Love Rents A Room
Chapter 190: Opening Up

Chapter 190: Opening Up

The room was cloaked in darkness, the heavy blackout curtains muffling even the city’s distant glow. Joanne couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his expression, but she knew he hadn’t moved. The silence was unnerving, his stillness louder than any words.

"Am I scaring you?" His voice broke through the quiet—low, rough, uncertain. Like it cost him something to ask.

Click.

The nightstand lamp flicked on, casting a soft pool of amber light between them. Joanne instinctively clutched her robe, pulling it tighter around herself. Her bare skin recoiled not from fear, but from the sudden exposure of vulnerability. Jeffrey didn’t move closer. He simply waited, allowing her that moment to shield herself.

It stung—seeing her so guarded against him. Was that how far they’d drifted? Was he now someone she braced herself against instead of someone she leaned into?

"You didn’t get the letter?" he asked, his voice careful, too careful.

Joanne drew in a slow breath. She was still stunned by everything that had happened, but she wasn’t afraid. Deep down, she knew Jeffrey Winchester would never hurt her—not like that. But the confusion, the betrayal, the heartbreak? Those had cut far deeper.

"No," she replied, and then, narrowing her eyes, she asked, "Why did you turn off the lights? And why were you unbuckling your belt?"

Jeffrey exhaled, his shoulders sagging slightly as he looked away. "It was tight," he said simply, almost awkwardly. He reached down and buckled it again, as if trying to prove a point that felt too small for the damage already done.

Joanne’s brow twitched. Her suspicion hadn’t melted away completely. "And why did you throw my phone across the table? Why did you bring me in here like that?"

His lips parted, then trembled before he spoke. The truth wasn’t hard to say—but the weight of it pressed against his chest like a stone.

"Because I couldn’t take you looking at me like that," he admitted quietly. "Because every time you look at me, I see what I did to you. I see your anger, your hurt, and it crushes me. I thought... maybe in the dark, it would be easier for both of us. I thought it would help me say what I needed to say."

He swallowed hard. "And I was wrong to manhandle you. I know that. But I wasn’t going to force you. God, Jo... I’m not here to touch you. I just wanted you to hear me. For once. Without running. Without locking me out."

She didn’t speak. She just stared at him—breathing uneven, the robe sliding from one shoulder in a way that felt too symbolic, too raw.

Jeffrey took a slow step back, his hands open at his sides, as if to show her he meant no harm. "I’ll sleep on the floor if that’s what it takes," he said. "But I’m not leaving. Not until I say what I came to say."

Joanne dropped her gaze. A thousand thoughts tangled in her chest, pulling tight around her ribs. She turned her face away from the lamplight, toward the dark. He had hurt her worse than anyone else ever had. And yet... he was still the man her heart reached for in the silence. That hadn’t changed.

She leaned forward and switched off the lamp.

The darkness settled back over them like a veil.

Then, with a reluctant sigh, she patted the space beside her on the bed.

Jeffrey moved carefully. When he sat, the mattress dipped beneath his weight, the shift whispering of old memories. Now there was no glow from the street, no sound from the city. Only the hush of the white noise and the faint rhythm of two people suspended between what was and what could be.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me what you came to say."

She knew she wouldn’t have been able to listen with the light on. The moment she saw his face, all she could remember was the pain. His back shielding Heather from her. His voice cold as it told her to stay away.

Maybe, just maybe, the dark could help her find something the light couldn’t.

"After you left," Jeffrey began, his voice barely above a whisper, "my grandfather held me captive."

Joanne’s breath caught. The darkness between them deepened, thick with things unsaid.

"He took my phone. Cut me off. Forbade me from speaking to you." There was bitterness in his voice—but more than that, grief. "I wrote you a letter and posted it... but I don’t know. Maybe he intercepted it. Maybe he knew."

Joanne blinked. "Philip did that?" Her brows lifted in disbelief. "He stopped you from contacting me?" She had believed—naïvely, it seemed—that Philip Winchester approved of them. That he saw what they had as something worth protecting. But he’d kept Jeffrey from her?

"Don’t mistake him," Jeffrey said, quieter now. "He did it because he loves you." His voice lowered, as if confessing a sin. "He thought you left me. He believed you didn’t want me anymore. And Lady Elsa... she told him things that didn’t help."

He paused, clearing his throat, voice thick with something old and unresolved.

"She told him she finally understood why he rejected her so fiercely in the past. She said... watching from the outside made her realize—she had been the ’other woman’ once too. Like Heather. And she said..." He paused again, as if the words tasted bitter. "She said you made her see that. She said you had grace and dignity. That you reminded her what love was supposed to look like."

Joanne didn’t know what to feel. Her heart ached, but pride warmed somewhere inside her chest. She had impressed Lady Elsa? Enough for her to confess something so deeply personal to Philip?

Jeffrey shifted, and she could hear the regret in every breath. "Elsa told Philip... that I was nothing like him. That I didn’t deserve you. That I broke your heart."

He took another breath, slower this time. "She wasn’t wrong."

Joanne stayed silent, the pulse in her ears louder than anything else in the room.

"I was wrong, Joanne. When I told you to stay out, I wasn’t protecting Heather. I wasn’t choosing her over you." His voice trembled. "I was trying to protect a secret. One I knew would destroy everything if you knew. One I thought... would make you walk away from me for good."

She leaned in. She hadn’t meant to. It was instinct. Because no matter how furious she had been, no matter how much she wanted to shut him out—he sounded broken. And her heart, still aching in its corners, responded to that pain like a wound finding its twin.

"What secret?" she asked, her voice soft, cautious.

Even in the dark, she could sense the tension in him, see the outline of his shoulders stiffen. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

He turned slightly toward her, and for a moment, she considered switching on the light.

But he stopped her, gently catching her hand in his.

"Have you ever wondered," he said, barely audible now, "how Caruso knew exactly where to breach the fence that day? The one spot with a broken camera?"

Her breath stilled.

It was this. This was the reason. The fracture that had opened between them wasn’t born from just words—it had a root, a deep, dark root he had tried to bury. But now, it was rising to the surface, and whatever it was, she knew it had weighed on him every moment since.

She tightened her grip on his hand. "Tell me," she whispered.

Because whatever came next, she needed to know.