The one thing I knew, though, was that my mother loved me unconditionally. She told me every time I called, every time I visited. I couldn’t imagine having been in her shoes – having your young child taken from you for no reason and then having zero contact for another few years. My mother and I were both lucky that I had been given to Tracy.
Glancing over to my bag, I wondered what my cousin Tyler would think of all of this, of knowing that my birth father was the reason his parents had been killed. I wasn’t even sure if I should tell him or simply let the report document the details, then maybe it would seem as if the reporter was the one that had done the digging, not me.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat in my car captivated by the boats, but the chill from the winter air began to ooze into the vehicle. There was a snow storm on the horizon just as school was letting out for winter break. As I started the car, I thought about how I would spend my classes next semester without Jolee to torment. I suspected that we weren’t going to be in any of the same courses. Good thing she lived the floor above me.
My back went ramrod straight at thoughts of Jolee. Fuck, I was supposed to pick her up from the shelter. Glancing down at my phone, I realized that I was already an hour late. I wasn’t so worried that she was going to chew me out and most likely hold back from any sex for the night. I was afraid about Brent’s threat – that my father may be watching her too. I sent her a text apologizing for not picking her up, but she only replied that she was home.
My car sped through the streets of Boston until I made it onto the Wellington campus, heading straight for the apartment complex. Grabbing my bag and keys, I took the stairs two at a time until I made it to the fourth-floor landing.
For some reason, I felt relief to find Jolee standing at the entrance to her apartment, waiting for me. She didn’t look angry or upset, just. . .concerned.
“Are you staying or going?” she asked, tiredness evident in her voice. In the last two weeks, a purple and bluish tint had grown under her eyes. She was wearing thin.
“Staying, but just to sleep.” We had been sharing a bed for so many weeks, I wasn’t sure that I could sleep at night without her.
“Good, because I’m too tired for anything else,” she said as she walked inside, assuming I would follow behind. I was sure to lock the apartment door and made my way to her bedroom.
Jolee had already laid herself on the side of the bed that she claimed, while I pulled out her desk chair and piled my things on the seat.
“Did you walk home?” I asked her as I finished laying my pants on the back of the seat and made my way toward the bed.
Her voice was heavy with sleep when she said, “No, I called a rideshare.”
“Okay.” I tugged the sheets aside and wrapped my arms around her waist; even though she didn’t seem upset about the missed ride, she didn’t seem like herself. I knew that she was self-sufficient. Hell, we were only having sex, but I would have thought she would have texted me as a reminder.
“Hey, Ford, don’t forget that I’m leaving tomorrow.”
Leaving? Where was she going? Something chimed in the back of my mind that she had mentioned something a few weeks back, something about Alaska.
Then it dawned on me. “You’re going home for winter break. Right?”
“Yeah.”
It was going to suck not having her here for a couple of weeks, but I’d cope. And knowing that I was going to have Brent reach out with the reporter at any time, it was probably better that she left anyway.
But still, I knew that I was going to miss her. And maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to salvage something with her when I destroyed my father’s world.
Chapter Fifteen – Jolee
The need to tell Ford about his father’s threats had been weighing on me for days, but tonight it was what kept me tossing and turning in bed. I wasn’t sure how he was going to take the news that his father had approached me and made idle warnings. Then again, I wasn’t even sure if Ford would care. Most days, I didn’t know where we stood. We would share a bed, and a few of our deepest desires and secrets, then we’d go all day without talking. I’m not sure if it was for any other reason than self-preservation.
One thing was clear, though, and it was that Ford’s father knew how powerful he was and he was going to use that to keep me from getting everything I’ve worked for. My rescue was everything I had been dreaming of since I was in high school and I was about to lose it all over a fling with Ford.
Except when I thought about the way Senator Hastings was out to destroy his son’s happiness, I felt overrun with anger. And I knew that my feelings for Ford were more than just something fun and flirty.
When he hadn’t picked me up from the shelter, my first thoughts went to him being in trouble, but I had no way of knowing. Which only left me more anxious. My mind was so scattered that I hadn’t thought to message or call him, and that was stupid on my part. Instead, I had rushed home hoping to find him at his apartment, but when I knocked on the door, Link told me that Ford was out having dinner with a friend.
I was calming down just as Ford sent a message apologizing and I replied to him that I was home. I took a shower and got ready for bed, working overtime to calm my nerves. When I heard the pounding of feet in the stairwell next to my bedroom, I subconsciously knew that it was Ford.
I rushed to the apartment door and opened it just as he had arrived on the landing. Seeing him unharmed as he came up the stairs, with his own look of relief on his face, was enough to calm me.
And then my exhaustion hit. I wanted nothing more than to sleep wrapped in a blanket of Ford, even if I knew the guilt at omitting his father’s visit was going to keep me awake. I had my reasons – mostly that I wanted Ford to stay focused on school until the end of the semester.
Just as I tried to doze off, I reminded him that I was leaving tomorrow, which he seemed to forget. I had decided that a break from him and Wellington would probably be good for me, even knowing that my parents wouldn’t be home. It wasn’t like we had celebrated Christmas before. Most of the holiday was spent on a research trip, and when I got older, I spent it at home alone or with a neighbor.
Willow was excited that I was going home and offered to travel with me despite the fact that she hated crowds, airports, and planes. But I declined her suggestion.
I stared at the orange glow coming from the lamppost outside the complex as it filtered between the horizontal blinds on the window. Reaching out, I flipped over my phone to view the time, 5 a.m., and I hadn’t slept a wink. Ford had moved onto his back, one muscled arm draped over his head while the other rested against his stomach.
I sat up slowly and tried to get my eyes to adjust to the room, but other than the soft glow, the room was washed in darkness. Above my head, I stretched my arms and twisted my waist until my feet hit the floor.
Since I was awake, I figured I might as well get the day started. I moved around the bed until my foot collided with a heavy boot, causing me to trip and fall into my desk chair that somehow was moved into the center of the walkway. The fall into the chair caused me to reach my arm out to catch myself and I found my hand colliding with the cold metal and plastic of my laptop. None of my reactions kept me from falling onto the floor on my backside, with the chair falling on top of me.
“Cheese and rice!” I cried out when I fell with a crash.
“Jolee! Are you okay?” Ford asked as he flipped on the lamp beside him.
“Yeah,” I told him as I moved the chair upright and piled his clothes back onto the seat. “I’m okay. Just tripped, that’s all.”
Turning onto my knees, I lifted my laptop off the ground and placed it back on my desk, praying that I would be able to salvage it. Then I reached for a pile of papers scattered across my floor that were spilling out from Ford’s bag.
I lifted the first paper-clipped stack without a second glance, but then Ford jumped from the bed, sliding in front of me to gather the rest of the papers. That was when I decid
ed to look down at what I held in my hand. It shook as I read through the document related to Meredith O’Brien’s arrests and psychiatric evaluations. Glancing up at Ford, I noted the shame covering his face. His eyes were downcast and his chin tilted toward his chest. I flipped the page and found more information about his mother and forged documentation, locking her in a facility.
I knew what I was holding in my hands, but I didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t have stooped this low. Was this what his father had been talking about and I guilelessly told him that Ford wasn’t up to anything?
But then anger welled up inside of me, threatening to drown me in fury. This was what he had been up to. What had kept him at arm’s length. What kept him from experiencing the love that his family wanted to share with him.
“I want to see them,” I growled, holding out my hand for the other sheets he collected.
“No, Jolee.” He sounded fatigued, but not in the sense that he was tired, but that he had no more fight left.
“Show me, Ford.”
Cautiously he handed the second and third stack into my palms. Letters about blackmail, deceit, and murder lined the pages. And there were roughly three hundred papers and pictures related to Ford’s mother, other women, and Ford’s aunt and uncle. I had a very bad feeling about the things he had discovered.
I looked up at him again, anguish painted in his eyes and mouth, while he held one last paper to his chest.
“Ford. . .” I said, gesturing for him to give me the additional piece of paper.
Slowly he flipped the paper over and showed it to me, still afraid to lay it in my grasp.
“Is that. . .?” I asked as I leaned closer. They were pictures of me with Ford, several of them, and some of me by myself or at work. Some were old and some were from a few days ago.
“What does this mean? What are these?”
“It’s nothing,” he replied as he tried to take the papers from my hands, but I gripped them firmly and held them to my chest.
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Ford O’Brien. Is this the revenge you were hoping for against your father? Have you been compiling this stuff? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
“How about one question at a time?”
I wasn’t a violent person by nature, but I had never wanted to pound my fist into someone so much before.
“Don’t you dare joke with me. Tell me what the heck is going on.”
“Jolee, just leave it alone. It doesn’t concern you.”
I stood up abruptly, gathering all of the documents and pictures against my body.
“No, I will not leave this alone. I’m in those darn pictures and I want to know why. What have you done, Ford?” I was shouting now, most likely waking up my roommates, but I was done caring. I was probably going to need witnesses soon anyway with the violence I felt surging through me.
“Calm down, Jolee,” Ford shouted back.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! Is this why your father is trying to pay me off? Are these the things he wanted?”
Ford grew silent at my question and it took me a moment to realize what I had said.
“Ford, I-”
“What did you say about that waste of human existence?”
Admitting my omission, I told him, “Your father has come to me twice to find out what you had on him. Obviously, I told him I didn’t know anything.”
“What did he offer you?”
“Five million in grant money for my rescue in exchange for whatever you had found on him. I had the check shredded the moment he left.”
“You should have taken it.”
“Excuse me? I didn’t know any of this existed,” I said, shaking the papers in my hand. “But why does he even know about me? Tell me what all of this is, Ford. Why do you have it?”
Ford moved from the floor and onto the desk chair that looked minuscule beneath him.
“I hired a private investigator two years ago, someone that used to work with Tracy’s husband. I knew that my mother had no reason to be in the facility where she lives; the workers even know that she’s completely sane. And I knew knew that Hastings was the reason she was there. Then things spiraled out of control. I got more than I ever thought existed. I want vengeance for my mother and my family.”
