Chapter 296

“What point?” she asked him accusingly, anger and emotion all over that face. So confused. He
scrubbed his hands through his ruffled hair and sighed, grasping at some sense of control and thinking
he should just have got out and gone for a walk, but he didn’t.

“What does it matter?” his voice was deflated. He was deflated and tired. He was giving up and just
wanted to go back to the boat and forget this day ever started.

“Fuck you!” Emma screeched at him angrily, tears filling her eyes and shocking all the anger out of him.
She had never actually sworn at him while yelling like that, and he was rendered momentarily
speechless.

He hadn’t ever seen Emma scream at him quite like that either, complete emotional rage. She turned,
shoving the car door open, and was gone in a flash, storming away from the car. Impulsively, he
followed in hot pursuit. Guilt eating at him and an inability to ever just let her be upset, even if he was
the cause.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He caught up in seconds as she stalked toward the road, pulling her back into him and spinning her
around to face him, tear-stained and all and it just hit him in the stomach like a punch. Emma crying
was something he could never handle, she rarely did it, and when she did, he felt like the biggest
dickhead on the planet. He hated seeing her cry, it wounded him in ways he could never explain.

She tried to fight him off angrily sobbing, but he just folded her into his embrace, pushing his face into
her hair and cradling her so she couldn’t get away, trying to soothe her.

“I’m sorry … Emma, stop … Emma. I’m sorry.” His voice was raw and strained. She kept fighting but
was losing against his sheer size and strength, she was no match. He just held her close, stopping her
outbursts and trying to cuddle her in until she finally began to slump and give up the effort. Finally



stilling in his arms, silently crying against him yet not really cuddling him back. He knew if he let her go
she would still walk off.

“I don’t want to fight with you.” His voice was quieter, closer to her ear, his crazy mood taking a new
direction again and just trying to stop the stupidity between them. No matter how he felt for her, above
all she was meant to be his friend and friends didn’t hurt each other like this.

“I don’t want to fight either.” She swallowed a sob. Slumping into him dejectedly and he could only hold
her closer, that horrid feeling of sadness sweeping through him once more.

“Maybe we should go back to the boat.” He sounded tired, he was emotionally exhausted and
physically fatigued from the events of the last twelve hours. He had no fight left in him and right now all
he wanted to do was lie down and try to block all of this out of his head for a few hours.

“Maybe,” she whispered with slight relief and Jake just snapped at her easy agreement. Losing his
temper erratically for no obvious reason other than all of this just fucking sucked and he wanted her to
care more about it. He couldn’t explain or control any of this anymore.

“No,” he snapped, surprising her and making her tense in his arms, looking up with a look of pure
confusion.

Fuck this shit … Fuck her and everything she did to him!

He stalked to the car quelling the urge to push her away from him, placing his hands on the hood in a
bid to stop the angry energy surging through his entire body. He needed to go to a gym and beat
another boxing bag to death to get rid of it this time. Glaring at the hood of the car and wondering how
much damage he could inflict before his hands gave out.

“I can’t do this, Emma,” he snapped, his gaze was steady on the hood of the low sleek car. He
clenched a fist and went for a punch, stopping it millimeters from the hood and laying his palm back flat



on the hot sun heated surface. Deep breathing to try to curb every internal crazy impulse.

“Do what?” Emma tried softly, keeping her distance and obviously a little wary of his mood. He tried to
quell it some more for her sake.

“This! Us!” He waved his hand in an exasperated motion, turning back to her, looking at her with sheer
frustration and frowned.

“You drive me crazy … and not in a good way.” He sighed. Facing the car again. His body emanating
all kinds of crazy signals no doubt, but he had no control over all the crazy messed up emotions
colliding from months of this hell with her.

“I do?” Her small fragile voice sounded completely surprised. She had no clue at all the effect she had
on him which only strengthened the fact she saw only friendship between them. She was so innocent
and naïve to what this really was for him.

Too angelic for words.

He sighed again, and his face tensed.

“You frustrate me on so many levels.” He carried on, deflated again. Just so fed up with everything that
this was.

“Sorry,” she murmured sarcastically, he could tell she was probably rolling her eyes too, while he
wanted to just forget he ever met her. He threw her an unamused look over his shoulder, seeing her
look down to twiddle her fingers nervously and it only made him sigh. Looking back at the car to get a
grip on himself and reality, he began kicking at the solid rubber of the tire with his boot toe childishly,
trying to just distract his head from the urge to throw something. He needed to self-calm.



“Why do you never talk about your childhood?” His tone softened, new direction, trying to change this
whole topic to something else … anything. He didn’t even know why he would choose this topic among
them all. He just needed to talk about anything else, maybe a little insight into her past would help him
understand why she was this way. Simmer his anger.

“What?” He heard the defensive scared tone in her voice instantly and it didn’t help with his own mood.
“There’s nothing to talk about … You have knowledge of the highlights,” she said drily, that warning
tone in her voice she used when the conversation was over.

“I know bits and pieces, Emma, mostly from getting you drunk.” He glared at her accusingly, so pissed
at everything right now, even though he was trying to dampen it. Especially this one-sided fucking
relationship they had and the fact that after everything, she couldn’t even let him know the details of her
past. It said a lot about how she felt about him.

“Where is this going?” Emma glared back at him suspiciously, always closing him out. He was sick of
being shut out.

“It hurt you?” His eyes came to rest on her, trying to push every ounce of aggression away again with a
mammoth effort and barely holding on. She messed him up in so many ways, and she just had no clue
at all.

She looked away, crossing her arms around her body protectively and he just sighed and crumbled
inside. He was mad, he wanted to be mad but somehow all she ever did was make him feel guilty and
want to stop being angry with her. No wonder he was all over the place. He had no control over his own
emotions.

“It’s the past and it should stay there.” Her voice wobbled a little this time with raw pain, and she moved
away to turn her back on him. Jake took that hint of softness as a signal that maybe this wasn’t the
brick wall he was meeting this time after all.



“Your mom? You don’t talk about her much either.” He pushed, his voice gentler, trying hard to just not
be a dickhead. Coaxing her to open up about this gave him a little hope that he meant something to her
at least. This topic was easier than the previous one and it was something he had always wanted to
know. It was distracting him from his anger, which was a good thing.

“She’s my mom … What else is there to say?” She replied coldly, still keeping her back to him defiantly.

“Tell me about her.” He turned on the hood of the car and sat down to watch her, intrigued that for once
he wasn’t having to battle any information out of her and it was helping take his mind off other matters.
Her poise was hostile and stiff, but she hadn’t ended the conversation and closed up in true PA fashion
like normal.

“My mom is a sucker for a sob story.” Her voice was raspy with emotion yet held a hint of anger, at him
or her mother he wasn’t sure. He hated knowing that she had never had the childhood she deserved,
hated knowing she had been hurt in ways that someone like her should have never endured. “That’s
about all there is to her.”


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