“Here, look.” She turns her phone toward me.
There’s a headline on the screen, dated today from some weird pseudo-news site.
My cheeks are still hot but my fingers are cold as I read...
Jackson William Carter, in the hot seat as several employees come forward with accusations of sexual harassment and coercion.
I’m up so fast my chair knocks over and clatters to the tile floor. The few other people around us turn to stare at me, but my eyes are on Sasha. “You're lying.”
Her brows lift and she laughs. “I'm lying? Honey, I didn’t make this up.”
I feel like I’m on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the carnival my mom took me to for my birthday when I turned eleven.
This is why he keeps us a secret.
This is why his limo picks us both up outside the building and we drive back to his apartment. I haven’t met anyone in his life besides Alice who he probably pays to keep quiet.
Is that why he doesn’t want anyone to know he owns this company? Why his office is tucked away with its own private elevator?
He hides behind an office and a bogus CEO, creating a whole elaborate scheme to get off on his sexual needs? His Daddy fetish. The play like I’m his little girl…
I cup my mouth as my body jerks with a retch. “I think I'm going to be sick.”
“Imagine how many other employees he's fucking right now.”
My head spins wildly as I remember how sweet he’s been, how gentle, how generous and compassionate.
“Not my Jack.”
“My Jack?” Sasha drawls. She crosses her arms over her chest and regards with me cool contempt. “He's your Jack, now? Honey, he’s hiding for a good reason and you were naïve enough to fall for it. Think about it.”
“No!” I laugh, and I think it might be shock. Because there’s nothing funny going on here. “I don’t believe any of it. He wouldn’t force anyone…”
“Did he force you?”
“He loves me.” That’s not an answer, and I know it’s not.
“He loves you? Or, you mean he loves fucking interns.”
I think about the promotion. Did he just pull strings so I’d stay inside his little game a bit longer? When he’s tired of me I’ll be discarded?
Silly girl with Daddy issues from Nowhere, West Virginia.
I step back, bumping into the table behind me, listening to Sasha’s vindictive laugh. I turn around fighting the tears as the sore spots down low remind me of all the places Jack’s been.
He took everything from me. I gave it to him. Things I’ll never get back…
I step out into the cool drizzle and inhale deeply, stifling the tears from pouring down my cheeks as the wind whips my hair into my face.
As I pass the office building, my stomach turns and that horrible sharp bile taste burns my tongue, but I keep walking.
I turn in to a coffee shop, suddenly dizzy as the drizzle turns to rain and I need to sit. To breathe. Somewhere. Anywhere.
Before I pull open the door to the shop, I stop thinking I’m hallucinating. I shake my head and look again.
It’s him. Jack sitting at a small table in the corner.
The stunning blonde across from him looks impassioned and intense, a heated discussion making them unaware of anyone else around them.
Jack looks defeated, but he’s arguing back.
A lover’s tiff.
She’s beautiful. Polished. That feeling of being a Hobbit next to the glamorous women in this city covers me like a defeated cloak.
Then, the death blow is delivered. Jack pulls a box out of the inside pocket of his jacket, and holds it between them.
A red velvet box.
She gasps, her eyes widening, as she pulls the ring out.
The sound of Sasha’s evil laughter is following me. I cup my ears and turn my back to the glass, new tears streaming down my face mixing with the raindrops.
This is why he insisted on always calling the shots, on always being in charge. Everything had to be carefully coordinated, didn’t it? Because clearly, he has another life. Clearly, he has lots of red boxes with rings inside.
Diamonds. I huff. They are probably cut glass and he orders those collars and promise rings by the gross.
Silly girl.
You fell right into the game.
I always wanted what we have. I just didn’t think what I wanted existed. I thought it was all guilty pleasures, the things I wrote in my diary just for me.
Until Jack.
Jack made me think I could have it all. For the briefest flicker of a moment, he was my Daddy and I was his little girl. And now my heart is breaking into a million pieces as I turn and run. And run.
And run.
Chapter 19
Jackson
“What the hell are you thinking?” Isabella is losing her shit drawing a few stares from a table of uptight looking teenagers next to us.
Isabella Monroe isn’t just my attorney. She's also an advisor of sorts. She’s like the sister I never had. A pain in the ass too, but sometimes that’s what I need. Between her and Alice, I’ve got the pain the ass thing covered.