A/N: Hi everyone! I'm on the road right now, enjoying the summer, but I wanted to make sure you got your serving of Jake and Tessa this week. We're really getting close to the end of their story with about two chapters left so make sure you stay tuned.

***

Tessa

I didn't have cruel intentions.

No, really, I didn't.

It's the same way a person who cares for you may not necessarily want to hurt you but ripping the band-aid off is the only thing they can do to save you from a festering wound.

And yes, Jake and I were starting to become a festering wound and someone needed to take drastic measures if we didn't want to lose a limb. I'd lost my heart, sure, and only retained bits and pieces of it, but no one would see it missing. No one but me and that's all there is to it.

However, if I let Jake carry on with this temporary madness, both of us would get hurt and drag other people in it too. My family would cut him out completely if they thought he was juggling me with other women and he would resent me for it. And I would no longer be just angry—I would hate him for good. In the end, no one would come out a winner and I couldn't allow that scenario. I had to cut my romantic ties with Jake cleanly and coldly, with the indifference of a surgeon whose only concern was to save a life.

I contemplated a plan throughout my sleepless night at the presidential suite of Boston Harbor Hotel. I ordered an unholy amount of room service and sat by the window gazing at the same skyline Jake and I had watched from his car that one night several weeks ago.

I didn't cry.

I've felt pain before—when someone from school called me real nasty names, when my mother died, when Jake broke my heart the first time around—and there had been tears. That night alone though, all my emotions seemed to have gathered into one tight coil, clutched somewhere deep inside of me just waiting to snap from the tension and lacerate everything it could touch.

It's always so much worse to be brought so high just so you can be pushed off the edge to crash back down.

If I hadn't shoved smart Tessa to the back of my head where her protests were muffled by my raging hormones, I wouldn't have climbed so high at Jake's coaxing. The resulting fall was as devastating as I'd known it would be. Despite being broken and bloodied though, I got off my butt and put my plan into action.

I arrived at the Arts Appreciation dinner at the enchanting Isabella Steward Gardner Museum not only wearing a provocative emerald green dress that hinted at a lot of skin underneath the lace that composed it, but also in the arms of Michael Steinberg. I knew him through a mutual acquaintance even though he was studying law at Yale. He'd asked me out multiple times in the past six months and I'd gone out to get coffee with him a few times, the last one only a few weeks ago. He was preppy cute and very nice—he didn't make me stupid or prone to bad decisions whenever I was around him. I was safe from myself with him and I needed that.

Our appearance didn't go unnoticed—Charlotte and Anna were a little confused, Brandon was polite but assessing and Jake was, well, flipping out. I didn't try to evade him. With a straight face, I made casual introductions as if my insides weren't further crumbling into themselves. His eyes were blazing with a wild fury I almost worried for a second that he would snap and tear Michael apart limb after limb right in front of Boston's high society.

"So with all that time you needed to think, this is what you came up with," Jake said with an edge in his voice when Michael was distracted by a deepening conversation with Brandon about labor law.

I forced a smile and slowly steered us toward a corner table just out of earshot of the group. "Michael's a really nice guy. We like a lot of the same things and I think he's got a bright future as a lawyer. I bet Brandon even likes him."

Jake's never looked so murderous in the entire time I've known him.

"So out of the blue, he became the man of your dreams," he muttered. "Because you were really looking for someone who'd nod at everything you say like a bobble-head, who'd never stir your perfectly pleasant existence by questioning your choices and making you take another good look at yourself and the glass box you hide in."

My fists clenched as his angry but pained words struck a chord. I reminded myself of who was really doing the hurting here.

I tipped up my chin defiantly. "I'm looking for someone who knows he can't have it all, Jake. Someone who wouldn't want to break my heart because he loves me and not just because he's having a hard time getting away with it."

His brows drew in together. "What are you talking about, Tess? I made how I felt about you perfectly clear yesterday and the night before that. You know I love you."

