Page 111 of Fierce-Jax

She would have felt like shit leaving him hanging, but she would have distanced herself and her daughter at the same time.

“And you felt guilty about that?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I did and don’t now. I can’t change the fact he didn’t have what I did. I also wouldn’t have made the choices he did either. I don’t know why he was stealing and selling the drugs. I can guess.”

“Because he was stressed over his loans and now a child to support?” he asked. “He seriously broke the law for those reasons?”

She took a deep breath. “I’m only guessing, but based on most of our conversations in those months, that would be my best assessment. He never felt he was good enough for anyone and didn’t think he could measure up in my eyes or my father’s.”

“So he turned to theft,” he said.

“He wasn’t the person I knew,” she argued. “And that is what I was grieving the most. It’s been hard for me to open myself upto anyone for years because of that. To trust someone and that they weren’t hiding something for me to find out later. But I did it with you.”

“You really didn’t,” he said. “Because you could have told me some of this and didn’t. I’d like to think you would have trusted me to keep this secret, but you don’t trust me enough if you couldn’t say it before now. The fact you're telling me now means there is a reason. Something happened. What?”

“I don’t know that I like your tone,” she said, her back straightening.

“My tone,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’re serious? You were grieving being lied to. You say you don’t like secrets. That you don’t have them. We had this conversation months ago. I thought we were on the same page, but I guess I’m reading a whole different book than you.”

“It’s not the same thing,” she argued.

“It is,” he said. “Because it’s part of your life. Part of your daughter’s. And it’s part of ours if you’re telling me because secrets never stay hidden. So what happened, Dillion? You’ve come this far, you can open your mouth and tell me the rest.”

The only time she’d ever seen him angry or frustrated was when he talked about Roni’s ex.

She wasn’t sure she liked it was now being targeted at her.

She stomped over to the kitchen, opened the drawer the letter was in, and brought it back to give him.

He looked down and read it.

“It came a few days ago,” she said.

He held it up and waved it around. “This is the reason you decided to be honest with me? Because of a threat from your past? You didn’t love or respect me enough to just tell me on your own?”

The tears ran down her cheeks.

She was wrong not to have at least talked about this before. Just Alec’s character and their relationship.

Her fears and why she was single for so long.

She knew that and her parents would point it out too.

“I wanted to put it behind me,” she said.

“You can never put things like this behind you,” he said. “They never stay gone.”

He put the paper down and picked up his phone to shove in his pocket and then his key to his SUV.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” he said. “I need to think and clear my head. You’re used to doing it all on your own, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

He slammed out the door and she burst into tears harder than when she’d first read the letter from Alec’s mother.

35

PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE