Page 35 of Fierce-Jax (Fierce Matchmaking #18)

ALL IN THE PAST

“ E veryone has a choice,” he said. “You know that.”

Dillion got up and went to get a tissue and blew her nose.

How she wasn’t crying while she talked about this was surprising.

Maybe she was all cried out since she’d been doing it for days and then getting up and putting cold compresses on her face so no one noticed.

She had many tricks to get rid of the remnants of a crying jag.

But she knew she had to stop feeling sorry for herself and deal with this. Three days was long enough.

There was no way to deal with it and not be able to tell those closest to her what was going on.

She was tired of holding the secret in.

“Not this time,” she said. “Alec had left a note on the counter. I hadn’t seen it when I first got home, but then noticed it. It was short and said that he was sorry, he didn’t want to lose me and he hoped I stood by him. To please stand by him.”

She’d burned that note along with everything else she had of Alec’s.

She wanted no reminder of him or the life they’d had when the truth came out.

But when she looked at her daughter, she knew that would never be the case.

She was determined to keep things simple for Gianna. And private.

Why should her daughter know what her father had done? Or what he was like?

“Did you know what he meant?” he asked.

“Not at the time. It was days later. Maybe even a week or two. I don’t remember. Everything blurred together. There was paperwork to deal with, a funeral. A police investigation. I didn’t tell them about that note.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I didn’t think to do it. And I sure the hell didn’t think they were connected.”

“What did he do?” he asked. “He was shot by a gang it said. A drive-by in an area where drugs were purchased. That much I read, but the article also said he was coming out of a store with some snacks.”

She snorted. “He was always hungry. Maybe that was his thing, to stop there on his way home and get something to eat.”

She knew nothing other than the police said that Alec had been at that store in the past on camera, but just buying food and leaving. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Was he a drug addict?”

“He’d had a history of it,” she admitted.

“But he was clean. I know he was. I would have seen the signs if he wasn’t.

All things considered in his life, I’d be surprised if he didn’t try to self-medicate.

And when I said a history of drugs, it was prescription drugs.

Antidepressants and Adderall. Things he didn’t see a doctor to get but bought on the street.

He was mixing and taking what he needed and when. ”

“How long before you knew him was he doing these things?” he asked. “I just don’t see you being with someone like that.”

“He said it was in college. Before med school. He was trying to keep his grades up to get in and study for the MCAT. If he was using it in medical school someone would have noticed. Even during his residency. I believed him. Did he drink a lot of energy drinks and take sleeping pills when his shift was done? Yes. He did. A lot of doctors do. I wasn’t faulting him for those things. ”

In her eyes, it wasn’t much different from the pots of coffee she drank and bags of candy she ate staying up late to study or get through shifts.

But when it wore off she could drop and sleep.

Maybe she did it for two reasons. To stay awake and then get that crash.

When there was so much going on in your life, you did what you could to stay on top of it.

His choices weren’t hers, but they were before her time.

“What did you do to cope?” he asked. “Can I ask?”

She snorted. “Nothing drastic or much more than most college kids. The two Cs. Caffeine and candy. I’m lucky I didn’t gain fifty pounds during that time.”

“You probably didn’t sit still long enough,” he said.

“I didn’t. And I can see you’re bothered right now. Why?”

He shook his head. “Keep talking. I want to know the rest. It’s all connected, I know it is. I’m trying to process.”

She didn’t want to lose the courage to say it all so she continued.

“When everything settled down, I was called in by the administration of the hospital. They were going to fight paying out Alec’s life insurance policy.

He’d put it in Gianna’s name when she was born.

They stated that a pending investigation led to Alec’s placement on administrative leave the day of the shooting. ”

“Which shouldn’t stop the payment of his life insurance policy,” he argued. “He was still an employee.”

“I threatened them with legal action. They backed down quickly after they tried to throw their weight around. I wanted explanations on top of it. I felt they owed me that much.”

“Did they tell you?” he asked.

“I had to get an attorney to get some information. Since Alec was dead, they planned no investigation and to keep everything quiet; however, their threat to withhold his life insurance prompted my investigation. He would have been looked into for theft of drugs with the intent for sale.”

“No one knows?” he asked, standing up.

She wasn’t sure why he was getting up when she’d sat back down after blowing her nose.

“My parents,” she said. “It was hard not to tell them when we were all living together. The day Alec was killed, my mother came and stayed in the apartment until they secured a rental house for us.”

“Your father had to be livid,” he said.

“He was. He never liked Alec and felt as if everything was a lie. The embarrassment if this came out could have tarnished my career. The attorney I retained made sure Alec’s transgressions were locked away and I wasn’t dragged down with anything.

” Her eyes were filling now. “There were a few rumors, but since Alec was such a private person and he’d been placed on leave at the end of his shift that day, no one was aware of anything. Technically his leave never started.”

“But he left you that letter that morning,” he said. “He had to know what was happening.”

“I think he got caught or knew he was caught and was waiting to be fired or investigated. I don’t know and I’ll never know,” she said. “I don’t need to know. It’s all in the past. Why are you pacing?”

“I’m a little ticked off that you haven’t told me any of this for months. That you let me believe what I wanted about your relationship with Alec. That you were grieving him all this time and that is why you never dated.”

“I was grieving,” she said. “Don’t think otherwise.”

“You were grieving being lied to,” he snapped.

“That you were worried your career could take a hit on top of it. What to say to your daughter when she gets older. All those things, but not grieving a man you didn’t love that much.

Right? Someone that you would not stay with.

I know you, when the truth came out, you would have left him. ”

“I would have,” she said. “I wouldn’t have stuck by him for several reasons. The love wasn’t strong enough. I knew that. I just told you. We were making the best of a hard situation and getting through. That would have crumpled it all for me. I had an escape hatch and he didn’t.”

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 up to 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.