I smiled at him, and then he leaned in and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. This was not Daniel behaviour, but after hearing the boyfriend bit he was definitely playing the part. I had suspicions he was marking his territory in front of Jaxon. Lucinda had similar thoughts, peeking over at Jaxon with a worried look. Jaxon accomplished the neutral look well, but his eyes deceived him. He was observing every bit of our interaction, touch, word and look.

“How is work?” I said to him.

“Unbearable. The replacement secretary is as useful as bike peddles on a wheelchair.” Lucinda and I burst out laughing. “She can’t even work the fax machine.”

“But she works in the other department.”

“Yeah, as a secretary’s assistant and she’s only been in that position two weeks so far. I stared at her for a whole ten minutes aligning four pieces of paper to staple through the corner of.”

“So you must really miss me.” I bit down on my lip, trying hard not to laugh.

“Why do you think I’m here? Gonna kidnap you back to the office.”

Lucinda laughed again. “I like him, Sara. He’s determined.”

“Determined enough to drive three hours to see the hottest secretary I’ve ever head, yeah,” agreed Daniel.

“You should have finished your degree,” Jaxon interjected in seriousness. “I remember how much you immersed yourself in your studies, pushing other… important things out of your life to get it done. You shouldn’t have abandoned it.”

My smile disappeared and my stomach dropped.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Daniel said, a little defensively. “Money problems get in the way more often than you might think.”

“Yeah, money.” Jaxon twisted his lips in distaste. “What a damn thing money is.”

I looked down at the plate, saddened because I knew exactly what he wasn’t saying out loud.

“What do you do for yourself, Jaxon?” Daniel asked, inquisitively. There was no fooling him; he could sense when things were amiss.

“I own a few businesses,” Jaxon replied. Did he enjoy being all mysterious about it with everyone? Daniel wouldn’t let that answer slide.

“In anything in particular?”

“Not really.”

“All kinds of things,” Lucinda piped in, uncomfortable herself with the questions. “They’re all spread around. A night club and a bar in the centre of town, and a restaurant around here–”

“No, that one’s in centre of town, too,” Jaxon interrupted, thoughtfully.

“No, no, I’m talking about the Italian place ten minutes from here, near Walter Avenue.”

“Oh, right, that one.”

Daniel raised a brow. “Just how many businesses do you own?”

“Well, after today…” Jaxon leaned back a little in his stool, and his eyes went up to the ceiling as he stopped to think about this. Because really, it takes someone this long to think about how many businesses they own, right? “Hmm… Ten all up.”

“Eleven,” Lucinda corrected him with a roll of her eyes.

I didn’t know whose jaw fell first, but Daniel and I were both wide eyed and open mouthed in a matter of seconds.

“Quite the busy man,” remarked Daniel with lifted brows. He was very impressed.

“Well, it started out rough. I didn’t bother after high school, didn’t want to be a loser –” he flashed me a pointed look “ – and I didn’t want to be a disappointment to my mom, so I got my shit together.” He pushed the plate forward, gulped down the last of his orange juice and stood up. “That reminds me, I’ve got some unfinished errands I need to get around to. It was nice meeting you, Daniel. Maybe I’ll see you around again.” He emphasized ‘maybe’ with a smirk, glancing at me and then turned to his mom. “I’m taking the bike. Where’s the helmet?”

“It’s still rainy out there,” Lucinda complained.

“I’m a big boy.”

She sighed. “It’s in my closet behind the pink purse and my stack of wool.”

“Unbelievable,” he muttered as he walked out of the kitchen.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You hide his helmet?”

“He wrote off his Ducati last year in a crash, and broke his wrist in the process. It was storming out. Every time I see it rain, I hide his helmet. He keeps his bikes here because his apartment’s car port isn’t big enough apparently.”

“He’s got a Ducati?” Daniel perked up.

I gave him a smack on the shoulder. “Glad that’s what you heard amid the story of his bike crash.”

Lucinda laughed. “Boys and their toys.”

Eighteen

The rest of the breakfast was lighter now that Jaxon was gone. I didn’t have to bite my lip in fear of anything slipping. We made small chat. Lucinda took a good liking to Daniel, shooting me approving eyes every time he cracked a joke or showed me affection.

When we finished our breakfast, we helped with the dishes, and then I left Daniel for a few minutes to fetch my purse and charger in case my phone died at my mother’s house. On our way out the door, Lucinda handed me a spare house key in case she wasn’t home when I returned. I liked that she just assumed I’d come back for the night knowing full well that I needed a room again.

I climbed into Daniel’s flashy sports car – boys and their toys indeed – and directed him to my mother’s place. He was unusually silent all the way there, heavy in thought. I wondered if he got the vibe that I was withholding something from him. I just couldn’t relax around him, and my fidgeting was noticeable.

I was delighted to find that the skip was right on the front lawn as promised. I led Daniel inside and we started the process of gathering useless junk that wasn’t sellable and tossing it in the skip. It was definitely better having someone around. It didn’t leave me time to think about my mother, which I’d been dodging lately. I couldn’t think about her for longer than a minute at a time without feeling a crowd of negative thoughts. I was still in shock about her death. It hadn’t hit me at all. It was made worse in the fact I hadn’t even gone to her damn funeral.

In the middle of tossing junk away, Daniel loaded up the clothes and all the small things I’d put aside for charity and, having called up a local charity service, he made a few trips dumping the stuff off. He then returned with two cups of coffee and two sandwiches.

“We‘ve been at it for a couple hours,” he said, handing me my sandwich. “Take a breather. I noticed you barely ate this morning.”

