Page 19 of Revealing Mark

“I want my stuff.” I tapped my foot against the floor, trying to control my irritation.

“Can’t we just talk?” He used the whiny voice that grated on my nerves.

“No.” I shook my head. “There is nothing to talk about. You’re going to give me my stuff back and I’m going leave. If you ever try and pull a stunt like that again, I’ll call the cops.”

“There’s no need to be like that, Tracy.” He reached out to touch my arm but I stepped out of his reach.

“Jack.” I was annoyed and frustrated that he was trying to hold on tight to something that had never really been there.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” His forehead creased. “I could never compete.”

“What are you talking about?” I had no idea what he was trying to say.

“I found the folder.”

Folder? Then the penny dropped. I had a secret folder I had kept with all the pictures I had taken of Mark through the years. I closed my eyes briefly, trying to come up with a way to talk it away, but I came up empty.

“That was private. Is that what you did when I wasn’t home?Did you snoop around my stuff?” It felt like he had invaded my privacy in some way.

It was silly to have collected pictures of Mark and kept them. How was I ever going to get over how I felt for him if I couldn’t even bring myself to get rid of his pictures?

“Tell me the truth. Was he the reason why we didn’t work out?” he asked outright.

“We didn’t work out because you didn’t trust me.” I wasn’t going to admit I still had feelings for the guy in the photos. That might steer this whole situation into a direction I didn’t want it to go.

“Why did you keep photos of him?” He wasn’t going to leave it alone, but I wasn’t going to reveal anything to him.

“Just give me my stuff so I can leave.” I tried softening my features to reach a reasonable part of him, but he continued to glare at me. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We can end this amicably.”

“Did you guys have a thing?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. He’s just a friend of the family. That’s it.”

“You don’t keep pictures of any other family friends.”

Putting my hand to my hips, I glared at him. “If you don’t give me my equipment, I’m going to call the cops right now.”

“All I wanted was to figure out what went wrong. If you had just been honest with me, I wouldn’t have resorted to doing this.”

“Give her all of her stuff or I’ll make you regret it.” The deadly voice behind me was unmistakable. I didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. I knew that voice.

I prayed this wasn’t happening, wondering how long he had been there and how much he had heard.

CHAPTER SIX

Jack paled and all I wanted was for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I was angry by Mark’s unexpected presence but the embarrassment of what we had just been discussing hung in the air and my cheeks burned. How could I face him if he had overheard any of what Jack had just accused me of?

“You have one minute to decide if you’re going to give her back what you took or I’ll call the cops. You decide,” Mark threatened, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him holding his phone in his hand.

Just what I needed, to blow up the whole situation with police and everything. It was bad enough Mark knew anything about it. Would there be any way to stop it from getting back to my brother and family?

I would have to figure that out later. First I had to get myself out of the situation I had gotten myself into. I should have known Mark wouldn’t have been that easily appeased. It was my own fault for underestimating him.

“Forty seconds.”

Jack held up his hands in defeat. “This was never meant to escalate. I just wanted to be able to talk to Tracy.”

“Like she said before, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”