Chapter 12
Chapter 12
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Julian stood there with his phone in hand, frozen by the busy tone in his ear. For a second, he swore that he could hear his own heartbeat stall.
A wave of loss and panic swept through him.
Autumn in Lambain stayed wet and cold, and it matched Jace’s mood perfectly.
Months had crawled by. Jace chased Avery like a tireless bloodhound, using every trick he knew.
He waited outside her building, blocked her between classes, and followed her like a shadow.
He sent obscene jewelry, left the key to a limited-edition sports car, and had new bouquets delivered every day. He booked candlelit dinners at the most exclusive restaurants.
He even carpeted the sidewalk beneath her apartment with rose petals and hired a band to croon love songs.
Every move that had never failed him before only looked laughable to Avery.
Her gaze shifted from cold indifference to open disgust, then finally to outright disregard. She no longer even bothered to dislike him. She ignored him completely.
He felt like bad air she refused to breathe or a rock she stepped around without a glance.
She walked past him without breaking her stride. She skirted the “surprises “he staged as if they were construction cones. She dropped the jewels he sent straight into the trash and didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.
That complete refusal to even acknowledge him worked like a dull blade, sawing through the pride and swagger he’d carried since childhood.
Jace became short-tempered. He smashed a few antique vases in his condominium and snapped at aides over mistakes he once would have ignored.
He stopped sleeping and drank obsessively, carrying a storm cloud with him wherever he went.
“Why? What does she even want?” he shouted to the empty room for the hundredth time, driving his fist into the wall until his knuckles swelled.
He had never spent this much effort on any woman and still couldn’t earn a single true look.
The failure clawed at him until it nearly drove him mad.
Little by little, without noticing, the way he followed her changed.
in
He no longer thought only about luring her into bed or conquering the body that haunted him. His eyes began to linger on the smaller details about her.
He would take the long way across town just to roll past her university, watching from behind. the glass as a slim figure bent over her notes in the library window.
The afternoon sun traced her neck and the focus in her brow, and the quiet of it looked like a painting. For a moment, the rage inside him went still.
He found himself lingering outside her usual coffee shop, where she sat with a blonde classmate discussing an assignment.
When her classmate said something funny, Avery gave a faint smile. It vanished in an instant, but it sank into him like a stone in ice water, sending ripples through his chest.
His hand curled into a fist. Jealousy or something uncomfortably close to it chewed at him. She had never smiled at him like that.
On another afternoon, Jace saw Avery leaving a pharmacy, pale and sniffling with cold medicine in hand. His chest tightened before he even knew why.
He nearly crossed the street to help her, but her cold glance swept over him and rooted him in place. He watched the slight line of her back disappear into a building and felt ridiculous for even trying.
That night, he paced his condominium, unable to settle. For the first time, it wasn’t desire driving him, but a worry he couldn’t explain.
The way his attention kept drifting to Avery unsettled him because he couldn’t control it.
He tried to file it under possession and wounded pride.
To prove it to himself and shake the sense that something had gone wrong, he called up a few models and socialites who were always ready to say yes. He drowned himself in liquor and women, trying to fall back into the old game.
After a lavish party, Jace brought a woman who looked a little like Avery to a hotel. Her name was Lydia Cross.
In the dim light, Lydia pressed against Jace. Her perfume was thick in the air, and her movements were practiced and skilled. But when her hand slid up his chest and her lips drew near, Jace suddenly froze.
It was wrong. The perfume was too strong. Her skin wasn’t soft enough, her flirtatious, and her voice too fake.
gaze too
His mind kept drifting to Avery’s faint, clean scent of soap, the delicate feel of her skin, and the muffled moans she made when she was swept up in passion.
Chapter 12
In that instant, he realized that he wasn’t thinking about Tessa, the woman he had always called his unreachable first love. The one he wanted was Avery.
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