Loving My SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 10)

by Crystal Perkins

  “Hi Ken.”

  “He’s in better shape than he was two days ago, Reina, but he’s a long way from being fully recovered.”

  “I’m sorry, but this conversation really can’t wait any longer.”

  “He’s a good man, Reina. A cocky, ridiculous man, but underneath it all, he’s one of the best men I’ve ever met.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re going to break his heart anyway, aren’t you?”

  “He broke both of our hearts a long time ago. It’s time for me to try and put mine back together.”

  “I’ll stay out here as long as I can, but if I think he’s in physical danger—from you, or what you say to him—I’ll have to intervene.”

  “Understood.”

  I walk past him, and into Matt’s room. “What did Kendrick stop you for?”

  “To try and convince me not to come in here today.”

  “I need you in here with me. I’ve needed you every day,” he says, holding out his hand.

  “No. I can’t, Matt.” He drops his hand, and looks at me, his eyes imploring me to give him another chance. “I can’t go on like this. The divorce papers are signed and it’s time for us both to move on with our lives.”

  “I burned those fucking papers.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because they were a mistake. I want to be your husband, Reina. More than I want anything else on this earth.”

  “Maybe you could’ve decided that before you blindsided me with the papers. Oh yeah, that’s right, you made me think that you had decided it. You told me you loved me, over and over again, and then you asked me to sign the papers.”

  “I never asked you to sign them,” he says in a quiet voice.

  “Really, we’re going to get technical now? I walked into your damn office thinking we could have lunch together, and talk about our future. You had that little prick in there with you, and you’d signed the papers already. I didn’t need it spelled out for me any more clearly.”

  “He is a prick.”

  I throw my hands up. “That’s what you’re going to focus on? That one of your lawyers is an asshole?”

  “No. I shouldn’t have signed. I was just…scared. I knew if I finally made everything real, I’d have to tell you my secrets. And what if you left me when you knew what I’d done?”

  “That right there is why we can never be together. You will never think I’m a good enough person to look past what you’ve done in the past. I will never be enough.”

  “You’re more than enough, Rei. That’s the problem.”

  “No. If I was even close to being enough, you would’ve told me about Aqeelah’s husband.”

  “We had only spent two weeks together in person. I-I couldn’t tell you. I was too ashamed.”

  “So, what? You decided that making me feel sexually inadequate and boring was better?”

  “Huh? What the ever loving fuck are you talking about. I never said that.”

  “No, you just told me you wanted to see other people. I was eighteen, and you were my first everything except for kissing. What did you imagine I would think?”

  “Who? Who was your first kiss?” he asks, his eyes blazing.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Who, Reina?”

  “The man you emptied two clips into.”

  “I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. You pretended you were some proper rich girl who had moved to the States for her father’s career. Why didn’t you tell me your secret?”

  “Don’t try and turn this on me. I kept my kidnapping from you for those two weeks, but I was going to tell you when you came home on leave again. I wanted to make sure what we had was real before I told you. When you sent the email telling me you wanted to marry me, I knew it was, but I didn’t want to tell you over email. I felt that was too impersonal of a way to tell you about the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Or at least what I thought was the worst thing. You, Matt Corrigan, have been worse for me than anything else. And I blame myself for letting you have that power over me.”

  “You’re comparing me to a fucking human trafficker? Saying I’m worse?” Matt asks, his eyes wide.

  “In life, no, the two of you don’t even come close. When it comes to me, yes. You are far worse. The fact that you can’t see it just illustrates the problems between us.”

  “We can get past them. We always get past our fights.”

  “This isn’t a fight, Matt. This is the epic battle that determines the fate of the war. It started when we came to Las Vegas, and it ended when I read those emails. We lost the war. Both of us, because it was never really me against you. It was us against your fear and my insecurities. They beat us so easily that it’s like we weren’t ever really fighting.”

  “I still don’t get why the emails didn’t make you feel better. All my love was in there for you to see.”

  “No. It was in there for me to read. I didn’t see it. I only got to see the man who would come to use my body when he needed it, but never let me have his when I was in pain. I saw the women you’d flaunt at me the day after I’d let you have me, because you wanted me to know that I wasn’t special. I saw the man who called me ‘Princess’ over and over again, because he wanted to make sure I knew I wasn’t enough. I can take down a government without questioning myself, but with you, I have always been that scared teenager who wants what she can never have.”

  “You have me. You’ve always had me. Mi Reina Hermosa, I am yours.”

  “Words. Such beautiful words. Too bad it took you almost twelve years to use them again.”

  “I used them every day in my mind,” he says, his eyes shining with tears that are ready to fall.

  “I wish I’d been enough for you to say them out loud.”

  “You keep saying that, that you’re not enough. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. My emails should’ve explained that to you.”

  “What those fucking emails did is make it even more clear to me. Forget what happened to make you break up with me. The rest? All the talk about being proud of me, and loving me? If I was good enough, you would have told me that. Just one time, you could’ve told me. Instead you made me feel insecure, and childish because I was jealous of you and the other women, and you knew it.”