I allowed a grim smile, inwardly steeling myself from the warmth I didn't want to feel for him right now. "I know. I really felt it as I stood there at the bakeshop, picking out salted caramel cupcakes for you and listening to Gia Davis reminisce on the phone about what the two of you did with said cupcakes before. It really fired up my imagination and ruined my appetite so I thought I'd save us the awkward confrontation and leave."

Jake's face paled so swiftly, it was almost funny except that it wasn't.

Because there was guilt written all over his face.

Almost unthinkingly, he grabbed me by the wrist. "Tess, I can explain that—"

I slowly pulled my hand back, making as little movement as possible to avoid attention. "Sure you can. This probably isn't the first time this happened to you. So let's hear it. Pull out the script and roll."

His lips flattened into a line, his nostrils flaring and his eyes flashing. "It's not a script."

My smile was practically frozen on my face and it did feel cold. "Best first line ever."

Jake stiffened and this time, it was hurt I could see glimmering in his eyes. "You're saying you want to listen but you don't really want to hear it. No matter what I say, it's not going to change anything."

"Probably not," I said with a shrug. "Because nothing's really changed until you've changed, Jake, and we both know you haven't."

That hit a nerve. I had the briefest instinct to touch him, to comfort him, but I quickly told myself he needed to own up to the truth just as I did.

"I swear to you that I'm not involved with Gia," he ground out. "Yes, she called me yesterday while you were out, asking if we could meet up. I had no idea she was already at the bakeshop when she called. I took her out to dinner over a month ago, right before she left for Paris. I had decided to wait for her to come back so I could tell her in person, like any decent guy, that it wasn't going to work out between us. So it's not entirely her fault that she thought we could just pick up where we left off once she was back in town. But I told her no on the phone yesterday. I told her there was someone else and that I couldn't see her alone—not if I didn't want people getting the wrong idea. I wanted to protect you, Tess, and most of all, I didn't want to give you any reason to distrust me. But it happened anyway."

I actually believed him and I wasn't sure if that was because a part of me just desperately wanted to. Because it wouldn't make yesterday the lie that it had seemed. So if I believed him, things should be fine, right?

That's when I saw the other bigger problem.

"Even if I believe you now, Jake, what about next time?" I asked, my voice breaking a little. "This isn't going to be the last and I don't know how many more painful assumptions I can make before I break and before you're too exhausted explaining yourself."

Jake swallowed hard. "Tess, if I have to—"

I shook my head and stepped back. "No. Don't you see? No matter how much I want to, I still can't trust you. And it's going to hurt you every single time. And before long, we'll destroy each other and I don't want that."

My voice trailed off into a whisper. "So please... let it end here."

Tears were swimming in my vision and before they could spill, I whirled around and stormed off blindly, barely hearing Michael call my name.

Maybe some of my words hit home with Jake because I didn't see him anymore at the party after I finally emerged from the bathroom. I returned to Michael's side and fake-smiled my whole way through the night.

"Let me walk you to your door so I know you're safe," Michael said when he pulled up in front of my apartment.

It was two nights later and I'd brought Michael as my date again to another party. It was to drive home the point with Jake who'd kept his distance the last couple of days.

The light in Michael's eyes told me he wanted more than just to see me safely inside and I gave myself a moment to consider it.

It would be the perfect antidote to my miserable obsession with Jake Hastings.

Not again, Tessa. You're not jumping into bed with a guy to cure yourself of another one.

Right.

I suddenly felt cold at that realization that here I was again, two years later, contemplating a mistake I promised to never repeat.

"I'll be fine, Michael. Thank you." I gave him a smile and opened the car door. "Goodnight."

I didn't linger in case he made more attempts. I felt a pang of guilt for using Michael because that was exactly what I was doing—using him. And I wasn't proud of that. I knew too well how it was to be on the other end of that—hopelessly and helplessly pining after someone who would never be yours.