“But at what cost, Ford? What good is it going to do anyone to have this information?”
“My mother will be free. And my sperm donor’s name will be thrown through the mud. I’m hoping he’ll spend the rest of his days as someone else’s bitch.”
His eyes lit up as he spoke of revenge against his father, and for the first time, I didn’t know or understand the boy sitting across from me.
“There is a reporter-” he began and I knew where he was going. I was filled with disgust. Pure unfiltered disgust.
“Ford, no. No, you can’t go to a reporter with this.”
He seemed puzzled as I shot him down, as if he didn’t expect that reaction, especially knowing what I did about his father and mother.
“What do you mean? I have to, Jolee, don’t you see? He’ll never let my mother out of the facility and my cousin will live the rest of his life thinking his father was driving drunk and lost control of the car.”
“Think of what will happen if you smear their names through the paper. This is not the way to go about it, Ford. You’re going to ruin whatever happiness they’ve made with their lives. You have this illusion of a new reality, but that is never going to happen, Ford. You have to know that. Reporters aren’t going to create the story that you want. They’re going to create the story that they want to sell.”
“You don’t get it, Jolee. I have to exonerate my family.”
“No, you know what you need to do?” I said, my voice rising with each second. “You need to grow the heck up.”
His blue eyes iced over the same way that they had that first day we met, but I wasn’t scared of him this time.
Beside me, Ford’s phone pinged on the nightstand and I glanced over to see the name Brent on the screen.
Brent: Reporter at 7am
“The reporter will be ready at 7 a.m.”
Ford nodded as he looked at me expectantly.
“You’re going, aren’t you?” I asked, already knowing the answer. He was willing to destroy his family all for some game he’d formulated in his mind. “Don’t be the boy everyone believes that you are, be the man that I know you can be.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“You know what? Take your freaking papers and make the worst decision of your life. And know that I warned you that your family will never forgive you for airing out everything this way. What’s worse is that I don’t think you even care.” With a need to leave, I grabbed a pair of pants, slipping them over my shorts, and a sweatshirt from my dresser. I donned both in record time before slipping my feet into a pair of tennis shoes without any socks.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving and I expect you gone when I get back.”
“Jolee!” he shouted as I left my bedroom and headed down the hallway, surprised I didn’t find my roommates waiting with bated breath in the hallway listening in. From behind he grabbed my elbow and spun me around. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving. I thought. . .you know, I thought that maybe you and I were going somewhere, Ford. Like we could discuss whatever this is between us. Maybe I was just a disillusioned girl wishing for a man to love her. I should have known better and stayed away from you like I kept telling myself. I can’t forgive you for this. Your father is probably going to ruin my career and you’re deadset on destroying everything. You’re nothing more than a silly boy.”
His jaw dropped at my rant and I left him staring at my back as I let myself out of the apartment. I had no destination in mind and found myself at a coffee shop on the edge of dark side before entering the school campus. Strangely I felt no remorse for the way I spoke to Ford because I was still in awe of what he planned to do. He w
as exactly as I had described: a silly boy.
I stayed at the coffee shop for an hour sipping on two chai tea lattes, lamenting at the loss of whatever it was that Ford and I had. I still wasn’t quite sure, other than I was hoping that I could figure out a way to stay focused on my dreams and have him too. He made it clear that whatever we had was nothing and I needed to learn that it was okay. It simply reiterated the fact that I needed to remain alone.
I had to pack for my flight back to Alaska, not needing to bring much since I had left a lot of clothes at my parents' house, but I needed to bring the essentials.
Slowly I made the trek back to my apartment, hesitating as I opened the door. I didn’t need to walk past the entryway to know that Ford had left, as I requested. I could always sense when he was close and now was no different.
“Oh my gosh, Jolee. What is going on?” Willow asked as she ran from her bedroom in alarm. “I saw Ford throw his things in a trash bag and leave, but I couldn’t find you.”
“I asked him to go.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Willow. Not right now. I need to pack for my flight.” I brushed passed her as I walked toward my bedroom, not intentionally trying to give her the brush off, but suddenly I felt more tired than I had ever been.
I tossed a few things into a carryon bag, never replacing the large suitcase that had broken my first day in Boston, and zipped it shut as I waited for Willow and Haley to walk with me toward the shuttle that would take me to the airport.
They both peppered me with questions about the fight that I had with Ford, but I wasn’t sure what I could tell them. They would know soon enough though, whenever the paper or magazine ran the spread with Senator Hastings’ demise.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here? You’ll be all alone up in Alaska.”
Faking a smile, I sat my small piece of luggage on the ground with my bag carrying my laptop and wrapped my arms around her. “I’m used to being alone, Willow. I’ll be fine. Enjoy your break. You too, Haley,” I added as I hugged my other roommate.
Of Boys And Men: An Enemies to Lovers, New Adult College Romance (Ridge Rogues Book 1) Page 17
