I walked over to where Ashlynn had sat the folder. Grabbing it, I began to pull out the pictures, flinging them at Rod like a Frisbee.
“Care to explain?” I asked.
“Stop,” Rod hissed, batting at the photos.
“Why? You don’t like confrontation?” I was being stupid, I was mad and I needed the distraction to keep my mind off of something Danielle had said.
“No, I’d rather we talk in private,” he gritted out.
“Whatever needs to be said can be said right fucking here,” I didn’t want to be anywhere private with him. Even though I hated him in this moment, I couldn’t trust myself around him. Fucking him had broken down something between us that had been critical. Denial.
“Okay,” he huffed out.
His eyes darted to Ashlynn, who typed vigorously at her desk, working damn hard at ignoring the scene that was unfolding in front of her. Danielle cried as she shoved knick knacks and personal photos in a plastic tote.
“Danielle came on to me,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck as he shuffled from one foot to the other.
I raised my brows and threw my hands out, clearly not understanding where this was going.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I asked
“I’m not you. I couldn’t lead her on. I couldn’t even bring myself to try it, as you so gracefully had put it. So I told her. I told her that I was into men. We began to talk and I finally told her that I was in love with you. Granted, that was after a few bottles of wine,” he admitted.
Rod has always had little control over what he told people under the influence. That fact was the reason he didn’t drink much around his family.
“I still don’t get how admitting your thing for me wound up to Danielle sending both my mother and myself these,” I said, sweeping my arm out to make sure I pointed out every single piece of shit photo that littered the floor.
“I honestly couldn’t tell you why you were ever involved. That part wasn’t me,” he said, shaking his head at the mess that lay at his feet.
“Then what can you tell me?” I spat.
“I went back to Erotica after we had been there. I saw Jon…” He pursed his lips and looked toward the ceiling. “Are you sure we can’t do this in private?” he asked once again.
At this point, I was shaking. I needed to hear what came next. I couldn’t be sure that my heart could take it or that I should be hearing it, but I knew if I moved, my little anger management skills would be tossed out the window. I didn’t want to physically hurt Rod, no matter how bad I was hurting.
“Just get on with it,” I urged.
“He was negotiating. I knew you would never bring her any solid evidence to make her believe you so I snapped some photos of Jon and the other guy. Then I asked Danielle to help me figure out what to do next,” he searched my face as he spoke before finally looking toward his office door.
“That is what we were doing when you barged in acting like a jealous, crazy fool,” he finished.
I thought back to that day. Danielle had made sure to take papers and other things with her when she left. In the moment, I didn’t think much of it, but there wasn’t any reason for her to have any of his work files. Most of our cases were under strict confidentiality contracts and secretaries weren’t allowed access.
“I had never planned to send either of you the photos anonymously,” he added, glaring at Danielle, who was putting the lid on her tote.
“For what it’s worth,” Danielle interjected, facing me once again, but this time she just looked sad. “He loves you. Those pictures were all just carefully timed. Rod is a good man, loyal and kind and absolutely in love with you, and if you didn’t love him back,” she said, lifting the tote off the desk, “you wouldn’t be leaving. Instead, you would just add him to your list and move on. I admit using pictures of a fight between him and Jon had been stupid. I wasn’t thinking how that would look,” she glanced between us before heading toward her only exit.
I thought over what she said as she stepped on the elevator and the doors closed behind her. It was stupid and even now, after she had admitted that there was nothing going on between them, I couldn’t get the fucking images out of my mind. I knew Rod was loyal, kind and good, and that he loved me…and I loved him.
I did. Danielle had been right about one thing during the creation and execution of her plan. I loved Rod beyond control and that scared the shit out of me. I never wanted him to be another conquest and I never wanted him to be another failure. I had always avoided everything that made me feel. Running had always been what I did. Knowing what I felt for Rod made me want to run away and save him from all the shit I would inadvertently put him through.
“Are you okay?” Rod put his hand on my shoulder, shocking me out of my revelation.
“No,” I said, shucking his hand off my shoulder.
I turned to him, my heart screaming for me to admit it. To tell him that I did love him. That the thought of spending another minute without him hurt beyond anything that I could imagine.
“I need to go see my mother,” I said instead.
My need to protect him and myself was still fully intact.
“Fuck,” he said, folding his arms behind his head as he looked toward the heavens. “Do you want me to come along? Tell her everything?” he asked as he righted himself, his face filled with anguish.
I laughed one quick grunt and shook my head. I had to bite my tongue before I said anything else. We stared at each other for a while, each of us deciding where to go from here.
I could see Ashlynn at her desk in my peripheral vision and she had all but abandoned trying to work or acting as though she had something pressing that needed to be done. She watched us, leaning forward, waiting to see what would happen next.
Feeling like a gay soap opera didn’t help the migraine that was building at the base of my skull or the pending heart attack. The room looked like a bomb had gone off. Pictures strewn everywhere. Danielle’s desk looked like it had been tossed for good measure. This moment was so surreal.