The moment I got to the top of the front steps to open the door, a movement caught my attention.

"Thank you for that. I might have done something stupid if he'd followed you inside," Jake said as he leaned forward into the light from one of the two benches that flanked the front entrance of the building. They were tucked behind the two large structural pillars, facing each other, only illuminated by the dim light of the wall sconces hanging by the each side of the door.

My heart started to pound because while he sounded a little bit raw right now, he also sounded angry.

"Jake, I already—"

He held up a hand as he rose to approach me. "I know that so much of my history is against me. That it's hard to trust me with your heart after the trail of broken ones I've left behind. You're right with what you said to me last time. You can't get yourself to trust me and I don't know what else I can do to convince you that this is different—that you're different. I've done everything I can think of which makes me wonder if the problem is not you finding me unworthy but yourself. Is it really because it's me and I've been a hopeless heartbreaker this whole time or is it because it's you and you've never considered yourself deserving of a chance at love and happiness?"

I backed up a step, shaking from the inside at his words, but he just took another step forward, not letting me take any safety with some distance.

"Can't you believe that someone could be as crazy in love with you as I am?" he asked, softly this time. "For all your instincts at self-preservation, you never give yourself enough credit and that box is too small, Tess. It's too small for you and me and the other people in your life who love you. Break that box and come out. Take my hand and trust that I won't let you go. Because I'm trusting myself with the one girl I can't lose despite having never done it before. It's the only way we can see what we can have together."

I took in a deep, shuddering breath and pressed my eyes closed to get rid of the tears. I didn't open them, knowing Jake would see my pain behind the glassy surface. But I had to say the words I promised I never would.

"I loved you for years, Jake," I said. "Being with you was all I wanted since I was twelve. I waited for more than five years. But right before I turned eighteen, when I was stupid enough to have shown up at your place after you came back from a trip, I found you in bed with Gia Davis. All my young heart's dreams died that day. And when I saw her a couple days ago, I went back into that dark, horrible grave again. And I'm afraid that I'm going to keep going back for as long as your past continues to haunt me."

He released a harsh breath and when I opened my eyes, I saw that he had both hands shoved halfway up in to his hair as if his head was giving him hell. After a moment, his hands dropped away, revealing all the torment in his eyes.

But I didn't stop with my humiliation there.

"The worst part wasn't even that you broke my heart," I continued in a voice trembling with emotions I couldn't neatly seal close inside of me. "It was finding myself making an even bigger mistake I could never undo. I went and had sex with the first guy who could get me into his backseat because I needed to purge you out of my system. Not only did it not work, it made me ashamed of myself and that was the last thing I ever wanted to be. While it stung and battered my confidence, none of the nasty things that people have ever said to me had made me ashamed of myself. Yet all it took to reduce me to such a low, pathetic point was the epiphany that I could never have you. And I never want to find myself in that place again, Jake."

Jake looked completely gutted. He pressed a hand against his mouth, his fist clenching so tightly his knuckles were white. An agitated tension radiated from him and I wondered for a second if he was about to hit something.

"Jake..."

He put his other hand up as he turned his back on me for a moment, staring off into the darkness of the night. His breathing was harsh, his shoulders lifting with effort.

"I'm so sorry, Tess," he finally said in a strained voice. He slowly turned around and even in the poor lighting, I could see the sheer anguish in his eyes. "I wish I had a better excuse other than I was young and stupid then but I don't. I might have realized how you felt in those years that followed but it wasn't something I wanted to pay attention to. I couldn't—you're Brandon's sister and completely off-limits to me. But I had no idea I'd hurt you—both by the careless promise I now remember making and my own insensitivity. I would've never done it had I known. Hell, I have a whole lifetime of things I would've never done if I'd known it would lead to this—me breaking your heart a long time ago and you now breaking mine."

Then you wouldn't haven't been the Jake I just fell more in love with over the years, despite trying not to.

What a mess—to love a guy as he was right now and wish at the same time that he was different.

