Chapter 16
Chapter 16
17
Jace snatched up his phone, his fingers shaking so hard that he could barely hold it. With the last shred of awareness, he dialed the number etched into his memory.
The international ring tone dragged on. It was long and grating.
Back home, it was past midnight. Julian had just finished an urgent report and rubbed at his brow, ready to call it a night, when his phone lit up with Jace’s overseas number.
His brows pinched instinctively, and an irritability he couldn’t place tugged at him.
Why was Jace calling at this hour?
Julian swiped to answer, but before he could speak, Jace’s voice exploded through the line. It was hoarse and broken, reeking of liquor and threaded with a desperate sob. “Julian… Julian!”
Julian’s chest tightened, and his voice dropped. “Jace? What happened? Are you drunk?”
“Julian, I’m done… I’m so damn done!” Jace rasped in a rough and slurred voice, the words tumbling out in broken pieces that barely made sense. “She hates me… She looks down on
me… She said I make her sick…”
He broke off with a gag, the rest swallowed by coughing and heaving.
Julian’s frown deepened, unease twisting in his gut. “What are you talking about? Who?”
“Avery! It’s Avery!” Jace’s shout cracked through the speaker, the name tearing out of him like a confession and an outburst.
“Julian, I think… I think I actually love her! This isn’t a game! It’s not just sleeping with her and walking away! I really love her! Do you hear me?”
Julian went rigid on the other end, his breath snagging. His grip on the phone tightened until
his knuckles turned white.
Jace kept ranting, not giving Julian a chance to respond. “But why won’t she even look at me? I’ve tried everything! I apologized! I begged her! I waited like an idiot every day! She still ignored me! She’d rather smile at a stray dog on the street than at me! Julian, I can’t take it anymore! I’m losing my mind!”
“Shut up!” Julian snapped, his voice edged with a fury he hardly recognized and a rage that felt like a line had been crossed.
“Jace,
what nonsense are you spouting? You’re not allowed to love her! Do you hear me? You don’t deserve her!”
The words cut straight into Jace’s already broken heart. He fell silent for two seconds, then let
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out a ragged, bitter laugh.
“I don’t deserve her? Yeah, I don’t deserve her! But do you? Julian! You used her like a pawn! Then, you tossed her aside like trash! You sent me to her bed! You’re worse than I am! What gives you the right to say that to me?”
Julian slammed the call dead. His face went ashen as his chest heaved.
The things Jace had spat in a drunken fury went off like charges in Julian’s head.
“I love her… I really love her…”
Each word burned into Julian like a hot brand. Jealousy and anger surged so fiercely that they stripped away whatever calm he had left.
Why? Why did Jace have the nerve to love her? He was a liar who had played her. What right did he have to say he loved her?
And what about himself? Why did he feel so angry and jealous, as if he wanted to burn everything down? Was it really just fury at Jace’s reckless behavior?
Julian stumbled back and dropped into the leather chair behind him, his face drained of color.
The study went quiet as a tomb, and the only sound left was his ragged breathing.
