Every. Single. Time.
She really should have seen this coming. There’d been so many signs, and she’d been oblivious to all of them—the piles of apples in Jack’s grocery cart at the market, the strange way he’d acted at the library when he’d picked her books up off the floor and even the name he’d chosen: Fired Up in Lovestruck. He was a literal firefighter. How on earth had she missed that?
Because love is blind, she thought. She really, truly loved him. Much to her horror, she’d loved him all along.
“I didn’t know it was you,” he said, eyes going bluer than she’d ever seen them before. “I promise.”
“Everyone in America knows I’m Queen Bee. You and I discussed it after I got back from New York, and...” Her voice trailed off as the memory of that painful night came back full force.
He’d told her she was perfect, and then he’d stepped away when she tried to kiss him. He’d let her quit her night nanny job, and all this time she’d thought it was because she’d done something wrong or he knew how she felt about him but he didn’t feel the same way. But in reality, he’d been lying to her the entire night.
Maybe she deserved it. She’d certainly misled him back in the beginning, especially about Toby. But this...this was a whopper.
“That night—the night I quit—you knew, and you didn’t say a word. Is that why you let me resign? So you wouldn’t have to tell me the truth?” She slumped down on Jack’s sofa, because standing suddenly required too much energy. Trying not to collapse into a puddle of tears was using up every bit of strength she possessed.
“No, I pushed you away that night because you said you wanted to move back to New York and the very idea that you might leave—” he inhaled a ragged breath “—it scared the life out of me, sweetheart.”
Why did he have to call her sweetheart? It made her go all swoony, even now. She looked away, because his expression was too raw, too vulnerable, for her to take. If she met his gaze, she was afraid she might forgive him, and she didn’t want to do that. She liked feeling angry. It was so much easier than feeling heartbroken or accidentally falling in love with someone who could let you down when you were least expecting it.
“I just wish you’d told me,” she whispered, but she immediately realized that wasn’t quite true. What she really wished was that Fired Up in Lovestruck could have been someone else—some nameless, faceless stranger she’d never, ever met.
“I do, too,” Jack said. “Believe me, I tried.”
“Not hard enough.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat.
If she’d known Jack was Fired Up, would she have gone to him at the hospital the night before? When he’d patted the empty space on the sheet beside him, would she have still climbed into his bed and kissed him silly? Would she have spent the entire night with her head on his shoulder and the palm of her hand pressed against the strong thump of his heartbeat, just to remind herself he was really okay, that nothing truly awful had happened to him and he wasn’t going to vanish from her life like both her parents had?
Yes. She blinked hard to keep the tears at bay. Even if she’d known Jack had written the letters, she would have made those same choices—because she loved him, and love made people do foolish, self-destructive things.
Not anymore, though. She couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t.
And she didn’t have to, because there was someplace else she could go—someplace far away, someplace she could start over and forget she’d ever met Jack Cole or his secret evil twin, Fired Up in Lovestruck.
Until that moment Madison had forgotten all about the email from Fashionista. She’d only opened it once and had neither responded nor called the editor-in-chief, as requested. The job offer was just sitting there, languishing in her in-box, but now it seemed like a lifeline.
She took a deep breath and thought about what taking a job in Manhattan would mean—more money, more prestige, a return to the glamorous world of high fashion. She could get her own apartment instead of living in her aunt’s guest room and sharing a bed with a hairless dog.
Except staying with Aunt Alice had reminded Madison what it felt like to be part of a family, and she’d grown accustomed to Toby greeting her with a tail-wagging little dance when she came home from work. She’d miss the little guy. She’d even miss his goofy little sweaters. Deep down she had the nonsensical feeling that she might even miss Mr. Grant and the Main Street offices of Bee.
She chalked those feelings of unease up to nerves. The job at Fashionista was everything she’d been hoping for. Jack’s accident had shaken her up; that was all. Finding out that he’d been Fired Up in Lovestruck all along might actually be a good thing—now she could walk away from Vermont and its small-town charm and never, ever look back.
“I’m going to go,” she said, gathering up her handbag and bolting for the door. She stopped short of telling him that she planned on being on the first plane out of Burlington in the morning. The last thing she wanted was a long goodbye. “Give Ella and Emma a hug for me, okay?”
Jack looked as stricken as if she’d slapped him, but he took a deep inhale and nodded. “I’ll do that, but can we talk in the morning? Please?”
She didn’t answer him, because anything she might have said would be a lie and they’d both been doing enough of that. Instead, she forced herself to look at him one last time, because she knew if she couldn’t meet his gaze, she’d never be able to walk away. But she did it, and as she looked into his eyes, bluer than blue, she willed