"I would never want you to be ashamed of yourself, Tess," he said, gripping my arm to pull me gently against him. "I'm more sorry than I could ever be for making you feel that way. I'm sorry that I drove you into some other guy's arms where you could've been hurt worse. And lastly, I'm sorry that I've left you so afraid—of your own worth, of your own actions, of trusting me."

He raised a hand to touch my cheek, the gesture so heartbreakingly gentle it stole my breath. "I can't go back to the past but I'm promising you a very different future if you'd just let me. I'm not giving up on us, Tess, and I need you to do the same, no matter how scared you are because we are stronger than this. You have to try, if not for me, at least for yourself. Maybe then, I can give you reasons why you shouldn't be afraid anymore."

Then he leaned close to kiss me lightly on the top of my head before turning to leave.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, flailing in the darkness inside of me to find the shards of my already shattered heart that have lodged themselves into my soul and pull them out.

I would bleed but that was the only way to heal.

And only once healed would I find the strength to trust myself again.

***

Jake

If I just look in on myself and shut the world out, I would experience hell. After all, there's an inferno that's been ranging inside of me for more than two weeks now since Tessa's painful confession.

Love could really inflict a lot of damage and in a variety of ways.

One glance at Bessy Mitchell—once an attractive and haughty party girl—and the worn, defeated look in her eyes, and I understood the many levels of hell a person could fall into.

It would seem that the one who always gave too much and received too little were doomed the worst possible fates. Tessa was once that way, too, and maybe still was.

And can you blame her, Jake? You're a constant reminder of what she considers her ultimate failure.

Coming out with the truth that night was agonizing for her. It was in the choked quality of her voice, the self-recrimination in her dark eyes and the stubborn lines of her shoulders as if they alone could hold her up. Tessa have never bared herself like that in all the years I knew her. No matter how well I knew her, there was always a part of her that remained a mystery. An aloofness that others often perceived as cool disdain. No one would know that she was capable of feeling so overwhelmingly much because to show it meant making herself vulnerable. Until my own feelings made me look closer and deeper, more years would've gone on before I would've had any idea of how badly I'd hurt her. And that would've meant more years of keeping herself at arm's length of anyone who might love her. She would've lived a lonely life in constant fear of wanting and taking and doing more and the price it would cost her. It would've been an utter waste of such a lovely and complicated woman and I would've never forgiven myself for it.

And while it was too late to change the past, I meant what I said about having a different future with her. Nothing of what she'd confessed made me want less of everything that I hoped to have with her. If anything, it's made me more determined to have that chance with her so I could show her exactly why the future was worth braving our pasts. She needed to want this more than she was afraid of it.

And I'd bide my time, however long it took.

It was my turn to wait now.

"I realized I haven't thanked you yet since you took me in a couple days ago," Bessy said.

I glanced up from my dinner plate and met her eyes. Gone was the vacant look in them since Charlotte and I picked up her from the family clinic where she'd come so close to a decision she was bound to regret. Charlotte couldn't keep her at hers and Brandon's penthouse without having to tell Brandon everything and Bessy had nowhere else to go at the moment so I'd offered to let her stay at my place. Since Tessa's confession, the idea of people suffering for foolishly loving someone they shouldn't have stayed front and center in my mind. At some point, even at a different degree, she'd been once like Bessy—paying for what her heart couldn't control until she was eaten up by it. I couldn't help Tessa then but I could help Bessy and that was in no way enough atonement for my part in breaking Tessa's heart. I just wanted to think that someone had helped her then, in some shape or form, even though deep inside I knew no one did—at least not directly. Tessa guarded her heart vigilantly with a fortress and she alone would know the pain and work that came with keeping those walls up.

"I don't need one," I told Bessy with a smile. "I'm just glad I could help."

Bessy looked uncomfortable for a moment. "Still, thank you. I know I've done everything in my power to deserve no one's sympathy or help and the fact that you and Charlotte offered me both means more than you can ever know."

Bessy Mitchell had existed in the periphery of my ife for years considering her friendship with Anna. She was undeniably attractive, even at her current state, but she'd always been such an aggressive and abrasive person that I had never cared for her. But she'd changed so much in such a short time with one mistake after another as if the punishment for her sins had beaten and broken her into an altered state no one would recognize.

Yes, love could wreak havoc on anyone and the scars it left were deep, disfiguring and often permanent. Tessa had kept hers hidden under her constantly cool smile and invisibility—a talent that the world had forced her to master for self-preservation's sake.

"Do you think you'll ever trust a man again?" I suddenly asked with out thinking.

Bessy's forehead wrinkled in thought. "I'll have to, won't I, if I want to be with someone someday. Sure, I won't be falling for the same tricks Don played on me but I can't look at every guy and assume he's exactly the same. There are guys like you and Brandon who are decent. I have to believe they exist out there just as much as men like Don do."

I smiled with some relief.

Tessa would have to realize the same thing, although in her defense, I've asked her to trust the same man who'd hurt her on the mere claim that he was different now.

"I hope whoever you're pining for gets the hint soon," Bessy said with the first smile I'd seen from her in days. I'd never mentioned Tessa or anything related to someone special but it must be all over my face. "And I hope you don't fuck it up."

I laughed. "I hope so too."

"People deserve to be happy," Bessy added quietly. "No matter what they feel their faults or flaws are, they deserve a chance at it. And despite everything that happened to me, I know I'm going to be happy someday. I'm going to raise my baby and do something right with my life."

An hour later, after dinner was cleared up and Bessy had gone back to her room, I phoned the Maxfield house. Luckily, Martin was still up and invited me over for a drink. I knew that I probably should've waited until Tessa had made up her mind but whatever her decision was, I still needed to do this.

"What's going on, Jake?" Martin asked as he motioned for me to take a seat. He poured me a glass of scotch—the only one I was having tonight—before taking a seat across from me.

He was more than a father to me than my own was. Harold Hastings was a man obsessed with business, even long after he'd built himself a publishing empire and expanded into broadcasting. He worshipped money and my mother and I were often the sacrifices he'd offer at the altar. His family was fine as long as they were fed and provided for. He didn't think spending time with them or being an actual family with them was critical. Martin was just as successful and as rich but he was there for every single one of his children—and even those who weren't but who sought the guidance of a father anyway.

As much as I hated angering Brandon, I was more afraid of disappointing Martin. And breaking Tessa's heart would guarantee that. But I had to risk it because I had an equal chance of making his daughter happy. I would just have to steer fate to my side.

"I want your blessing," I finally said.

Martin's silver brows rose slowly. "You want it now when she wants nothing to do with you?"

I stiffened, alert all of a sudden. Martin had always been astute but he could only know this if Tessa had told him. And if that was what she told him, I had a serious problem on my hands.

"She wants nothing to do with the man I was," I said carefully. "I'm not that man anymore."

Martin didn't look impressed. "Does a man really fully change, Jake? Can a man who's so cavalier with women's hearts be trusted not to break one?"

My eyes narrowed. "You trusted Brandon not to break Charlotte's heart."

Martin smiled. "So I did."

"I'm not going to hurt Tessa," I said, clearing my throat when my voice caught. "Because I've already done that and it's the shittiest feeling in the world."

I was prepared for Martin to go interrogator-mode at that admission but he just sighed out loud.

"I love all my children but Tessa is the one who reminds me the most of Evelyn," he said, staring off into the distance. "She has her mother's looks and her quiet strength. It broke my heart the day she'd lost the sparkle in her eyes. I would no longer catch her scribbling on her diary or day-dreaming. She'd grown up all of a sudden and that only happens when life breaks some part of you irrevocably. I would suffer any pain for her but she wouldn't have become stronger if not for it."

