“Excuse me? You’re the one who has been flip-flopping the whole goddamned time I’ve been here. You come home early to see me. Then you’re an asshole to me at Ramsey’s party. Then you want to be with me again and you’re going to break things off with Bekah. After that we have sex, and you’re just another asshole all over again. What the fuck, Jack?” she asked demanding his attention.

“It’s only because you’ve been playing me the whole time that I keep changing,” he told her his blue eyes stormy.

“I have not been playing you!” she yelled at him. “And I don’t know Ramsey from anywhere.”

Jack laughed again. “You’re good. You know that?” Lexi sighed exasperated. “You and Ramsey met in the club the night we got back together in New York.”

Lexi glanced at him in surprise. Her heart raced in her chest at the faint memory of a night long ago. She had met someone in that club. In fact, she had almost gone home with that guy. A series of flashbacks took over her mind.

A man in an Armani suit buying her drinks and barely glancing at Chyna as he offered to take Lexi home. A faint memory of Ramsey saying they had met somewhere previously before they kissed on his balcony. The way he programmed her number into his phone as if he already had it in there. Ramsey somehow knowing she didn’t drink Jack Daniels or Sex on the Beach. How familiar his lack of personal space felt. The way he had touched her last night, as if he had been waiting to do that for much longer than the week he had known her.

Her stomach plummeted, shock radiating out of every pore. Could Ramsey be the elusive Armani Guy? She had lost all the numbers programmed into her phone, so when Ramsey had given her his number it wouldn’t have been in there. He must have known all along, and he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

“See you can’t even deny it,” he said shaking his head as if he hadn’t really believed it himself until her confirmation.

“How did you find out that I’d met him?” she asked.

“I remember Chyna talking to you about some guy from Armani calling you when we were together. I knew you were at the club where Ramsey was that night, because I was the one he was supposed to interview.” Lexi’s heart jumped again. Jack had been there that night. In fact, when she had seen a guy that looked like him, that actually could have been him. She couldn’t believe all of this. “I know you’ve been seeing each other since then. He told me about this woman he met once in New York a couple weeks ago. He didn’t even know he was talking about you, and, honestly, until I saw the two of you together last night, I wasn’t entirely sure myself.”

Lexi’s hand rushed to her mouth unable to believe what he was telling her. “I knew Ramsey in New York,” she murmured.

“So you admit it?”

“Yeah. I guess I do, but he never told me that he knew me,” she said still in a state of shock. Why wouldn’t he have told her? It wasn’t like she had given him some reason not to trust her. Sure, she hadn’t exactly been up front with him about her reasons for being in Atlanta, but she hadn’t considered that something like this would happen.

“Right,” he said in disbelief resting back against the corner of the desk and turning to face her.

Lexi stood brushing the cobwebs out of her mind. She took a turn around the room trying to process what this new information meant besides the fact that it seemed everyone was lying to her in some way. What more could she find out to make matters worse? She finally settled her mind, and walked back to Jack. “I don’t know how we got onto this subject, but Ramsey is not the reason I barged into your office to speak with you.”

Jack waited. “What’s the reason then?”

Lexi took a deep breath before starting. “I’m leaving tonight for New York, and I need to know what’s going on…with us,” she said the last part unsure if she really wanted the answer. At the same time, she knew that she would never be able to leave Atlanta happy without answers.

Jack sighed and buried his head in his hands. “Always back to this conversation.”

“It’s the only one that seems to matter,” she said standing her ground in front of him.

“Lexi, I have a whole life here. I have more than a few loose ends to tie up.”

“What about everything you said?” Lexi asked her voice quivering.

“What do you want me to say, Lex?”

“What about the goddamn truth?” she cried throwing her hands in the air. “Do you want to be with me? You said that you did. Was that all a lie too?”

“It wasn’t a lie. I just…I want to be with you when I’m with you, but when you’re gone I doubt everything. We have too much history, Lex. You know that. I don’t know what’s been going on with us lately, and,” he took a deep breath, “I don’t know if I can leave my life behind.”

“So, this is it then?” she asked, their history the only thing keeping her from collapsing.

“I don’t know…”

“No, don’t fucking do that. Make up your mind already,” she cried rushing forward and pressing herself against his chest.

He instinctively wrapped his arms around her body and held her against him. She breathed into him pushing her hands up his chest and around his neck. “We have to figure this stuff out.”

Jack pulled back from her holding her face softly between his strong hands and staring into her confused brown eyes. “I know we do.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” she told him closing her eyes as his thumb trailed down her cheek.

“Can’t do what anymore?” a voice asked walking into the room behind them.

Lexi jumped back at the sound of the voice. Jack immediately released Lexi’s face dropping his hands to his sides. She tried to hide the expression on her face, but there was no point. Bekah had to know something was up by now.

“Hey, babe. When did you get here?” Jack asked hesitantly.

“Just a little while ago. Hey, Lexi,” Bekah said cheerfully.

“Bekah,” Lexi said nodding her head in greeting.

“Are you here about the news?” Bekah asked smiling as politely as ever as she strolled into the room. Her naturally blonde hair had recently been highlighted and fell down to her chest as pin straight as ever. She wore a crisp white pencil skirt with a baby pink silk blouse that tied up around her neck making a bow. A white suit jacket was folded in half over her left arm. She looked like a vision of perfection, and it made Lexi sick.

“Uh…news?” Lexi asked glancing between Jack and Bekah.

“Didn’t Jack tell you?”

“Apparently not,” she uttered anxiously.

Bekah held up left hand and squealed with joy. “We’re getting married.”

Lexi gasped as she looked at the cut of the ring in front of her. It seemed so familiar, but...it couldn’t be. He wouldn’t.

CHAPTER 25

PRESENT

She was seeing spots.

Anger so fierce came over Lexi she couldn’t even see properly. Every negative emotion that she had ever conjured up combined seemed insignificant compared to this feeling. She could remember a time when she thought things could be right with her and Jack. Now it seemed like that was such a very long time ago. How could she have ever told herself things were going to be alright? She now knew with every ounce of her being that there was absolutely nothing left of the man she had once loved.

Where had the fun, easy going guy that worked in the coffee shop and brought her muffins after class gone? Where was the guy who had taken her to the carnival and paid the guy to stop them on the top? Where was the guy who got her on the gymnastics team, who marveled in her every achievement, who followed her to New York, who would have followed her to the world’s end? Had that man left a long time ago, and she had just missed it?