by K. A. Berg
“You’re right,” I finally agree. “I can’t figure out who I am, what I want, and what I believe on my own. I’ve already proven to myself that some things just can’t be handled alone.”
“It’s about time you realized I’m always right,” she cracks breaking up the tension. “The wedding is definitely off?”
“Yes.”
“How are things between you and Jordan now?” she asks finishing off the last of the dessert she ate all by herself in about a minute.
“Not good,” I sigh with a heavy heart. The longer we go without talking the worse I feel. This isn’t what I wanted. “I haven’t spoken to him since he left Friday night.”
“I’m sorry.” Ash gives me a sad smile. “Maybe he just needs a little more time. It’s only been two days.”
That’s true, but the silence is killing me. I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing. And I’m the one who did this to him. “I know, but we’ve never really had anything like this happen before. It’s uncharted territory for us, and I don’t know how this is going to end.”
“If he’s the person you’ve made him out to be, things will be fine. Just give him some time,” she says sincerely. “Have you told anyone else the wedding is off?” she asks before hesitantly adding, “Like Alex, maybe?”
“He knows.”
Alex has been amazing through this last week. I owe him a lot for all the support he’s given me through this. He put his own feelings aside in favor of what’s best for me. There’s so much still unresolved between us, and eventually I’m going to have to give him what he needs to move on, but not now. I’m not ready. I need to begin working on myself and wading through what lies ahead from my father before I can handle my feelings for Alex.
“Promise me one thing,” Ashley stresses, her face stern as she continues, “do not hurt him. Whatever happened between the two of you is still unfinished. He doesn’t deserve to go through all that pain again. Keep that in mind while you’re figuring everything else out in your life. Don’t lean on him and draw him back in just to throw him away again.”
Chapter Fifteen
Quinn
Lunch with Ashley was enlightening, but coming back home and seeing Jordan still hasn’t surfaced darkens my mood. Irritation starts to bubble inside me. It’s been two days without a word from him. No calls. No texts. Not even a fucking email. I thought he would’ve come back yesterday. After leaving Alex’s Friday night, well, Saturday morning technically, I came back here and went to bed. I left the door to my bedroom open so I could hear him if he came home. I guess this was the preview of what a loveless marriage is like. I wonder if this is what my mother and all the other Stepford wives feel like while waiting up to see if their husbands come home. Except Jordan isn’t my husband. I don’t think he’s even my friend at this point.
We’re not getting married and we’re not speaking. I told him the truth. I tried to explain my reasoning, but he didn’t even give me the chance to apologize. He rushed out of here pissed and hurt, and I get it, but shutting me out is a whole new level. This won’t be an easy thing to fix between us, but I’d hoped he’d at least try and talk it through with me. I’m mad too. He said some pretty hurtful things, but I’m not running away.
It’s time for me to face facts and head home. Alongside the anger I feel, I no longer feel welcome here. No need to wait for Jordan to come and kick me out. I’m stronger than this. I can and will face this on my own if he can’t be bothered with me anymore. It’s no longer his problem.
Grabbing a few of my tote bags from my closet, I start to pull out some of the essentials to take back to my place. I’m in the bathroom grabbing my shampoo and conditioner when I hear the front door slam shut. Great! Now that I’ve made the decision to leave, I was hoping to get out of here before he came back. After almost forty-eight hours, he chooses now to come back when I’m five minutes away from being out the door.
Since he walked out Friday night, I’ve done nothing but think. Seeing I messed up wasn’t difficult, but I didn’t deserve all the shit he spewed at me. I’m human after all. People make mistakes, especially when they’re backed into a corner. At least I told him before we got married.
“Quinn?” he calls out from the front of the apartment. Deciding I have enough for right now, I grab my bags off the bed. I’m hoisting them onto my shoulder as Jordan makes his way to the doorway of my room.
“What’s going on?” he asks as if it isn’t obvious. Did he think I was just going to wait around while he was out doing whatever? I’m not that woman. I’ve never been that woman. It’s time for me to start taking my life back. Starting with not allowing Jordan to treat me like gum on the bottom of his Italian loafers.
“I’m leaving,” I reply curtly. He thinks he can just waltz back in here and still be entitled to know what I’m doing? Well, he’s got another think coming. The real Quinn is back, and she’s coming back with a vengeance. I don’t know when I allowed myself to become this meek, timid woman who lets the men in her life push her around, but not anymore.
“Leaving for where?” he asks as I step around him into the hallway.
“Home.”
He reaches out and grabs my arm, stopping me from getting any further down the hall. “Quinn, this has been your home for over a month. You don’t have to move out; I’m not kicking you out.”
“No,” I disagree. “This is your home and you’ve made your feelings pretty clear. Our arrangement is over. There’s no need for me to stay.”
Using the leverage from his hand wrapped around my bicep, he spins me around to face him. “I know I was a dick the other night. I’m sorry. But shit...” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head giving himself a moment before continuing. “Do you have any idea how I feel? I thought we were heading in one direction and then you drop a huge bomb on me. I’m doing the best I can. I have a lot of shit to work through regarding our relationship, but that isn’t the most important thing we have to deal with right now.”
