“I’ll never be grateful to that bastard,” I said. “Or to you. I might have loved you when I was a young, but I sure as hell don’t love you now. And trust me on this—I want nothing to do with you now.”
“Well, I guess right now that isn’t the case, is it? Because here’s the thing, Jennifer. After sitting for years on the sidelines and not hearing a word from you, Ava’s out for revenge. Ave’s about to call in her chips.”
“So let me guess—you want money?”
“Oh, I do! Millions. In fact, tens of millions—because I’ve been following you on Google for years, baby girl, and I know what you’re worth. I’ve been waiting for you to be at your most vulnerable, which I have a fairly good idea is right about now. According to the tabloids, the whole world is waiting in anticipation for the new addition to the Wenn family, but what if that moment was shattered when I tell the truth that you were molested? And that you married Alex without ever telling him? What would your husband or those who fawn over you think if they knew that you were a sham when you went into that gilded marriage of yours?”
Just hearing those words from my mother made me want to cry, but I kept it together—because there was no way in hell that this woman was going to get tears from me.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Twenty million.”
“You better get real on that figure, bitch.”
She just laughed when I said that.
“Jennifer, your father and I are serious about this, even if it does expose his past transgressions, which happened so many years ago, he legally can’t go to prison for it now. We’ve researched the law. What we want is for the money to be in our account by tomorrow at noon. If we don’t get it, I plan to go public with the tabloids and destroy every glittering image the world has of you. Sure, everyone loves you now. But when they hear how you deceived your husband, what will they think of you then?”
As rattled as I was, I managed to keep my voice steady.
“Even if I did agree to pay you off, you’d just threaten me again once you’ve gone through the money.”
“Who’s to say, baby girl? I’m ruling out nothing.”
“You’d really do this to your own daughter?”
“What daughter? You abandoned us the moment you got rich. I don’t have a fucking daughter. I don’t even consider you my daughter! And if I have to, I’ll do anything to get what I want. I’ll do anything to get what your father and I deserve.”
“I’m getting off the phone now,” I said. “It was great speaking with you, Ava. I’d like to say that your time in prison changed you, but it clearly hasn’t. You’re the same bitch I used to know.”
“Really?” she said. “Are you really going to try to shake me off now, girl? It doesn’t work like that, honey. Not today it doesn’t.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Then you should know this before you go,” she said. “Listen to me very carefully, because what you need to understand is that I’ve already looked up every reporter I need to get in touch with when it comes to revealing your awful truth to the world. I plan to tell each of them your history with your father. Beyond that? I will go on record with it. And while I know that I’ll take my share of abuse because I didn’t protect you from him, I plan to soften that blow by telling the press that for years your father did this behind my back, and that I didn’t know any of it until recently, when you told me so yourself out of anger.”
“You knew all along,” I said. “And you did nothing!”
“Who gives a shit? What you need to know is that this is what I’m telling the press. I’ll tell them that when it was happening, I was sleeping, because I sure as hell knew nothing about it. I’ll tell them I was shocked when you revealed it to me.”
“And they’ll be hearing this from a woman who just got out of prison for fraud,” I said. “And they’ll know if they print any of your bullshit that Wenn will sue their asses. So good luck with that, lady.”
“They’re tabloids, Jennifer—they get sued all the time. And don’t you see? I’m willing to stand behind my words. I won’t back down for anyone.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “If you needed money, why didn’t you just come to me? I would have given it to you. Why this?”
“Because I hate you,” she said. “I’ve hated you ever since my husband took a liking to you over me when you were just six. I was in the prime of my life at that point, and yet he stopped fucking me because it was obvious he’d rather fuck you. I stopped loving you then, Jennifer. I even thought about killing you. And believe me, if he had penetrated you? I would have killed both of you, so you can count your blessings for that.”
She cleared her throat.
“I’ll end with this—if you don’t come through with the money by noon tomorrow, the world is about to look at you with fresh eyes. And so is your husband. If I fail to hear from you in twenty-four hours, I plan to smear your name as far and as wide as I can. I will ruin your reputation. And I will taint Wenn Enterprises in the process. And when I do that? No one in your circle will ever look at you the same way again, least of all your precious Alex, who will probably drop your ass the moment he hears the news.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN I HUNG UP THE phone, I put my head in my hands and felt my heart break again. My mother had broken it so many times before, a part of me was numb to it, but since leaving Maine for Manhattan, I didn’t think that she’d ever have the power to do that to me again. And yet she’d found a way—and right now? It hurt like hell.
As I sat there on the verge of tears, I knew two things—Alex would be waiting in his office to hear what my mother had said to me, and that I was scared to death to tell him what it was.
How would he see me when I told him the truth? I had no idea, but it frightened the hell out of me.
