Jackson Cross had always unsettled Damen without trying. The older brother by eighteen months, the one who finished things. Built things. Paid for things. The one who had started a logistics company in his late twenties and sold half of it five years later for more money than Damen could bear to think about. Jackson was not flashy. He did not peacock. Which somehow made it worse. He wore good suits without advertising them. Drove reliable cars instead of performance cars. Bought a house in Evanston and owned it outright before forty. He did not brag because he did not need witnesses.
Damen had spent years calling him arrogant.
Carissa had always suspected what he meant was impossible to manipulate.
She typed back before she could overthink it.
No. I’m not okay.
Three dots appeared almost instantly.
Do you want to talk?
Carissa stared at the ceiling, then at the door, then finally wrote the one honest sentence she had maybe never let herself say to anyone in real time.
Yes.
They met the next morning at a coffee shop in Old Town just after eight.
Carissa hadn’t slept much, but she showed up dressed for battle—camel coat, dark slacks, hair pinned back, the face she wore to court when she wanted men to mistake her calm for mercy. Jackson was already there, standing when she walked in, one hand around a paper cup, concern plain in his eyes but not exaggerated. That was the first relief.
He did not overreact for the pleasure of seeming caring.
He simply asked, “Do you want coffee before or after you ruin my brother?”
Carissa actually smiled.
“Before,” she said.
They sat near the window. Outside, dog walkers and young parents and people with headphones moved through the cold as if the world had not tilted overnight. Carissa told him everything.
Not just the reunion plan. All of it.
The financial support for Nikki. The rehearsed memories. The almost-kiss on the couch. The confrontation. The birthmark question. The canceled payments. The way Damen had never truly denied anything, only shifted blame until blame itself began to feel like the point.
Jackson listened without interrupting.
He did not say “I can’t believe it,” because he could.
He did not say “there must be more to the story,” because he understood there was already too much.
When she finished, he looked down at his coffee, then back at her.