“Because I caught you off guard it’s means it’s okay to treat me like garbage and ignore me for days? I haven’t heard one word from you since you stormed off. I thought we were friends, and we had each other’s backs,” I tell him, raising my eyebrows in challenge. I’m sorry he thought this would potentially lead somewhere else, but that’s not on me.
“I do have your back,” he scoffs. “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing for the last twenty-four hours? Having your back. Even though I have no idea how to handle these feelings I have for you. Even after you lied to me.”
I roll my eyes at him and huff. “Leaving and shutting me out is having my back? Christ, remind me not to get on your bad side if this is being on your good side.”
“Can you just stop for a fucking minute?” he asks, dropping his hand from my arm to run his fingers through his messy hair. “I’m stressed the hell out. You’re stressed out. We’re both angry, but can you give me a goddamn minute here? I’ve been in and out of meetings with our lawyers all day and I’ve gotten very little sleep. I could do without the sarcasm.”
“Wow, that didn’t take long,” I spit, taking the opportunity to make my way down the hall, closer to the front door. We could’ve spoken to the lawyers about changing our plans later in the week. He didn’t need to get them involved just yet. “You really do think I’m like my father, huh? What, did you think I wouldn’t leave, or I’d try to pull something sneaky? You didn’t need to go to them already. We could’ve easily worked out most of the details of separating without them.”
Jordan’s face scrunches and bewilderment clouds his chocolate eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about? I was meeting with them to figure out how to get you out of this whole shitstorm with your dad.”
“You were what?” Shock. Confusion. Fear. Anger. Excitement. All of it battling inside me at once. Shock he would go seek legal advice after everything he said to me. Confusion as to why. Fear of what my father may do to me now the cat’s out of the bag.
Anger because Jordan couldn’t be bothered to clue me in on any of this. I should’ve been involved in these meetings. I’m the one being targeted. And excitement that maybe, just maybe, this nightmare is almost over.
“There’s no way—wedding or not—we’re letting your scumbag, piece of shit father get away with this. Especially now he’s dragged my mother into it. No one fucks with my family, Quinn. No one,” he vows following me into the living room.
But there’s still one thing I’m not understanding. “Why? I know you were angry, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t mean what you said.”
“I didn’t mean it,” he insists taking a seat. “Yes, I was angry, but not all of it was your fault. Yes, you should’ve told me the whole truth from the beginning, but I understand why you didn’t. I don’t think you are anything like that man. As far as my feelings toward you … I have to work through those, and it’s going to take a little while. But even so, it was me that made this into something it wasn’t. That’s on me, not you. It wasn’t fair of me to take it out on you.”
I look into his eyes to see what they’re telling me. I learned a long time ago you can always read the true meaning behind someone’s words in their eyes. It’s served me well in meetings with clients and investors. Especially, clients. I can always tell if they really believe in their projects. If their eyes are clear and steady, they believe what they’re telling me. If their eyes are clouded and unsure, then I know they don’t believe in themselves.
Jordan’s eyes are firm and unwavering. He’s not pitching me a line of crap. He’s telling me the truth and his eyes say he stands behind his words, but he still doesn’t fully understand.
“Jordan, my father is only part of the reason I don’t want to do this. You are the other part. I love you, Jordan. I do. Very much. But it’s not a romantic kind of love. I don’t see you that way. It’s not fair to you for me to go through with this knowing when I know you deserve more. You deserve a woman who can give you everything you need because you’re a good man. A genuine, caring, loyal man. The woman you marry should deserve you, and I’m not her. But not only that, I don’t want my father to be able to screw up everything you have in your life. Even if we get him out of the company, he’s still in our lives. What happens next time he wants something? Who’s to say he won’t come after you? We can’t live our lives like this.”
I’ve already found the person who makes me happy, who completes me. But I can’t think about Alex right now. Because I don’t deserve him either. He’s wonderful and everything I could’ve dreamed for, but I screwed up. I’m a fucked-up person who doesn’t know how to love. The only kind of love I’ve ever known hurts. The people I love hurt me. Learning to accept that all love isn’t painful … isn’t easy for me. But now I’ve seen so much proof to show me you can have it all. Seeing Ashley and Tanner, and Diana and Martin, I know people can be happily married. Alex and I could’ve had that if I weren’t so broken.
I want Jordan to experience that kind of love. When he has it, he’ll understand what I mean right now.
“That’s one of the things I love about you, Quinn. You are ninety-nine-point-nine percent honest to a fault. But my feelings for you and working through them are taking a back seat for the moment. We have to worry about your father at this point. We don’t have much time left before he wants us to get married. There’s no time to waste.”
“What did the lawyers say?” I ask, keeping the conversation on the topic that seems most important to him right now. He’s right. We have to prioritize. I’m also interested in hearing about the possible end of my misery.
“We can’t do anything without proof of something illegal, but I found a way where everyone gets what’s theirs.”