I gave up trying to find the words. Rod’s jaw ticked and his cheeks were flushed a dark crimson red.
“I think you have done enough,” I said, my voice tired and worn.
He physically flinched at my words. I knew this was all the fault of his stupid secretary. Rod wasn’t that stupid, but if he hadn’t been scheming in the first place, shit wouldn’t have escalated to this point.
This entire thing just reinforced what needed to be done.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Every light in my mother’s house was on. Both Emily and Declan’s cars were parked in the driveway, but I didn’t see any sign that Jon was here. I knew he wasn’t at the office. The fight in the lobby would have sparked his curiosity and given him even more fuel for his fight to get my shares.
I was sure everyone had seen the photos by now and knew that I had been right, but Jon was a right bastard and could spin anything, and I still wasn’t sure that my family would be on my side when I walked through the door, even if I had gotten to them first.
I had taken my bike, craving the sense of freedom it provided. Each time my mind had wandered to any of my current problems, the wind would bite at my flesh, taking my thoughts away. Clearing my mind and setting me free.
When I dismounted my bike I paused, listening to the sounds of the roaring ocean. It was frantic and irritated. Staring up at the house, I wanted to once again run, to turn toward the ocean and be free. I thought I had given up this fight. My siblings could handle this. I didn’t need to see my mother cry or slip into the steely mask that she wore so well.
I didn’t have to listen to Jon spout his lies. I didn’t have to defend what I had been saying for so long. Walking in that door would no longer make me a spectator, I could no longer sit back and watch. I thought I had done my share. I warned, I protected and I stayed the hell out of it just as they requested.
I wouldn’t be running if I
didn’t love him, too. Fuck. That applied to this moment as well. I wouldn’t be contemplating running if I didn’t give a damn. If I wasn’t scared to be rejected or fuck things up further. When did everything go from simple to explosively hard? When did I let it?
I walked, slowly, unwilling to lose any more control. When I reached the door, I knocked. I had never knocked on my mother’s door in my life, but walking in felt strange. Something inside screamed that they needed to be the ones to let me in. I kept myself from peering through the windows that lined the door.
Everything was eerily quiet beyond the ocean’s deadly song. I took slow, deep breaths, calming myself. I didn’t want to walk in guns blazing. I would destroy whatever chance those pictures had provided.
Emily was the one to open the door, her eyes swollen and her makeup tear-stained. She glared at me for a fraction of a second before she threw herself at me. I hadn’t been expecting it. We stumbled, the impact nearly knocking us both back down the stairs.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed.
“Am I at the right house?” I said through her squeezing the life out of me.
I wasn’t very good with emotion and dealing with it. Having someone apologize to me was also a foreign concept, especially when it came to family.
“Shut up and take the apology,” she hissed, unwrapping herself from me.
“I can do that,” I grinned. The action was stiff and felt foreign, but I could manage it. Especially for such an occasion.
“How’s Mom?” I asked, letting the moment go back to what it was. A pile of shit.
“Currently arguing with Jon,” she said, anger sliding behind the tears that sat unshed in her eyes.
“Why is that douchebag even here?” I felt my calm shatter in an instant. I knew he was here. I hadn’t seen his car when I pulled up but I should have known that didn’t mean anything. He had probably parked in the garage.
I tried to step around her but she cut me off.
“Listen, you can’t go in there and start a fight,” she stared up at me, her hand flat against my chest.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Em? He fucking deserves it.”
It didn’t make sense that they were even arguing. What was there to argue about? He was fucking busted, photos don’t fucking lie.
“I agree, he deserves his ass kicked, but not now.” She put an emphasis on the last word, as though when made any difference.
I tried to hear what she was getting at before my adrenaline took over and I shoved my way past her. She followed, mumbling something under her breath that sounded a lot like we were both idiots.
“Mother,” I yelled. The house was big.
Growing up, it was only the five of us, but as the company grew, so did our house. My parents had added rooms so we didn’t have to share, an office that my father could lock himself away in when he did make it home. He expanded my mother’s kitchen and gave her the laundry room of any stay-at-home mother’s dreams.
When I reached the stairs, I heard voices. Jon’s know-it-all voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard to my ears. I stormed up the stairs two at a time, forgetting about Emily’s warning. If it was to protect the company, I didn’t care. It would be in Rod’s capable hands by the end of the week anyway.
“You cannot seriously stand there and tell me that the time stamp is a lie, too.” My mother had replaced her tears with the steel that made her who she was.
I didn’t want to hear whatever lie fell out of his mouth next and I was damn sure my mother didn’t need to hear it either. Their door was already open when I barreled through, the handle bouncing off the wall with a loud crack.
“Jackson,” Emily yelled just at my back.
“You better get the fuck out of here,” I bellowed as they both turned toward me.
I grabbed Jon, wrenching him away from my mother.
“I don’t think so,” he sneered, blood welling up from a fresh cut in his lip. “This is my house, too.” He laughed as I cocked my fist back, ready to open up his face further.
