I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else.
Just as I put a hand on the front door, someone walked up to him and for a moment I thought it was a fan. People had started to approach him more after getting signed with the Heat, and only a few weeks into the season Jesse was already onfire.
I was so proud of him.
But it wasn’t a fan. It was Taylor, one of the PR specialists for the Heat.
It seemed like she and Jesse had gotten close over the last few months. But I was used to that. Jesse was an incredibly gorgeous man. Women always wanted him. But he was experienced at deflecting their attention away, and I had never had any cause to doubt him.
Once he wore a ring, maybe this attention would calm down.
Taylor was tall with bouncy yellow curls and a tiny waist, perfectly dressed and made-up like an Instagram model.
It was good that Jesse had someone to help him transition to NHL stardom. It was a lot different, and a lot more pressure now.
She bent down to his ear, and I hesitated outside. There was nothing reallyinappropriateabout the way he kept his big hands folded on the table. And there was nothing technicallywrongabout the way she stood beside him, whispering into his ear.
But I knew Jesse Wisniewski. Knew him like back of my damn hand.
He wasnervous. Andshewas comforting him. Encouraging him.
What would he need comfort for?
Suddenly, I felt a flicker of unease in my stomach.
Surely I was overreacting.
But there was something worse than flirting between them.
There was something. . .comfortable.
Like he went to her for advice.
Like there was something between them that he was keeping from me.
My stomach in knots, I opened the door and went in.
As soon as I saw his eyes, Iknew.
I didn’t even need the reassuring pat Taylor gave him, or the quick flick of her eyes up and down my outfit before she left.
Numbly, I sat down across from the man I’d been madly in love with for five years.
He cleared his throat. “Josie, we need to talk.”
Stubbornly, I waited, clenching my hands into fists underneath the table, digging them into the fabric of my skirt to stop my legs from trembling.
When I didn’t say anything, he cleared his throat again.
“I think—we need to take some time apart. I’ve been really busy lately, and—things are different. I’m going to be gone a lot with the team.”
I couldn’t help remembering a trip I’d gone on with him when he was in the minor leagues. I hadn’t even been allowed to stay with him and of course there was no budget, so I’d spent all my own money to accompany the team all the way from Philadelphia to Seattle.
But I had been happy to go and cheer him on because he was so depressed that the NHL deadline had come and gone with no signing.
The way he had looked the day he hadn’t been signed had almost broken my heart.
I need youhe had told me.