Still, I now had no choice but to tell him about my past, and that embarrassed me as much as it humiliated me. What my father did to me had happened so long ago, I’d never told anyone about it, if only because of the deep sense of shame I associated with it. It was the one secret I kept to myself—something that I shared with no one—because if people knew that I’d been molested, I also knew that it would forever change their perception of me.
And now my mother was planning to tell the entire world about it...
When the tears came, I blinked them away, knowing that I had no choice but to accept that she would go through with this if we didn’t give her the money she demanded. But I needed Alex’s advice before that happened, which meant that he was about to learn about the darkest period in my life, and the very thought of it made me want to wretch.
When I got up from my desk, the baby kicked with such ferocity that for a moment I felt nauseated—as if I was about to throw up. I opened my office door, looked over at Ann, who was busy organizing files, and asked her if Alex was with anyone.
“No,” she said. “He’s been so worried about you, he cancelled his eight o’clock. He’s waiting for you in his office—”
And then she stopped and looked at me before she stood.
“Jennifer, are you alright? You’re as white as a ghost. Is it the baby? Are you OK?”
“It’s not the baby,” I said.
“Then it was the phone call...”
I nodded at her, and she came toward me and took my hand.
“You’re sweating,” she said. “And your heart is beating so fast, I think you need to sit down. Let me get Alex. I can’t have you fainting on me, not in your condition.”
“I’ll be alright, but thank you, Ann. I’m just a little rattled, that’s all. I’ll get through this.”
Will I?
That’s the thing—I didn’t know.
She took me by the arm, looked hard at me as she assessed my condition, and then she led me across the room to my husband’s office, where I’d have to come clean.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Whatever happened between you and your mother
, I’m sorry about all of it. It obviously has upset you on the very day that’s supposed to be your day.” She knocked twice on Alex’s door. “If you ever need to talk, I hope you know that you can always talk with me.”
“I know that—and if I need to, I will.”
And I would. Ann and I had been through so much together over the years, I considered her far more than a colleague. She was a friend.
When Alex’s door swung open, his eyes widened when he saw me, and I already knew why. After Ann’s reaction when she first saw me, I knew I probably looked like a mess.
“Ann, can you get her some water?” Alex said.
“Right away.”
“Jennifer,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
He took me in his arms as I stepped into the office.
“What’s wrong? I’ve never seen you looking so shaken or pale. What did she say to you? Why did she call?”
“Alex,” I said as I sat on his sofa. “You and I need to talk.”
“About what?” he said as he sat next to me.
“About my past.”
“What past? There’s nothing I don’t know about you.”
My heart sank when he said that, because he deserved better. He should have known everything about me before we’d gotten married.
“I’m afraid there is,” I said.
A knock came at the door, Alex called out for Ann to come in, and when she did, she had two bottles of water for us.
“Thank you,” I said as I took mine.
“If either of you needs anything, I’m just outside.”
When she left, I turned to Alex and met his eyes with my own.
You’re the love of my life and I’ve betrayed you, I thought. I should have told you this from the start, but I didn’t know what to say. How to even begin. How to tell you what that bastard did to me. I’m so sorry, Alex. You deserve better than me...
“Jennifer, what’s wrong?” he said.
Right now? So much is wrong, Alex, I don’t even know where to start.
“Why did she call?” he asked me. “Why now? Does she want something?”
I took a deep breath and faced him. “Alex, there’s something about my life that I haven’t told you,” I said as my heart began to race again.
“But you can tell me anything—you have to know that by now.”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “What I’m about to tell you is something I’ve never told anyone—not even Lisa—because I’m so embarrassed and ashamed of it, I’ve never, ever wanted to discuss it with anyone. But now I have no choice but to do just that with you, which is something I never wanted to do because I’ve always been too scared to do so.”
I’m frightened that you might leave me...
“What is it?” he asked. “What happened between you and your mother?”
It took me a moment to collect myself, and then in a rush of words, I told him everything. And when I was finished telling him, the silence that pulsed between us nearly killed me. How was he processing this information? Did he want to leave me because of it? I wouldn’t blame him if he did. And if that’s what he wanted, I wouldn’t get in his way. I’d make it as easy as I could for him to do so.
“Look,” I said. “If you want a divorce, I understand. I’ll just walk away. And please believe me when I say this, Alex—I don’t want your money, despite the prenup. In fact, we can just tear it up. It will be a clean break, and as devastated as I’ll be, each of us can move on with our lives, and we can share custody of our child.”
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Do you seriously believe that I’d leave you over this?”
“But I told you nothing about any of it before we married,” I said. “I should have told you. I should have, Alex.”
“Jennifer, we all have our secrets. And yours is so personal and serious, if it had happened to me, I can’t imagine myself telling anyone either. You were only six when this began. You were nine when it ended. Those four years must have been hell for you.”
