Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(40)

“Then we need to stop him.”

I roll right over her. “He was right about everything else. He was right about Victor. I thought he cared about me. I thought he needed me. He just used me. I was just another plaything for him. He used me until he was bored with me and then balled me up and threw me away, like a used tissue. The things I did for him, the things I said for him, and everything he said to me was a lie.”

“What lie?”

I scrub at my eyes with a napkin. It’s starting to turn into little pills, tearing apart from being scrubbed against my skin.

“There was another girl. After me. She worked for the company. His company. He was f*cking her while he was still sleeping with me.” My voice goes as tight as a stretched piece of rubber, ready to snap. “I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. I wanted him to. I never felt about anyone the way I felt about him. Nobody ever made me feel that way. I would have done anything for him. Anything. He had me wrapped around his finger. I wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Her name was Brittany,” I spat, bitterly.

“How do you know he was having an affair with her?”

I look over at her.

“I saw pictures.”

“Of them having sex?” Alicia blurts out.

“No. Coming and going together.”

“What did Victor say about it?”

“He tried to hide it from me. I heard it from her, too. We all did. Me. His mother. My father. In court.”

Alicia blinks a few times. “The trial. When they sent him to prison.”

“Yes,” I sigh. “The trial. That was the last straw. When I listened to her describing the nature of their relationship, something cracked inside me.” I touch my chest, showing her where. “No. Not cracked. Something inside me hardened. Turned to stone. To ice. I understood all of it. I knew why he was so harsh, why he sheltered me. This world is pointless and cruel. We’re cursed with these feelings, these needs, but all they are is a way for other people get under our skin and use us and exploit us.”

Somehow I manage to say all of that without realizing I’m sobbing.

Her hand rests on my back.

“Oh honey, that’s not true at all.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been married for fifteen years,” she sighs. “I’m not going to lie to you. It does hurt. A lot. Maybe even most of the time. But when it doesn’t , those times are worth it. You told me about going to that park and all the time you spent with him and you were happy. Would you give that back to get rid of the pain? Erase it all so you don’t have to feel this anymore?

I shake my head.

“I didn’t think so. Did you ever give him a chance to explain himself?”

“What is there to explain? My father was right. All he cared about was f*cking me. He probably thought it was funny, or it excited him to break some silly rule about sleeping with me because our parents are married. It has to be true. It has to.”

“Why?”

My hands shake in front of me and my jaw trembles. I can barely choke the words out.

“If I’m wrong, all this time he’s been in prison and if he didn’t do anything wrong… what if I hated him all this time and he didn’t do it? What then? All that time is gone. Ripped away, and I… I never…”

“What?”

I can’t take it. I pound my fists on her dashboard.

“His mom made me promise,” I cry out, sobbing. “She was dying and she was in the hospital and she made me promise to tell him, to give him a chance but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t go and I never told him what she said. I never told him.”

I curl up for a bit, just breathe. Try to keep my food down.

“She got sick when he got in trouble,” I rasp. “It was like it just broke something in her. The evidence was too damning. If it was just my father she might not have believed, I might not have believed, but when they came to arrest him, when they had the trial. It has to be true. He was embezzling from the company, stealing money. He was tied up in all these awful illegal things, they had proof. That had his signature on things, pictures of him coming and going, all the witnesses. I hate him. He ruined me. He ruined everything.”

“Doesn’t matter how many times you keep saying you hate him, honey. It’s not any more true now than it was before.”

I flinch.

“I saw how you two looked at each other in that office. Neither of you hates the other one.”

“I have to know the truth.”

“Yeah. I think you do. What should we do?”

“Get me out of here. Drive, I don’t care where.”

She nods and starts driving while I slump in the seat. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt and fold my arms around myself, and stare through the streaked windows. It hurts so much. I just want to disappear.

“You still have a chance, you know,” she says.

I don’t answer her.

“How old are you? Twenty-eight? Honey, you’re not even thirty. Your life isn’t over.”

“Sometimes I wish it was. How many people have I hurt?”

“Not every company you take over gets shut down. Lots of people kept their jobs because of-“

“I haven’t run a single takeover that didn’t end up cutting jobs.” The traffic lights become baleful glows in the mist. I lean on my hand. “I order staff reductions…” I trail off. “I fired people to improve bottom lines.”