Unwrapping the Best Man

‘Everything and anything,’ he whispers. ‘It’s who she was, who she is. She’s a...pro-Dom, and I was her willing submissive.’

Bile rises in my throat, my mind painting the picture of sixteen-year-old Jackson, unloved at home, abused at work. He flinches and looks away; I know he sees the horror in my face, but I can’t hide it.

‘None of this makes you a bad person, Jackson. Eliza, yes. Not you.’

I don’t feel like he’s listening. His eyes are off me and lost in the past now. ‘For years she led me around, took control. I thought she was everything. It didn’t matter that she was married, that she was older...’

‘You thought you were in love with her.’

‘I did,’ he scoffs. ‘But now I know it was just infatuation. She taught me everything she knew; she brought me into the club to work, invested time and money in me. Gave me the means to start investing in my own interests, gave me the opportunity to buy in to Blacks, to run it with her and Damien.’

‘Her husband?’ I frown. ‘But surely he must have suspected something was going on? You were having an affair under his nose and—’

I break off. I can’t make sense of it, but the way Jackson throws back his whisky and stands, turning away from me, I know there’s more.

‘He knew. He knew from day one...’

‘And he let—’

‘He watched, Cait.’

‘What do you mean, he watched?’ The blood leaves my face as my hands shoot to the sofa edge, my nails biting into the fabric as I grip it tightly and stare at his rigid back.

‘She would set me up in her special room, our room she’d call it, and he would...he would watch it through the mirrors.’

‘No, no, they...no.’ Oh, God, I can’t speak. It’s playing out like some twisted thriller in my head, only it’s no movie. It’s Jackson’s story, his life, his reality.

He turns to look at me and all I see is the broken teenager he must have been, and I can’t bear it any longer. I need to hold him. I need to make him see that none of this is down to him.

‘Oh, Jackson.’ I push up but he shakes his head, his hand raised, palm out.

‘Don’t. I can’t bear you being close to me, not...not when I’m telling you this.’

I force myself to sink back as the puzzle that is Jackson falls into place. It’s so much worse than I ever could have imagined.

‘It’s how he got his kicks, how they both did.’

‘When...?’ My throat closes over and I force myself to swallow, try again. ‘When did you find out?’

‘Years later...too many years later.’ His eyes are back on the glass hanging from his limp fingers. ‘The night I proposed and asked her to leave him.’

‘You proposed to her?’

He nods. ‘I told her I loved her, that I wanted to marry her.’

‘And what did she say?’

The questions are coming on autopilot now. Questions I need to have the answers to.

He looks at me, his mouth pulling up in one corner. ‘She laughed. She asked me how I could possibly think she would want that. That’s when she told me the truth—about Damien, about how I fitted so perfectly into their marriage, and that things didn’t need to change.’

I press my fingers to my lips; they’re numb, my whole body is.

‘And you,’ I whisper. ‘What did you say?’

‘I was crushed... All that time, I thought she was in love with me, as I was her. She’d played me for a fool, but no more. I told her it was over, that I wanted the club and if she didn’t agree I’d sell my story instead. About how she seduced a sixteen-year-old boy, twenty years her junior, an employee, while her forty-year-old husband watched.’

‘Jesus, Jackson.’ It rushes out of me, the picture he paints too horrific, and I can’t stop myself pushing up off the sofa, reaching out for him. But he backs awa