Chapter 144
Chapter 144:
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She wanted him. She wanted him to close the distance and make her forget the attic and the fear and everything else. Every rational thought had gone quiet.
And then her brain came back online.
He likes men. He’s confused. He’s just comforting you. Or worse — he’s thinking of someone else. That tattoo. J.W.
She couldn’t be a substitute. She refused to be the woman he used to convince himself of something that wasn’t true.
She pressed her hands flat against his chest and pushed.
“Gaston, stop p>
He went absolutely still. His lips were a breath away from hers. “Why p>
“I can’t be a stand-in,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I’m not him p>
Gaston pulled back as if she had struck him. He stared at her, confusion and anger colliding in his expression.
“Him? What are you talking about p>
“I know you’re still hurting,” she said, trying to sound noble, trying to fortify her own crumbling walls. “Over J.W. Whoever he was. But don’t use me to fill that space. I deserve better than that p>
𝗧𝘳еո𝖽𝘪𝗻𝗴 𝗇оv𝘦𝘭ѕ 𝗼𝘯 ѕ.𝖼𝗼𝘮
Gaston stared at her in silence.
Him. She thought the tattoo — J.W. — belonged to a man. She thought he was using her as a surrogate for someone else entirely. The sheer, devastating absurdity of it landed on him like a physical blow. The tattoo was her initials. It had always been her. It had only ever been her.
He wanted to say it. He wanted to say it loudly and without qualification: I am not gay. That tattoo is yours. It has always been yours.
But not here. Not now, while she was still shaking from a nightmare, still raw and open. She would think he was manipulating her. She would run, and he would lose whatever fragile ground he had gained.
He pressed his jaw shut.
“Get off me,” he said, his voice coming out cold and flat.
Jocelyn scrambled back to her side of the bed. The sharpness of his tone stung — and, to her, it confirmed everything. He was recoiling. Disgusted that he had almost kissed a woman.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Gaston got out of bed without another word. He crossed to the balcony door, slid it open, and stepped out into the night air.
He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his pocket — a habit he had quit years ago, kept now only for genuine emergencies. His hands were not entirely steady as he lit it.
He looked up at the moon.
“You idiot,” he said quietly, to no one but himself. “You absolute idiot p>
The yacht docked the following morning in complete silence. The limousine ride back to the city passed without a single word exchanged between them.
The Cold War had begun.
Friday arrived under a gray, oppressive sky.
Jocelyn sat buried in paperwork at her office in the Wolfe Hotel, trying to forget the yacht. Trying to forget the feeling of Gaston’s skin against hers.
Liam knocked and entered, looking nervous. “Ms. Wolfe. The Douglas contract renewal. Kieran is refusing to sign electronically. He wants a face-to-face p>