I cock an eyebrow and nod. “Go on.”
“Since we can’t do anything to take him down for whatever fraud he’s planning to commit or is already committing without proof …” he explains, “we have to find some on our own without him knowing.”
This is his big plan? No way will this work. “How the hell are we supposed to do that? It’s not like he’s going to tell me just how he plans to fuck me over.”
“But he might tell me,” Jordan says with a calculated smirk that leaves me feeling very unsettled.
“Why would he tell you?”
Leaning back in his chair, Jordan rests his ankle on his knee and lets the smirk fully overtake his face. “Because we’re going to play him just like he’s playing you. I’m going to go to him and tell him I don’t want to marry you, but I do want revenge for you making me look like an asshole. I’ll tell him I want to continue merging the companies, but we need to get you out of the way because you fucked me over and I want you gone.”
The whole suggestion sounds fishy as hell. He’s going to tell my dad he wants revenge? “Is this your way of getting back at me for lying to you? Are you going to join forces with him while I sit here stupidly helping you, thinking we’re doing one thing but it’s really me digging my own grave?”
Jordan’s facial expression goes from cunning to pissed off instantly. He sits forward asking, “Is that a serious question?”
“Yes, it’s a serious question. You’re angry with me, and this plan seems to fit your actual mood.”
“Yeah, I’m pissed, Quinn,” he fires back, “but I’m not a fucking monster. One argument and you don’t trust me anymore? If anyone should have trust issues now, it’s me.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” I admit shamefully. Jordan doesn’t have the ability to be cold-hearted. But when you take hit after hit, you need to be constantly on defense. “How the hell are we going to pull this off? And what are we planning to do with the information?”
“We find the fraudulent files and hand them over to the FBI.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes as I try to process the plan. I’m not convinced. My mind’s running a mile a minute as my gears spin thinking about all the ways this could backfire in our faces. “What if he doesn’t take the bait?”
“I’ve put a lot of thought into this part. I don’t think he ever had any intention of leaving the company. Or handing it over to you. Ever. Think about it—what does he stand to gain from the merger if he was going to really leave?”
“His legacy,” I interrupt.
“It’s more than that. His legacy wouldn’t really be affected by this. Yours would. With everything we know about him, he doesn’t give a damn about your reputation. But this would be huge for him. He’s just using you to get it. I think he plans to execute whatever he has in play regardless.”
“You really think so?”
Jordan’s head nods as his lips start moving again. “I bet there’s something, somewhere, with a legal clause in it stating you’ll be let go if there are any legal charges brought against you. Probably your VP promotion. I can almost guarantee there was a contingency attached to it you’re unaware of. Or he could’ve just forged your signature on it. He’s going to blow the lid on whatever he has right after we start formal proceedings for the merger. Why else go through all this trouble?”
Or … “Do you think the whole thing is bullshit and there never was anything tampered with?”
Jordan shoots me a look that screams “Really?” before answering, “Why take the risk if you called his bluff? Does that seem like your dad at all, Quinn?”
Oh, he’s not a bullshitter. But I’d never considered I’d be going to prison either way. Jordan’s point is valid though. None of this makes any sense. How could I have not thought about this sooner? When has my dad ever done anything the way he says he’s going to? He’s always screwing me over anyway he can. Why would this time be any different?
My anxiety is in overdrive and an unsettling feeling washes over me. “At this point, I’d believe just about anything. But do you really want to entice him to pull the trigger? I really don’t want to go to prison.”
“We’re going to make this plan convincing,” he explains.
“Why do
n’t you lie and tell him you’ve found out I’ve been lying our entire relationship about actually loving you and you want to cut me out?”
“Because if I told him I’m only walking away and just cutting you out,” he shakes his head. “How would I explain you and I still meeting together? We need to make him think I want something bigger than just screwing you over. He needs to think I want some ultimate revenge and leaving you at the altar, humiliating you, would be it.”
More lies. More planning. More sneaking around. More consequences if things don’t work out. I’m burnt out, but Jordan seems to be just getting started.
“It took me a little bit, but I’m almost positive I found a way to manipulate his ego against him with playing the humiliation card. If it looks like you’re out cheating on me and people can see it, I’ll be able to really play with him. He’s a vain man. He’ll understand humiliation. I think you should be seen out in couple’s settings looking cozy. Think Alex would help us out?”
My face drops and I feel it pale several shades. “Alex?” I repeat in a squeaky voice.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about everything over the last two days. It wasn’t hard to miss the way you changed when he came back. I guess I just chose to ignore it, but you became distant and always distracted. I might’ve only seen you two together once, but the look in your eyes every time he was in the room should’ve been my first clue you guys have a lot of unfinished business. You still have feelings for him, and I’m pretty sure you’ll try to work things out when all is said and done. It sucks for me, but it is what it is. You never promised me anything more.”
This just keeps getting better. Not only did I just crush his hope of us ever being something real, but now he’s telling me he knows I’m still hung up on someone else. “Is it that obvious?”