"She's already strong," I said, feeling the sharp pang of guilt at the image Martin painted of a young, dreamy Tessa whose heart I thoughtlessly crushed. "She's always been strong even when no one saw it."

"Well, clearly you did," Martin said with a faint smile. "When no one was looking, or when she thought she was too small to matter, you saw her, didn't you, Jake?"

My jaw clenched. "I did. I just didn't know what it meant until now."

The old man tilted his head at me as if trying to find evidence of something. "And you don't think this is all too sudden? One day, she's just the same Tessa she's always been to you and then the next, she's the one woman you can't bear to lose?"

I understood Martin's concern a hundred percent. I've echoed the same questions to myself because God knows I had to be extremely sure about this if I was going to risk everything to have her. This wasn't simply spurred by the two amazing nights I'd spent with her or that one perfect day at the beach. I had more discouragement than inducements in between all those times but that wasn't the whole story. There was that and my twenty-year history with Tessa. I wouldn't say that it all started that night of the party, when she embraced her beauty for the first time and turned everyone's heads—not just mine—with a startling new confidence. If it did, I probably wouldn't have spent all that time with her long before that night, hanging out or going out for food or the occasional drive. I definitely spent more time with her than I ever did with Anna. Before Charlotte, Tessa was the only girl I could just spend time with for no particular reason, even without the excuse of Brandon or her family being present. The night of the party was just the hard knock I needed to jar the scales off my eyes and acknowledge what I've seen but couldn't dwell on for some time now.

I realize now that sexy dress didn't bring forward a new Tessa. It just packaged the person she's always been in a sure way that would make people look at what they've ignored for so long. Realizing that people liked what they saw gave her that boost of confidence she wouldn't have dared to give herself before. And it's those little things about her—the solid strength, the delicate confidence, the stubborn determination to have better—that made the past several weeks of our wait-and-chase game the best and worst of my life. Best because what I knew of Tessa was helping me understand her better and worst because with that knowledge, I knew this was going to be the most difficult undertaking of my entire life.

As the saying goes, nothing worth having comes easy, Jake.

"No, I don't think it's too sudden. In my estimate, I'm already years behind." I looked Martin straight in the eye. "I'm no expert but I don't think the time before and after matters as much as that one single moment somewhere in between when what you feel confirms itself as love."

Martin's smile broadened. "In that case, you have my blessing, Jake. I'm not going to blame you for the decisions you made with what you knew at that time. All I ask is that you love and cherish my baby girl now."

"I already do and I always will. I'll dedicate my entire life to it," My eyes started to sting but I blinked it away and rose to offer a hand to Martin who took it with a firm shake. "Thank you, sir."

Martin clapped a hand on my shoulder and raised his glass. "Let's enjoy this drink now, son, because I have a feeling you're going to need it."

***

So, what do you guys think?

I do love it when Martin plays matchmaker. Good things usually come out of those things.

I debated whether Tessa should tell him everything but I figured sh needed to so he would understand just where her caution is coming from. It may seem like a small thing to others but I wanted to highlight the kind of foolishness some of us feel with the kind of decisions love pushes us to make sometimes. It's easy to be so rational when commenting on a book but how many of us have actually made decisions we've completely regretted in real life because of love?  

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Make sure to vote and comment! I'd love to hear from you!

♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: Gravity by Sara Bareilles ♪♪♪

Something always brings me back to you.

It never takes too long.

No matter what I say or do

I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.

You hold me without touch.

You keep me without chains.

I never wanted anything so much

Than to drown in your love and not feel your rain.

[CHORUS:]

Set me free,

Leave me be.

I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity

Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.

But you're on to me and all over me.

Oh, you loved me 'cause I'm fragile

When I thought that I was strong.

But you touch me for a little while

And all my fragile strength is gone.

[CHORUS]

I live here on my knees

As I try to make you see

That you're everything I think I need here on the ground.

But you're neither friend nor foe

Though I can't seem to let you go.

The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down.