  “You were jealous? I wanted to kill that little bastard, Rick.”

  “I broke up with him, and went to you when he hurt you. When did you ever come to me when I was hurting? When one of your women was looking me up and down like I was lucky you were even speaking to me.”

  “They never did that.”

  “They all did that.”

  “I didn’t see it. I only saw you, and how I had to protect myself from you.”

  “That’s great. I’m now the big, bad wolf in the situation.”

  “Shit. That came out wrong. I meant that if you saw how I was really feeling, I couldn’t pretend to care anymore. I explained it all in the emails.”

  “Stop talking about the fucking emails!” I shriek at him, throwing my purse against the wall. “Have you even read any of the emails?”

  “No. I just wrote what I was feeling and sent it off.”

  “Well maybe you should. Maybe you should read them, and think about how you would feel if you were in my shoes. How for almost twelve fucking years I’ve had to love you, and just accept the scraps you’d throw my way. The few times you’d be sweet or romantic before saying something to hurt me the next day. Think about how I felt when I read you saying that you were sorry for being nasty to me, or sorry for making me think you were sleeping with all the women you were out with. You honestly think I am happy to know that you were just doing it because you ‘love’ me so much? I have lived in my own personal Hell for over a decade, knowing I should move on, but not being able to. And now, I should just forget all of that pain, because words on a computer screen tell me you’re sorry? Those words don’t change what you did to me, how you made me feel. Knowing you did them on purpose, in
order to hurt me, makes it worse. So much worse.”

  “Let me show you now. I’ll show you every second of every day that I love you. Give me a chance to show you.”

  I shake my head again. “I can’t.”

  “You keep talking about words versus actions, but I showed you my love. I came to Mexico and showed you.”

  “I didn’t think you’d come. I knew the girls would, but not you.”

  “I did come. I’ll always come for you.”

  “Was it out of love, or was it just out of obligation because you knew I went there because you’d destroyed me?”

  “Love.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Believe it. If I had just felt bad, I would’ve shot that bastard in the head, Reina. I emptied my clips into him while being shot because I wanted to make him suffer for what he’d done to the woman I love. To my wife.”

  “Wife? I was never really your wife. Starting with the ring, and ending in your office, it was all a lie.”

  “Speaking of the ring, I can’t believe you gave it away so easily,” he says and I see he’s angry with me now.

  “You knew I hated it.”

  “But it was still the ring I put on your finger when I made vows to you.”

  “Vows that were not real. How do you know about the ring, anyway?”

  “I got it back. Gave the guy money for it, because he convinced me that he helped you, but I have it. It’s in my bag over there,” he says, nodding towards the duffle bag by the closet.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “It means nothing to you, nothing at all?”

  “For a long time I thought it did, because as you said, it was on my finger when we were married. In Mexico, I realized that since I had meant nothing to you, why would the ring mean something to me?”

  “Now you know that you mean everything to me.”

  “I don’t. I know you want me to believe it, and I wish I could. One conversation and a bunch of emails cannot erase all the years of cutting me down, and using me.” He opens his mouth, and I put my hand up to stop him. “I let you do it all to me, so I share the blame. That doesn’t change the outcome. This is over, Matt. We’re over. You should get some new divorce papers drawn up, because I no longer consider myself your wife.”

  “I’m going to change your mind. If it takes me the rest of my life, I will make you believe.”

  “Goodbye, Matt,” I say, walking over to pick up my purse and the contents that are strewn all over the floor.

  “One kiss. Please give me one last kiss.”

  I give him a sad laugh. “I once asked you for that exact same thing, and you told me I was embarrassing myself.”

  “You weren’t. I just couldn’t kiss you again. I’ll embarrass myself for you anytime you need me to. I love you.”

  I’m not being spiteful, but I just can’t kiss him again. I shake my head as I go to the door. “I hope you find your peace, and someone who is worthy of knowing all of your secrets.”

  “Reina,” he yells, and I can hear the pain in his voice.

  I don’t turn around, or stop walking. The tears are flowing down my face as I pass Kendrick, and walk into the waiting elevator. I don’t turn back around until the doors close, and then I fall to my knees and let it all out. The elevator doors open, and then they’re there with me. The ten women I left in the conference room upstairs. They don’t say anything as they sit down around me. Audrey and Ainsley have their arms around me, and everyone else is touching some part of my body in comfort. The doors close, but we don’t move. These women that I’m leaving hold me and comfort me until I can’t cry anymore, and then they stand up with me, and hug me goodbye. They came to me once again, this time knowing I’m leaving them. I don’t know if I’ll come back to the Society, but I know I will always come back to them.

  * * *

  Matt

  “We came as soon as we could,” Aiden says as he enters my room with Nate, Jake, Theo, and Miles. “Ellie texted me, and I got everyone together, but we had a little trouble getting here.”

  “Yeah. Ainsley shut down the elevator that comes here because they were inside with Reina. We waited, and then just took the stairs,” Jake tells me.

  “It’s over.”

