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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 fight back hard.”
