Only when we burn

Chapter 8: The cost of silence

"Bella..." he started.

"Don't." My voice was hoarse from crying. "Just don't. I can't do this anymore, Jackson."

"You can't do what?"

I turned to face him, anger flaring hot in my chest. "This! Pretending like I don't see what's happening. Like I'm blind to what's right in front of me."

"What exactly do you think you saw?"

"I saw you holding your ex like she was the most precious thing in the world!" The words exploded out of me. "I saw you kissing her forehead the same way you kiss mine. I saw the way you looked at her, Jackson. Like she still means everything to you."

Jackson stood, brushing dirt off his pants. "You're wrong."

"Am I?" I scrambled to my feet, my voice rising. "Then explain to me why she was here. Why was she crying in your arms? Why does everyone in your family seem to know about your history with her except me!"

"If you'd just let me—"

"No!" I cut him off, my hands shaking with fury. "You've had your chance. I'm done pretending it doesn't kill me to watch other women throw themselves at you while you're too polite to shut them down."

"That's not what happened tonight."

"Isn't it? Because from where I was standing, it looked exactly like a man comforting the woman he's never gotten over." Tears of rage burned my eyes. "And you know what the worst part is? I actually thought I was different. I thought I was special."

Jackson's face darkened. "You are special."

"I'm the rebound, Jackson. The safe choice after the great love of your life broke your heart." I laughed bitterly. "At least now I know where I stand."

"You don't know anything!" His voice cracked like a whip. "You're so busy building walls and looking for exits that you won't even listen to the truth!"

"The truth?" I spun around to face him fully. "The truth is that you're still in love with her. That's why there's always this part of you that feels... distant."

"That is not—"

"Yes, it is!" I was shouting now, beyond caring who might hear. "And the really pathetic part is that I convinced myself I could live with the scraps. That having part of you was better than having nothing at all."

Jackson stepped closer, his eyes blazing. "You want to talk about not being able to commit? You've had one foot out the door since the day we met. The first sign of trouble, and you're ready to run."

"Maybe because I know when I'm fighting a losing battle!"

"What battle, Bella? What are you fighting that I'm not fighting too?"

"Her!" I screamed, gesturing wildly toward the house. "I'm fighting her ghost, Jackson. The perfect woman who got away. The one who set the bar so high that no one else could ever measure up."

"You think Rosie is perfect?" Jackson's laugh was harsh, almost cruel. "You think losing her was some great romantic tragedy?"

"Wasn't it?"

"She destroyed me!" The words ripped out of him like they'd been torn from his chest. "She didn't just leave me, Bella. She left me at the altar for my brother. She fell in love with Ben while she was engaged to me, and I was too blind to see it."

I faltered, some of my rage deflating. "What?"

"Rosie is married to my brother," Jackson said, his voice raw. "Has been for three years. She left me because she couldn't go through with marrying someone she didn't love."

The ground seemed to shift beneath me. "Your brother?"

"Ben. My younger brother." Jackson's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "They're married now, and she works for our family company as head of corporate communications. That's why she was here tonight, not because of some grand romantic reunion, but because there's trouble with a business deal and she needed to warn me about the fallout."

I stared at him, my mind reeling. "She's your sister-in-law?"

"Yes. And before you ask, no, Ben and I don't speak. What they did destroyed our relationship. Permanently." His voice grew bitter. "But you don't want to hear that, do you? You'd rather cling to your narrative about me pining for my lost love. It's easier than actually trusting what we have."

"I don't—"

"Yes, you do." He moved closer, and I could see the hurt blazing in his eyes. "You want me to be the bad guy. You want this to be my fault so you can walk away with a clear conscience."

"That's not true."

"Then prove it." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, but the intensity in it made me step back. "Give me the same courtesy I gave you when you told me about your past. The same patience I showed when you needed time to open up to me."

I stared at him, my chest heaving, feeling like a cornered animal.

"I have never," he continued, his voice shaking slightly, "made you compete with anyone. I have never made you feel like you weren't enough. But you're so determined to see threats everywhere that you're hell-bent on destroying us from the inside."

"Jackson—"

"I'm begging you, Bella." The fight went out of his voice, leaving only raw vulnerability. "Please. Just... listen to me. Let me explain what really happened tonight."

The word 'begging' hit me like a slap. Jackson didn't beg. He was too proud, too controlled, too confident. But here he was, standing in front of me with his heart in his hands, asking for the one thing I'd been too angry and scared to give him. The same thing he'd given me without question when I'd needed it.

I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly feeling small and ashamed. "I'm listening."

Jackson let out a shaky breath and guided me toward his cottage. "Can I take you home? Away from here? I need to explain everything, and I don't want an audience."

I nodded, not trusting my voice. He reached out tentatively, his hand hovering near my arm. When his fingers brushed my skin, I flinched instinctively and stepped back. Pain flashed across his features, but he dropped his hand. "Okay. We'll walk separately."

"This way," he said softly when we reached the main trail. "About ten more minutes."

The path back to his cottage felt endless in the moonlight. Jackson walked beside me, close enough that I could feel his warmth but far enough that we weren't touching. The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything unsaid.

Once inside his cottage, he poured himself a glass of whiskey with trembling hands and offered me one, which I declined. We sat on opposite ends of his couch, the space between us feeling like a chasm.

"Rosie left me five years ago," he began, staring into his glass. "They didn't plan it, it just happened. She tried to fight it, tried to convince herself she could go through with marrying me, but in the end she couldn't."

I pulled my knees up to my chest, watching him carefully.

"She disappeared the morning of our wedding. Just... gone. Left me standing there in my tuxedo while our families and friends waited." His voice grew quiet, distant. "I found out later she'd gone to Ben. They'd been working together on a project, spending long hours together, and somewhere along the way..."