I took the sandwich and unrolled it, smiling like a kid that he’d picked up my favourite: chicken and avocado with cheddar cheese in a thick bread roll. “Thank you,” I said.

I took a seat on the black leather couch and looked around the living room. Everything had been cleared away. All that was left were bare furniture that would be given to the shop owner tomorrow when he swung by… which I hoped he remembered. I nibbled on my sandwich, but my appetite was still gone.

Daniel was sitting on an armchair facing me, and his eyes never left me. He studied me too intently than I would have liked, making me extra self-conscious.

“So,” he started quietly, taking a bite out of his ham and cheese sandwich, “that Jaxon guy is pretty interesting.”

I stopped chewing my tiny bite and shrugged. “I guess.”

“You knew him pretty well, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You going to keep giving me short answers?”

“What is it that you’d like me to say exactly?”

“I’m not trying to put you on the spot, babe. It’s just… the way he looked at you, and some of the things he said while we ate, it was fairly obvious there was…” He paused and twisted his lips. “…more than meets the eye.”

“I grew up with Jaxon,” I explained. “I’ve known him for as long as I can remember. He saved me from a bully when I was eight and then took me under his wing. We’d been really good friends for a number of years.”

Narrowing his eyes, he said, “I know you were with him, Sara. I saw the photos on the wall when you were getting your purse. He took you to prom, didn’t he?”

He’d seen the photos in the living room. Damn. “Yeah, he took me to prom. That was when…” I inhaled sharply, feeling a horrible jab of pain in my chest. “That was the night we decided to give it a go at a relationship.”

He didn’t respond, but he continued to look at me, waiting for me to continue. Well, it’d been two damn years of sleeping with Daniel and holding back the story behind my bleeding heart. It was time to unload a little bit, or whatever I could without breaking to pieces.

“Everything was perfect,” I said. “He was perfect. He took me out to Winthrop and he got us a small little apartment. Then he did something he’d always vowed never to do: work under someone else. He was willing to change for me, and had all this money aside to help us through so I didn’t have to…” I breathed hesitantly again. “…so I didn’t have to work. Anyways, long story short, I fucked it all up because I’d brainwashed myself into believing I couldn’t depend on someone that might break my heart. I got all messed up, and then I was angry all the time, and violent. I was horrible to him.”

“So he left you, like you always thought might happen.”

I laughed humourlessly. “No, actually, I was the one that left him.”

Daniel gave me a perplexed look. “Why?”

“Because he loved me too much to let me go. He never stopped believing in us, even while I was on my tirade. I was destroying our relationship, and I was scared that it would to be too late to fix things if I stuck around. I was sick and tired of hurting him, and I knew he would do better without me.

“I did what was best for him. I left him after a horrible fight. I mean, I… totally left him, like packed my shit and walked out without a goodbye. I saw him for the first time three days ago since that night. And, well, you saw it yourself, I was right all along. He turned his life around and my leaving him was the best thing that ever happened. He’s got everything now.” Saying it out loud just reaffirmed it all. He had turned into a success, albeit one that had some criminal tendencies under his belt, but still, he was all he ever dreamed of being. Because of me. Because I didn’t hold him back.

Daniel was silent for a long time, taking it in. He looked weary by the time he threw his half eaten sandwich down.

“Did you fuck him?” The question stopped my heart. I stared at him with fearful eyes as he regarded me in silence.

The tears formed and fell easily from my eyes. “Yeah, I did. I was waiting for a time to tell you–”

“When?”

I wiped away the tears and looked down at the floor, too terrified to meet his gaze. “Last night.”

I heard him take a deep, uneven breath. I hurt him. Fuck, would I ever stop hurting people?

“What happened exactly?” It seemed like such a strange question to ask, but he was dead serious for an answer.

“He drove me to the motel and… I mean, what do you want me to say?”

“Everything. I want to know why it happened.”

“Daniel–”

“He took you to the motel, and then what?”

“And then he dropped me off and I walked to my room. There was an altercation that I don’t want to talk about–”

“Talk to me about it.” His voice was sharp now and demanding. He was angry, but he was doing a damn good job at controlling it.

“I was attacked.”

His face fell. “What? What happened?”

I told him about the drunk, and how Jaxon intervened, and that a “buddy” stopped by to “handle” the situation by dragging him out of the room. I didn’t want to tell him the look Jaxon exchanged or how every bit of me questioned if that man was even alive that very moment because, well, there was no knowing what Daniel might do. He was horrified at the attack, deeply annoyed that I chose to return to that room when everyone had told me not to, and then very curious about what happened after.

Fuck, this was hard. “I was crying. Hysterically. Jaxon comforted me.”

“Did he touch you?”

“He wrapped an arm around me, but Daniel, it was me that made the move. Not him.” Funny how it was always my sole mission to defend Jaxon before anyone had the wrong idea of him. “I’m the one that kissed him.”

“And then what?” Daniel’s voice was tight, but he was patiently staring at me with raised brows.

“And then it happened. What do you want me to say? It-it just happened.”

“Did you like it?”

“Daniel–”

“Did you? Yes or no?” So now he was going to interrogate me like a lawyer would interrogate the accused on a stand? I calmed my nerves down before I snapped at him. He had every right to be pushy.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It wasn’t personal. There was no warmth behind it. He… was quick about it, like he didn’t want to, you know… take his time.”

Daniel’s face darkened. “Didn’t try and please you, you mean.” I didn’t say anything to that. “So he took advantage of you.”

“What? No! I’m the one that initiated it.”

“Because you were traumatised by the attack and vulnerable. You were seeking safety.”

“Don’t make an excuse for me. I don’t deserve an excuse.”