“What?” He takes my chin and gently tilts my face to his so that I must either look at him or deliberately avoid his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Damien,” I say, then watch as his expression hardens in front of me. “And it’s the resort.”

He says nothing, and for some reason that makes it harder. But I have to do this and so I press on, taking a deep breath for courage, and then just blurting it out. “You’re fired, Jackson. Damien said I have to fire you from the project.”

The bastard.

The goddamn, fucking, holier-than-thou bastard.

“Fired?” Jackson repeated, even though he knew damn good and well that he’d heard her exactly right. “And, what? The great Damien Stark didn’t have the balls to do it himself? He has to put that on you?”

She took a step toward him, her hand outstretched. “Jackson, he—”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t even want to hear it.”

For Jackson’s whole life, everything that Damien wanted, Damien got. And more often than not, he got it at Jackson’s expense.

Damien wanted a father? Fine, he took Jackson’s.

He wanted time? No problem there, either. Because Jeremiah sure as hell couldn’t stick around when little Damien needed him.

Opportunity? Why not just play grab-ass with whatever came along, just like he did in Atlanta, and why the hell should he give a flying fuck if his underhanded manipulations screwed over anyone else?

And now Damien wanted him gone, because god forbid Jackson’s revelation caused him even the slightest bit of inconvenience.

“Fuck.”

He grabbed the first thing he saw—a plastic cup full of pencils—and hurled it across the room. It slammed into the window and the pencils went flying, bouncing off the glass like tiny spears.

Beside him, Sylvia pressed up against the drafting table where he’d buried himself in her just moments before. Her eyes were wide and he could see her chest rising and falling as she watched him warily, as if fearing that he might suddenly explode.

Then again, hadn’t he already done that?

He sucked in a breath, then dragged his fingers through his hair. Christ, he was an asshole.

“Syl,” he said, then felt his gut twist into knots when he saw the single tear snake down her cheek.

Oh hell. Oh fuck.

He’d done that. He’d scared her. He’d hurt her. And before that, he’d fucking used her.

And he was standing there and cursing Damien for being an asshole?

What the fuck was wrong with him?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Christ, I’m so damn sorry.”

Her mouth moved, as if to say his name, but no sound came out. Just as well, because right now his name on Sylvia’s lips had the power to shatter him. And he was already too shattered by half.

For a moment, he just looked at her. She stood there, her mouth slightly open as if she was searching for a single magic word that could put everything back to right. Her lips were swollen, her hair mussed. She held her shirt together with one hand, because of course he’d been asshole enough to rip the garment to shreds.

Goddamn it. Goddamn it all to hell.

He still wore his suit jacket, and now he shrugged it off and dropped it over the back of a nearby chair.

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” he said. “I’m sorry about everything.”

And then, without looking back, he turned and left the room.

five

I grab hold of the drafting table and suck in air, trying to gather myself as Jackson disappears down the hall.

Part of me thinks that I should follow him—that I should go after him and enfold him in my arms, then hold him like a child, kissing him and murmuring soft words until the pain goes away.

But we have just been down this road, and I know that when he ran from Damien, I brought him comfort.

Now, things have changed. And this time it is me that he is running from.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I pace the office, my emotions too riled to allow me to stand still. Back and forth, again and again, not seeing the room. Not seeing anything. Just moving. Just feeling the blood in my veins and the contempt that now flows as well.

Because right now, I hate myself. I hate myself for what I did to this man I care so deeply for. For that matter, I hate Damien, too, for forcing me to be the hatchet man.

I understand why he did it—I’m the project manager and that means that hiring and firing are part of my job. But it wasn’t my decision to fire, and now the two best things in my world—Jackson and my job—have been tainted.