Page 81 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless

"Yes."

"Without telling me why."

"Yes."

"Without giving me a choice."

The words land like bullets. I don't defend myself. Can't. There is no defense for this, only the brutal accounting of consequence.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," I say finally. My voice fractures at the edges. "Keeping you clean from the consequences of my mistake."

"Your mistake." She laughs, the sound brittle as shattered glass. "Not the affair, Jakob. The mistake was thinking you had the right to decide what I could handle. To control my life under the guise of protection."

She moves to the counter, gripping its edge until her knuckles whiten. I watch her shoulders rise and fall with each controlled breath, the elegant line of her spine rigid with fury.

"Four years. Four years of believing I wasn't enough. That something in me failed to hold you."

"I never stopped loving you," I say, the words scraping my throat raw.

"That makes it worse."

She turns to face me fully, eyes bright with unshed tears.

"Because love without trust isn't love at all. It's possession. Control dressed up as care."

Her words strike with surgical precision, finding the exact place where my intent and impact diverge. Where my protection became its own form of violence. The truth of it hollows me from inside.

"And now?" She gestures to the phone, to the threat still glowing on the screen. "Now she's coming after me anyway. So, what was it all for?"

The question hangs between us, unanswerable. Everything I sacrificed, every night I lay awake aching for her, every moment I forced myself to keep my distance—all of it undone by Megan's relentless pursuit of what she believes I owe her.

"I'll make security arrangements for your apartment," I say, certainty hardening my voice. My mind is already calculating, the battlefield mapped. "I'll have someone outside, monitoring. She won't touch you or your career."

"You still don't get it."

Chanel shakes her head, a single tear tracking down her cheek. The sight of it undoes me. In all our fights, all ourfractures, I've seen her angry, hurt, distant—but rarely have I seen her cry.

"This isn't about what you can fix. It's about what you broke. What you're still breaking by thinking you can manage this without me."

She wipes the tear away with a quick, angry gesture.

"I suspected it was her, you know. I just needed to hear you say it. To see if you trusted me enough to tell me the whole truth. Not just the parts you deemed safe."

"I'm telling you now," I say, stepping toward her. The distance between us feels infinite.

She backs away.

"Too late. Four years too late."

The distance between us spans more than physical space. It's measured in secrets kept, in truths withheld, in the yawning gulf between my intentions and their impact.

I've faced down enemies, rebuilt empires from ashes, negotiated with people who would kill for advantage—yet I stand here now, powerless before the one person who matters.

"What happens now?" I ask, voice low.

"Now I go home," she says simply. "I need space to think. To decide what this means for us, for the audit, for everything."

"Megan gave you 48 hours."