  “No way, bro. You and Reina are like the epic love story couple. Finding love, losing love, coming back into each other’s lives, and then realizing you can’t be without each other. It’ll never be over with you guys until you get your HEA.”

  “HEA?” Theo asks.

  “Happily Evert After.”

  “How do you even know that, Miles?” Nate asks with a smirk.

  “My wife reads lots of romance books.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been reading them, too, little brother,” I tease him.

  “Hey, don’t knock it. There’s some pretty sexy stuff in some of those books.”

  “I obviously don’t need a book. I have a trophy, remember?” Aiden says.

  “How could we forget?” Jake grumbles. His medal pales in comparison to the giant sex trophy Ellie bought Aiden.

  “Yet again, I’m going to remind you that some of us don’t need a trophy. Or a medal,” Nate growls.

  “Then again, maybe I do,” I say.

  “It’s really that bad?” Theo asks.

  “She said she’s done. She doesn’t believe I really love her. Why should she? I’ve spent so much time fighting the fact that I love her. I’ve hurt her over, and over again. How can she believe me now?”

  “You’re giving up? Seriously?” Aiden asks me.

  “Fuck, no. I’m going to show her every day. I’ve already got some ideas.”

  “Um, that’s going to be a little hard to do when she’s gone,” Miles says.

  “Gone? She just went upstairs.”

  “No. She left the Society. Alex is going to pretend to be running things, but it’ll really be Stella and Tegan.”

  “I have to go. I have to get out of this bed,” I say, pulling wires off my body.

  Kendrick runs in before I can get the I.V. out, and pushes me back down. “Stop it, Matt.”

  “I have to go to my wife,” I tell him, pushing him back. He almost falls, but Nate catches him.

  “No. You have to get better, and then wait for your wife to come back to you.”

  We all look at him like he’s lost his mind. Theo doesn’t have a woman, but the rest of us know that waiting may sound great in theory, but it sucks in real life. Nate waited, but that’s because he had done something really bad, and he had to give Jade time to process it. And then it hits me. I’ve done something really, really bad.

  “He’s right,” I say. “I’m sorry I pushed you, Kenny. I was just freaking out.”

  “I understand,” he says, as he re-attaches everything.

  “You’re not going after her?” Jake asks.

  “No. If I do, it’ll only make things worse. I’ve already made a giant mess of both of our lives. I need to let Reina have her time alone, and then accept whatever she decides.”

  “So if she comes back to town, you won’t pursue her?” Theo asks.

  “Oh, I’m going to pursue the shit out of her if she comes back.”

  “It could be months, or years,” Aiden says.

  “Good thing I have a company to run, and over a decade of emails to read then, isn’t it?”

  “Emails?” Kendrick asks.

  “I’ve written to a dummy email account since the day I broke up with Reina. I was writing to her, telling her things I couldn’t say. No, that’s not right. I could say them, I should’ve said them. I just wouldn’t. When I almost died, Aiden gave her the info.”

  “She read them?”

  “Yeah, but instead of giving her peace, like I thought they would, they hurt her even more.”

  “Fuck Matt, I’m really sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing,” Aiden says.

  “You were. I have never read over what I wrote, and she suggested I do so, thinki
ng about them from her point of view. Aqeelah told me to do it, too. While I recover, and Miles runs the company for a little bit, I’m going to do just that. Once I’m done, I hope to have a better understanding about what I need to do in order to get her back.”

  “I’ll help,” Theo offers.

  “I’m hoping everyone will help me. Well, at least the guys. The girls need to be with Reina, so I’ll need all the boyfriends, and husbands to step up. Plus the Griffins of course.”

  “Of course you’ll need us,” Scott says from the doorway.

  He walks in with Ryan, Owen, and Luke trailing behind. “We have some extra chairs you guys can bring in if you need them,” Kendrick says as he starts to go.

  “Don’t go. You should hang with us,” I tell him.

  Since we’re in a Foundation/Society hospital room, and not a normal hospital, the room I’m in can easily seat thirty people. There are smaller rooms, but I’m guessing Kendrick expected me to have more visitors than usual, especially because I have at least a couple of weeks’ worth of recovery ahead of me here. I had Aiden text all the other guys, and Kendrick agrees to take a break once the pizza arrives. You can’t have a bromantic time without pizza and beer. Well, water for me, but my boys can have beer.

  Hours later, everyone but Miles has left. We all had a great time, but I know they all want to get home and comfort their ladies. Theo has the morning shift upstairs, so he called it a night as well. My brother and I sit in silence for a little bit, just staring at the sports highlights on ESPN.

  “I’ve let you take on too much,” Miles tells me, finally breaking the silence.

  “What? No.”

  “Yeah. I have. I should’ve gone with you to take Dad. I know that messed you up. He’s a close personal friend of the Devil himself, but dropping him in the middle of nowhere could not have been easy. You’ve never talked about it, but I know.”

  “What he did to you and Alex is inexcusable. Was I pissed? Yeah, I was. And okay, a little hurt that someone so evil could have helped create us, and then not care about us. But, Reina was there. She took care of me.”

  “You mean you used her for sex.”