"Jackson, I'm so sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't be. She did the right thing, even if the timing was terrible. If Rosie loved Ben, we would have been miserable together."

"Why was she crying tonight?"

Jackson took a long sip of his whiskey before answering. "There's trouble with a business deal. The Lance Corp acquisition that Ben pushed through without proper due diligence. There's an SEC investigation now, and it could destroy the company."

I felt my stomach drop. "So she came to you for help?"

"She came to warn me, and to ask for guidance on handling the media fallout." His voice was careful, measured. "Bella, I need you to understand something. Rosie is part of my family now, whether I like it or not. She's married to Ben, she works for our company, and that's not going to change."

"But you still care about her."

"Of course I care about her, the way I'd care about any family member in trouble." He set down his glass and turned to face me fully. "I'm not in love with her anymore, Bella. I'm in love with you. Though honestly, after tonight, I'm starting to question whether you even want that."

The harshness in his tone made me flinch. "Jackson—"

"No, let me finish." His eyes were blazing now. "I have been patient with you. I've given you space when you needed it, time when you asked for it. I've never pushed you to share more than you were comfortable with. But the first time you see something that triggers your insecurities, you don't come to me. You don't ask questions. You just assume the worst and prepare to run."

I looked down at my hands, shame burning in my chest. "When I saw you with her tonight, holding her the way you hold me—"

"The way I hold you?" Jackson's laugh was bitter. "Bella, I've held you through panic attacks, through moments when you were falling apart. Are you seriously comparing that to me giving my sister-in-law a supportive hug?"

"Sister-in-law," I repeated, the word feeling foreign. "Another thing you never told me. Just like you never told me it was your birthday. Sarah brought you a gift, but your own girlfriend had no idea?"

Jackson went very still, his face closing off in a way that made my stomach clench. For a long moment, he didn't speak.

"I don't celebrate my birthday," he said finally, his voice carefully neutral.

"Why not?"

He stood abruptly, moving to the window and staring out into the darkness. "My father died on my birthday."

The stark admission stole my breath. "Jackson..."

"He’d been trying to call me all day." His voice was flat, but I saw the tension in his shoulders. "We’d fought the week before, a big one about me refusing to take over the family business. He wanted me to come back, to take my rightful place as his successor."

I stepped closer, my throat thick. "And you didn’t pick up?"

"I was on-call. A complicated procedure that ran long. My phone was on silent for hours." His palm pressed against the glass. "He had a heart attack that afternoon. Massive. By the time I got the messages and made it to the hospital..."

"Oh god."

"The last conversation we ever had was an argument about my career choices. About how I was disappointing him by not running the company." Jackson's voice cracked slightly. "He died thinking I was choosing my pride over my family."

"Jackson..." My chest ached. I wanted to reach for him but held back, afraid of breaking the fragile honesty spilling out of him.

"I've spent years wondering if I'd answered his calls, I could have saved his life instead of being in an OR trying to save someone else's..."

"You can't blame yourself for that."

"Can't I?" His smile was bitter. "The irony is perfect, isn’t it? I became a doctor to help people, and the one person I should have been able to help, I failed."

I reached for his hands then, no longer able to hold back. "Is that why you’re running yourself to the ground doing both?"

"Partly. After Dad died, I couldn't... I couldn't bear sitting in those meetings, making those decisions, knowing how disappointed he'd been in my choices." Jackson's fingers tightened around mine. "So I threw myself into medicine completely and left Ben to handle the business side. But Ben was never cut out for it—he's brilliant, but he takes risks without thinking them through."

Jackson's voice grew quieter, more strained. "After he and Rosie got married, they moved to LA to run our West Coast operations. I thought the distance would help. Now we communicate mostly through emails." He paused, jaw clenching. "When the Lance Corp deal came up, mum pushed me to give Ben full autonomy. I let it slide, and now everything’s unravelling."

"You can't carry all of this guilt, Jackson. Your father's death, Ben's business mistakes, Rosie's choices—none of it is your fault."

"Maybe not. But birthdays... they're just reminders of everything I lost that day. Of all the ways I failed." He looked down at our joined hands. "So no, I don't celebrate. I try to pretend the day doesn't exist."

I felt tears prick my eyes, not from jealousy or hurt this time, but from deep sadness for the man I loved. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"How could you? I never told you." His voice grew gentler. "Just like I never told you about Rosie, or about Ben and why we don't speak. I keep thinking I can protect you from all the messy, broken parts of my family."

"But I don't want to be protected from them. I want to be part of your life, all of it. The good and the bad."

Jackson studied my face in the dim light. "Do you? Because tonight, you were ready to walk away based on a misunderstanding. What happens next time? What happens when my past shows up again?"

I swallowed hard. "I can’t promise I’ll never be insecure again. But I can promise to try to come to you first before I assume the worst."

"And I promise to stop trying to shield you from my complicated family." He brought our joined hands to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles.

I stepped closer to him. "I'm sorry."

When he leaned down to kiss me, it was soft and tentative, like he was afraid I might pull away again. I didn't. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck, letting him know without words that I was choosing to stay. Choosing to trust. The kiss deepened, full of relief and forgiveness and promise. When he carried me toward his bedroom, it felt like coming home.

"I love you," he whispered into my hair. "Only you. There's no one else."

"I love you too," I whispered back, reaching for the buttons of his shirt.

This time, we made love with our eyes open, watching each other, seeing each other completely. It was raw and honest and beautiful.

Afterwards, lying in his arms, listening to his heartbeat, I realised this was what trust looked like—not the absence of fear, but the choice to stay despite it.