
He wanted to be sympathetic. He wanted to offer comfort, assurance. But what came out was “Bullshit.”
Starla’s gaze snapped to his, her brows knitted above her dark eyes. He’d expected that anger. Damn if he was going to let it cow him. “I think I know better than you,” she bit out. “I told you we didn’t have to talk about these things if you’re—”
“No, I want to talk about it. Stop letting this dictate your life. He’s never going to love you. Face it. I had to. Macy is never going to love me. You get over it, and you move on.”
“Oh yeah? And that worked out for you how? You let Macy wreck your f*cking marriage.”
“I did. I was weak, and I hurt a good woman, and now we have two little girls paying the price. So if you want to go that route, if you want to let this fester and eat at you and doom every relationship you have and every decision you make for the rest of your life, then be my guest. Been there. But I don’t recommend it.”
He glared hard at her as she jerked around and stared stonily through the windshield. “Take me home.”
“No.”
“You said you would.”
“You said you’d fix your problems. I’m giving you the best, the only solution. It’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better, Starla. I know how hard it is to let go. I couldn’t. For years.”
“How?” she cried suddenly, and it ripped at his heart. “How do you let go when—they’re—they’re the only—one you’ve—” Sobs began punctuating her words, and finally she couldn’t finish. Jared lifted the console between them and scooted toward her, pulling her into his arms. She went, to his amazement—he’d expected her to resist, and he would have let her, would have taken her home if she insisted. Her tears soaked his shirt; her fists clutched at it now just as they had last night…only then, it had been passion driving her, not anguish. He leaned his cheek into her silky hair, stroking her shaking shoulders.
“Baby,” he murmured, and the endearment surprised even him as it slipped from his mouth. “He’s not the only one, okay? There will be someone else for you. But don’t do what I did. Make sure he’s right.”
Jared realized even as he said it that he didn’t like thinking about that hypothetical man. Someone else to hold her, to feel the warmth of her tears when she was sad and the blessing of her smile when she was happy. No. To hell with that. He didn’t know if he could be that person for her. He could try. He wanted to try. But if—God forbid—his own words about letting go of past hurts came back to bite him in the ass, if he destroyed her too, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. But he damn sure didn’t want anyone else getting the chance.
Chapter Twelve
After that embarrassing drunken display, Starla forced herself to remain dead silent on the way to Jared’s house. She felt raw, ripped open, exposed, and she didn’t like it. She, who had become an expert at keeping secrets for so long, had laid it all out there in front of someone who was scarcely more than a stranger to her. If she opened her mouth again, something else horrible and mortifying might pour out, and that scared her more than anything in the world right now.
But that would be good, wouldn’t it? Meet his f*cking challenge, since he wanted to know it all. Tell him about the filthy things lurking in her soul, the rotting skeletons in her closet, then maybe he would realize she wasn’t worth his time and take her home.
Only she didn’t want to go home. Ever.
So she kept her mouth shut.
Night had fallen, black and absolute. No moon, no stars. Lightning flickered to the west—another spring storm about to blow in. If a tornado came through and blew her entire world away, she didn’t think she would complain too much. She would run away, make a fresh start somewhere else knowing there was nothing to run back to.
“He’s never going to love you.”
She knew it. She respected it. But Janelle, the only other bearer of the secret, had never flung it in her face so harshly. Janelle had only ever looked at her sympathetically or, at times pityingly—not that Starla often pined out loud about Brian to her friend, but Jan knew her well enough to see when it was eating at her. She knew when Starla couldn’t take one more second of all the bright sunshiney vibes and rainbows and prancing f*cking unicorns that illuminated Dermamania whenever the happy couple was about.