*Isabella's POV*
"I know why, because you love us. You don't want to leave us," Jacob said, his voice quiet but certain, cutting right through my bullshit.
"No matter what you may think, I will leave you," I said, my voice flat, hard. I was trying to convince myself as much as them. "I've had too much drama with you two. I have to finish college, my career is just starting. I need to focus, not to be sucked into all this boy drama. I can't, I won't. Drama is not for me." I looked from one to the other, my expression a mask of cold indifference. "You two solve your issues, whatever issues you may have. Go to counseling, I don't know, I don't care, but I can't deal with listening to you both for one more second."
I looked at their faces again. Damien was done begging, apparently. The raw, pleading man from moments before was gone, replaced by the cold, unemotional CEO I'd first met. He'd put his own fucking heartless mask back on again. Jacob looked like he wanted to tell me more, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, but the words wouldn't come.
Then, I asked them the question that had been burning a hole in my brain since the night Jacob was shot, the one piece of the puzzle that didn't fit. I needed to know. "Can you please tell me which one of you was engaged? And what happened to her?" I asked, my voice sharp, cutting through the heavy silence.
"Uhm..." Jacob said, looking everywhere but at me, his sudden discomfort a stark contrast to his usual cocky confidence.
Damien stood up, his chair scraping against the floor with a sound that made me jump. "I'm sorry, I can't be here anymore," he said, his voice flat, devoid of all emotion. "I'm going home. You can have the limo, I'll call myself another car." He turned to leave, then paused, his back to us.
"And for the record," he said, his voice echoing slightly in the quiet corner of the restaurant, "I was the one engaged. But I'll let Jacob tell you the story. He says it better." With that, he walked away, leaving me staring at his retreating back. I saw a flicker of something in Jacob's eyes – shame, guilt, pain.
"I'll be at home," Damien said, and then he was gone.
"What do you mean you can't be here? Damien!" I shouted after him, but he just kept walking, disappearing through the restaurant's front door without a backward glance.
"I can't believe he left," I said, turning to Jacob, my voice a mix of shock and anger.
"Uhm, yeah," he said, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
I leaned forward, my hands flat on the table, my eyes narrowing. "Now spill it," I commanded.
"Do I have to?" he asked, a pathetic attempt at a playful whine.
"You bet your ass you have to," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "I'm sensing some serious tea. What did you do?"
He let out a long, weary sigh, the sound heavy with a history I didn't know. He picked up a fork, pushing a stray pea around his plate, avoiding my gaze. "Okay, I'll start from the beginning," he said, his voice low. "Since we were 17, we understood we couldn't... well, date on our own. Since we were feeling everything the other was feeling, we started having polyandrous relationships. We never fought like we fight now, we were okay with everything, I guess because we were never really in love," he explained, his words a quiet confession that made my stomach clench.
"When we were... twenty-four, I think," he said, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Damien met Rebecca."
"Rebecca?" I asked, the name foreign and sharp on my tongue.
"Yeah, that was her name," he said.
Flashback
They were in the kitchen of their place, the morning sun streaming through the windows. It was a rare moment of peace, sharing a cup of coffee before the day's chaos began.
"This one is off limits," Damien said, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument.
"What?" Jacob had exploded in shock, almost spilling his coffee.
"I love Rebecca and I want to marry her," Damien said, his gaze fixed on some point outside the window, his jaw set.
"Marry?" Jacob asked, his voice laced with disbelief.
"You will not touch her," Damien pressed on, his eyes finally locking with his brother's, a fierce, protective fire in them.
"Okay, I guess," Jacob had said, backing down, though a flicker of something—confusion, maybe disappointment—crossed his face. "But are you sure? I mean, you just met her."
"Of course I am sure," Damien said, his tone final.
End of Flashback
"I suspected mommy issues, you know," Jacob said, pulling me back to the present. "Since Rebecca had Samoan roots like our mother. He was obsessed with this idea of making a family of his own, maybe recreating ours, what we used to have."
"Aren't your tattoos a Samoan design?" I asked.
"Fair enough," he said with a shrug. "Anyway, I was always against their marriage, and he blamed it on jealousy, but I wasn't jealous. I had no feelings for her. I mean, she was hot, but I barely got any feeling from them when they were together. The connection wasn't so strong as it is... with you," he said, his eyes meeting mine, and the weight of that admission hung between us.
Flashback
Damien and Jacob are in the office, a mountain of paperwork between them. The door opens, and Rebecca walks in, a bright, dazzling smile on her face.
"Hey, babe," she said, winking at Damien as she walked closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. Jacob watched, hating how Damien knew so little about her, how he'd decided on the spot he wanted to marry her based on a fucking smile. It all felt so superficial, so fragile.
End of Flashback
"Everything they had built was an illusion, and soon enough, that illusion was going to fall. Sadly, it's me who was caught in the middle," he said, his voice laced with a bitterness that was new to me. "For some reason, they didn't move in together, they were both individualists. He was, however, looking to buy a house for them when they would be married. Then she started to do some sketchy stuff, like going away for weeks saying she had cases abroad. She was a corporate lawyer. That's how we met. The firm she was interning for was working with Lancaster Corp, but every time she came back from those so-called cases, she was paler, skinnier." He went on, his voice growing quieter.