“They were. And my mother not only knew about it, but she refused to do anything about it. It was only when I told one of my teachers at school that he intervened and it finally stopped.”
“Did your father go to prison for it?”
“No,” I said, and then I told him how I’d begged Mr. Gardner not to go to the police because then I’d forever be known as that girl—the one who had been molested. “Besides,” I said. “Looking back on it now as an adult? My father would have won in the end. Since he never penetrated me, there would have been no physical evidence to back up my claims. He just...touched me. And because of that, he likely would have walked away free while I’d still have to live with it for years. What he did to me had a profound effect on me. There’s a reason I was a virgin when first I met you—and this is the reason. Before you, I trusted no man because of what that son of a bitch did to me. But you? When you entered my life, you somehow blasted through all of the walls I’d spent years building around me. I don’t know how you did it, but you made me want to trust another man again. Alex, I’m so sorry for all of this. I wish I’d had the courage to tell you sooner, but what he did to me was so humiliating that I’ve never been able to even speak about it. Before this morning, I thought that all of it was history. And now my mother calls out of the blue asking us to pay them twenty million dollars or she’ll go public.”
“She was just recently released from prison, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if she’s on parole?”
“I have no idea.”
“Jennifer, you do realize that she just committed a crime, don’t you?”
“A crime?” I said.
“Yes—extortion. She threatened to expose your past in exchange for money.”
Why hadn’t I seen that? I knew better, but Alex was right. I was so caught up in the moment, for whatever reason, I hadn’t seen it.
“I should have known better,” I said. “I should have called her out on it, but I didn’t. I didn’t see it.”
“It’s because she rattled you,” he said as he wrapped his arm around me and leaned in to kiss me gently and reassuringly. “It’s because she terrified you with something you had no control over. Now, look at me,” he said.
I felt so ashamed, it took all I had to look him in the eyes. And even when I did, all I felt was my own betrayal.
“I love you,” he said. “Whatever happened to you changes nothing between us, OK? Are you hearing me? Because looking at you right now, I don’t think you are. But here’s what I need you to hear,” he said in a firmer voice. “I’m so sorry that that happened to you, I can’t even begin to tell you. Jennifer, I love you so much, all I ever want to do is protect you. When you were young, I couldn’t then, could I? But now I can. And we’re going to fight back. We’re going to shut your parents down once and for all.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Would you be willing to share what happened with Tank and Blackwell?”
“No,” I said. “This is private—it’s just between us.”
“I’m not asking you for just any reason, but for a specific reason. Jennifer, if your mother does what she threatened to do, everyone will know about it. We might be able to prevent that from happening, but for this, we’ll need support. You have to talk to them. Please, trust me on this. Right now, we need the sharpest minds in the room. So what do you say? We fight?”
I was exhuasted when I said, “I need my parents out of my life, Alex. I escaped from them for a reason.”
“Then we fight. But we’ll need Tank and Blackwell to make certain that we miss nothing. I can’t do it on my own, and neither can you. We need to build a team that can destroy them, and we’re that team. What do you say?”
Would Blackwell or Tank ever betray me? Never.
My gaze flicked over and caught Alex’s. “Call them in,” I said with sense of resolve. “Let’s fight back—and let’s fig
ht back hard.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WELL,” BLACKWELL SAID in a comforting tone when I finished telling Tank and her what my father had done to me. “That explains a lot, doesn’t it, my dear? You waited to give yourself to another man for reasons I never knew or could ever have fathomed, even in my darkest of hearts. And because now that I know the reason why you waited to be with Alex, I love you even more, if that’s even possible. Thank you for having the courage to share your story with Tank and me. And also for trusting in Alex from the start. In the beginning, trusting him couldn’t have been easy for you. I have a feeling that you went through a period of deep self-preservation before you even entertained the idea of allowing him into your life.”
“I think we all saw how I behaved at the start,” I said.
“We did, and now we know why.” She was sitting on the sofa next to me and put her hand reassuringly on my knee. “No one in this room is judging you, Jennifer, and we never will for what that bastard of a father did to you when you were such a young girl. You need to know that.”
This was so awkward for me, I didn’t reply. Because after revealing everything to those closest to me, I felt like a sham and an empty shell. And since I’d gone ahead and shared this with them, I also knew that at some point soon, I needed to tell Lisa, the very person I’d betrayed the most. How would she react when she realized that I hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her what my father had done to me—especially when it happened when we were children? I didn’t know what to expect when I told her, and the thought of her reaction terrified me as much as it overwhelmed me.
When Blackwell took my hand in hers, I could feel her love for me, which said to me that despite everything I’d just shared, there really was no judgment in the room. And the relief I felt from that alone was profound.
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