My Dad's Bestfriend

Chapter 137 Win Her Back

Jacob

I watched, frozen, as Bianca handed me the small camera supposedly belonging to Evelyn during her visit with Tyler. My breath caught in my throat, my hands trembling because of the exhaustion from a night spent searching for her and the weight of my own mistakes settling heavily upon me. Disbelief washed over me as I stared at the camera.

She did this for me... Sacrificed for me.

God! What the fuck have I done?

"Why didn't you fucking tell me she was with you?" I blurted out, my voice thick with frustration. I barely had any control over myself. "I could have gone there and brought her back home! How could you just let her leave like that?!"

"The same home you made clear wasn't hers anymore?" Bianca shot back, her anger searing. "You fucking forced her to go away! She didn't even want to lay eyes on you-just because you're my brother doesn't give you a free pass to make her suffer, to force her to stay when she wants to leave. Any woman in her right mind would do the same after everything you put her through! You screwed up, uttered terrible things to her, and hurt her beyond you can ever fucking imagine. She did the right thing by leaving you after everything you did!"

Bianca's fury washed over me, but it was the crushing realization that Evelyn was now on a plane, poised to leave, that truly stung. I hurt her... irreparably. With my fucking words, my actions, and the mess I've made of everything-I've destroyed her, all while knowing the pain it would cause.

How could I be so blind?

I stared at the hidden camera, my vision blurring with unshed tears.

She went to Tyler's house to help me, and I repaid her love for me with all those words full of cruelty...

fucking despised

my own fears and insecurities, my desperation, weakness-all of it combined to drive

For fuck's sake! She's barely twenty, Jacob! You can't expect her to be as mature as a woman in her thirties! Yet she tried, she tried so hard to be everything you needed even as she needed care herself, and you treated her with such recklessness-you shattered

won't be able to look at

person I wanted to protect with all my life...I

couch, shoulders sagging, hands

fit of rage and insecurity, I accused her of the

could I have fucking

up, Bee," I confessed, a solitary tear sliding down my cheek before I buried my face in my hands, elbows resting on my knees. "What do I do now? Have I truly lost her?" I lifted my

her," Bianca hissed, her frustration and concern palpable. "You let your anger consume you, and in the process, you destroyed what you two had have warned you from the very start to choose your words carefully, Jacob-I have been telling you the same thing forever but you and your goddamn anger ruins everything. What exactly do you think you can do now?

absence weighed heavily on my heart, leaving me feeling hollow-utterly alone. She was the one beacon of light in my life amidst the chaos, and I had pushed her away, destroyed that light until

would I even mend what

without her, Bianca. I have to win her back," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I can't go on like this. I need her back-" Without another thought, I rose from the

wrist, halting me in my tracks. "The flight's already departed. There's no point in going to

words hit me like a freight train, my chest constricting with

I couldn't lose her...

me, I couldn't deny the crippling fear that gripped me. How could I face her? How could I ask for

her own voice wavering as she guided me to the sofa. "You're thirty-four," she chided lightly, wiping away my tears. "Don't cry like a

whisper. "I don't know how to make it right-she shouldn't forgive me, and yet... I can't

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