The Favor

“And that’s why you don’t want him to have it, isn’t it? That’s why you agreed to work with Hope. How very vindictive of you. I’ll bet she recruited you. Yes, she’d have known how easy it would be to manipulate you into helping her.”

Dane glared at Jen. “Tell me Vienna’s wrong.”

“She can’t,” I told him. “Some believe revenge is petty. Maybe it is. But it’s often the way we work feelings out of our system. Especially betrayal, resentment, self-pity, and abandonment. You were her first crush—that’s always powerful.” I slid my gaze back to her. “All those years ago, he left you feeling helpless to make him love you. That was all you wanted him to do, wasn’t it?”

She looked away, her eyes watering again.

“You told yourself that you could make him feel something for you. But you couldn’t, and that was a blow your fragile young ego never forgot. There’s more, though, isn’t there, Jen? There’s some other reason why you were so desperate to hurt him.” My gut insisted on it. “What did he do that you can’t forgive?”

Her lips trembled. “He already knows. I’m not surprised he didn’t tell you. He wouldn’t want you to know just what a cold bastard he really is.” She swallowed. “I knew how resolute he was that he’d never have kids. I knew he’d never change his mind. Knew he didn’t believe he’d find a woman who wouldn’t care that he’d never give her children. And I knew it was because he needed to feel that he was the most important person in her life—he wouldn’t want to share her attention or love.”

I frowned because, yeah, that wasn’t Dane at all.

“So I …” Jen took a shaky breath. “So I got sterilized. I wanted to prove to him that I could be what he needed; that I’d make him everything to me. But he didn’t care, did you, Dane? It didn’t matter that I’d given up so much for you. You turned your back on me yet again.”

Dane glared at her, stone-faced. “You missed out the part where you offered to get sterilized and I told you not to do it; that it wouldn’t make a difference to me because I wasn’t interested in a relationship. But you went ahead and did it anyway.”

“I thought you were testing me!”

“I’d never fuck with a woman that way, Jen. You should have known that. You’ve always been so sure you understand me, but you don’t. You never did. How could you possibly have loved me when you didn’t even really know me?”

Her eyes sparkled like chips of ice. “You think I would have gotten sterilized for someone I just thought I was in love with? You think I wouldn’t have been damn certain of what I felt?”

“Either way, it is not my fault that you did what you did. I was clear that I was not interested in a relationship with you. I was brutally clear, in fact, because I needed you to really heed me. But you didn’t want to hear that, so you didn’t listen. You read something else into what I said.”

“I think she knows, deep down, that the fault doesn’t lie with you, Dane,” I said. “I think she just needs to believe it does, or she has to face that she made this mess for herself.”

Honestly, a part of me felt sorry for her. I’d always wanted kids, and it would gut me to be unable to bear them. But Dane was right: she’d chosen to be sterilized, even though he’d warned her that it would make no difference. “Can’t you have the process reversed, Jen?”

“I tried,” she gritted out. “It didn’t work.”

“You told me it did,” said Dane. “Then again, you also told me that you no longer blamed me. You said that on the night you accepted Kent’s proposal of marriage. Apparently, you lied.”

“Because she needed you to believe she was happier without you,” I pointed out. “Didn’t you, Jen? I’m guessing Hope knew how you really felt about Dane. I’m guessing she capitalized on it.”

“No need to guess,” said Dane. “We can ask her. Why don’t you come closer, Hope?”

I turned at the sound of a loud sigh. Hope stood off to the side, leaning against a tree, not even bothering to conceal her presence. “You’re quite the puppet master, aren’t you?” I said. “You certainly pulled Jen’s strings, and it’s damn shitty of you to play on something that’s painful for her. I’d imagine you were quite the driving force behind Travis’s insistence on getting his share of Dane’s trust fund.”

“Oh, Travis didn’t need pushing,” said Hope. “Not until Dane had him banned from all the local casinos anyway. Before that, he’d been happy to play the game. In fact, if he’d had his way, he’d have sold o-Verve secrets to the company’s competitors, but you wouldn’t let him into Dane’s office, and Travis couldn’t get access to your computer—he said you guarded your desk like a damn bulldog.”