“Jacks, Jackson…don’t do this,” I couldn’t tell who was begging me to stop or who was trying to get in between us.
“Another Steele brute. Your father didn’t make the best business decision with you,” he gritted out as a small droplet of blood slid down his chin.
He had no fear, or anything else for that matter. He wasn’t worried or scared. The only thing that I could get out of him was hope. He hoped that I would hit him and that knowledge stopped my fist midair.
I was breathing hard and the pending migraine had finally exploded through my head. I shoved him as I let go. It wasn’t my sister, who had worked to semi-wedge her arms between us, or my mother’s soft pleas, it was the plan that I saw forming in his eyes.
He would use this moment to fuel his plans.
“Thank you,” Emily said as she stepped completely between us.
“I didn’t do it for you,” I said, glowering at Jon as he glared back at me while he wiped away the blood on his chin.
“I knew you couldn’t be completely stupid,” Jon sneered.
“Just leave, Jon,” my mother broke in.
“Are you sure that’s what you want? You love me,” he said, facing my mother.
She stood up straight and tall, doubt still dancing in her eyes as she looked from me to Jon, then toward Emily.
“I do love you, but you need to leave,” she said, the strength that I had heard before abandoning her.
“This isn’t over, Jeanine,” he promised as he shoved his way between my sister and me.
I ground my teeth together, ignoring his touch and letting him walk out that door.
When the door shut behind me, I could breathe again, sucking in a breath I hadn’t known I needed.
“Why are you here?” were the first words out of my mother’s mouth as soon as it was just her, Emily and me left in the room.
“I came to talk,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.
She sat on the edge of her bed, cradling her face in her hands.
“Those pictures weren’t enough?” Her voice was muffled as she spoke into the palms of her hands.
“I told you, I didn’t send those pictures,” I retorted as I sat down next to her.
Her body shook with a soundless, emotionally-detached laugh.
“Then who did?” she said, peering in my direction.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emily said, heading for the door herself. “For what it’s worth, Mom, I believe him,” she finished.
I smiled at her and nodded in thanks. She nodded back before slipping out of the room
“Danielle,” I answered, diving right back into the conversation that needed to be had.
She looked at me, her faced scrunched up. “Who?” she asked.
“Rod’s secretary was the one that sent us the photos of Jon at Erotica,” I answered, banking on the knowledge that she hadn’t included the pictures of Rod and Jon together. I didn’t think she would have lied. Her sincerity, no matter how fucked up, felt real.
“But why would she do that?” I had thought about how I was going to answer that on the way over here and hadn’t been able to come up with a single believable answer. I didn’t want to cause her to hate Rod and I didn’t need her to know anything that had happened between us.
“She was in love with him.” The answer came tumbling out of my mouth without any actual thought.
“What?” she asked. She voiced the very question that had come after the words that had tumbled out of my mouth without warning.
“I went to the office after we got off the phone earlier. I asked Ashlynn who had dropped off the envelope,” I left off the part about going ballistic on her. That wouldn’t make this completely made-up story any easier to explain.
“Danielle admitted she was behind it all. She wanted you to leave Jon so she had a chance,” I let the flimsy lie keep flowing. She wasn’t dumb and I didn’t believe for a second that this stupid, off the c
uff reasoning would be believable in the least.
She hadn’t believed me when I was telling the truth, I really didn’t think she would take my answer at face value.
“That makes no sense, Jackson,” she said, pulling herself out from under my arm and fully facing me.
“Girls are fucking weird,” I said, making it sound as light and playful as possible.
“You aren’t that stupid to really think I would fall for such a lie,” she stared at me with the same hard gaze that she had the last time she said those words. Even though this time she was right, it still hurt.
“You thought I lied the first time, too.” She flinched as, once again, I spoke before actually thinking about how the words would be received. Her eyes landed on an envelope that I could only assume held the photos that proved how right I was.
“I’m sorry.” It was the third apology that I had gotten today. It had to be some kind of record. “I should have believed my son over a man,” she whispered as she continued to stare a hole in the pictures that had proven me right.
“Don’t worry about it. You were in love,” I said, grabbing ahold of her hand that lay limply at her side. She squeezed it hard and I heard the first sign that her flood gates would come crashing down any minute.
I was only just now learning the stupid shit being in love made you do.
“Then tell me the truth,” her eyes bore into mine, pleading for an answer I didn’t want to give. “If you aren’t a liar then you will tell me the truth, Jackson Steele.” Her tone was just as it had been while I was growing up. Every time I thought I was going to get away with something, she would use that tone and I would cave.
I groaned loudly and cocked my head at her.
“Just believe me for once when I say that it was Danielle,” I offered, knowing damn good and well that dropping it wasn’t an option.
“That isn’t going to happen.” She was so damn stubborn.
“Okay, it was Danielle, but not because she wanted Jon. Obviously, she knew Jon didn’t much care for women,” I said, receiving a death glare from my mother. “Sorry,” I said, sensitivity wasn’t my best aspect.
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