Married By Mistake

Chapter Eighteen: The Panel Man

Jax's POV

Marcus showed up at my door without calling first, which is never a good sign with him.

"You're famous," he said, holding up his phone before I'd even fully opened the door. The gossip post. My own blurry shoulder next to Elena's face, zoomed in like evidence.

"I'm not famous. I'm barely visible in that photo."

"Doesn't matter. People search. People are curious. It's been up to four hours and someone in the comments already asked if you're the pianist from Vienna."

My stomach dropped the way it does every single time that word shows up somewhere I didn't put it.

"Show me."

He turned the phone around. A comment, buried under forty others, from an account with no profile picture: wait is that Jackson Romero? the pianist? what happened to him lol

Six replies under it. Nobody confirming. Nobody denying. Just a thread of strangers speculating about a version of me I'd spent six years trying to bury.

"It's not confirmed," I said, mostly to convince myself. "Could be anyone."

"Could be. Or it could be the start of exactly what you've been avoiding since you were twenty-two." Marcus sat down uninvited, the way he's done since we were kids sharing one bedroom. "I told you this was a bad idea. The wedding thing. Getting involved with someone whose whole life is public."

"I didn't choose to get involved. We got married by accident."

"You chose to keep hanging around after."

He wasn't wrong, and I hated that he wasn't wrong.

"I like her, Marcus."

"I know you do. That's the part I'm worried about." He rubbed a hand over his face, the same gesture our dad used to do before difficult conversations. "You've built six years of quiet around yourself. One photo, and it's already cracking. What happens when it's not just a comment section? What happens when an actual reporter puts your two names together?"

"Then I deal with it."

"Do you? Because from where I'm standing, you deal with things by walking dogs and changing the subject."

That landed harder than I wanted it to.

My phone buzzed on the counter. I grabbed it, grateful for the interruption, and found a text from Elena that made the whole conversation with Marcus feel smaller by comparison.

Elena: My biggest client wants to meet you. Before Friday. I know how insane that sounds. We should talk.

I read it twice. Marcus, watching my face, didn't need to ask what it said.

"See," he said. "This is what I mean. It's not staying small."

"I know."

"So what are you gonna do?"

I didn't have an answer. Meeting Elena's client meant standing in a room as myself, not as background noise in someone else's photo. It meant a woman who moved in circles that occasionally, apparently, still remembered classical music prodigies from a decade ago.

It meant risk I hadn't signed up for when I agreed to a coffee, then a park bench, then whatever this had slowly turned into.

"I don't know yet," I said honestly. "But I'm not disappearing on her. Not after everything this week."

Marcus studied me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes.

"You really do like her."

"Yeah."

"Okay." He stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair. "Then I hope you know what you're doing, because I can't keep running interference forever. Eventually someone's going to connect the dots, and it's not going to be a stranger in a comment section. It's going to be someone who actually knows."

He left without saying who he meant, and I didn't ask, because some part of me already suspected.

I checked my email out of habit while I made coffee I didn't really want, scrolling past nothing important, a dog-sitting inquiry, a coupon for pet insurance.

Then one subject line stopped my hand cold.

From an address I didn't recognize. Subject: Is this Jackson Romero? Saw your photo today.

I stared at it for a long moment before I made myself open it.

Jackson, if this is really you, I need you to know I've thought about that night in Vienna more than you probably think I have. I was on the panel. I've wanted to reach out for years and never had the nerve. Saw a photo of you today and finally decided to try. Please write back. There's something I think you deserve to know.

I read it three times. My hands, steady the whole conversation with Marcus, weren't steady anymore.