Page 133 of Then You Happened
“Tate, let me explain.”
“Get your shit and leave.” Why does this hurt so badly? “I don’t want you here anymore.” Why do I feel like a grenade just detonated in my chest? “You’re fired.”
“Knox.” My name is a weighted sigh.
“Exactly,” I say, my voice steady for the first time. “I was someone else’s woman once. Just like you, he wasn’t the man I thought he was either.”
When I step into the house, when I lock the door at my back, I finally allow my knees to give out, and I slide to the floor.
It’s only then the gravity of the entire conversation hits me full force.
It’s only then that I realize just how much I love . . . loved Jack Sutton, who is just as much of a liar as my husband . . . his brother.
53
JACK
“Damn it, Tate.” I pound on the door, her muffled sobs just on the other side. “Open up. I need to explain. This was never supposed to happen. You were never supposed to happen. Fuck!” I give it one more pound and then lean against it as the weight of what Lauren did pulls me under.
My chest hurts.
My breath is harsh.
My eyes burn.
Fucking hell.
All I want is for Fletcher to be alive so I can beat the ever-loving shit out of him for the hurt he’s caused my family.
For the hurt he’s put Tate through.
For goddamn fucking everything.
But I can’t.
I can’t because he died and I lived and all I wanted was to see if his widow was worthy of the inheritance check my father left him.
All I wanted was to see the life he lived and remember why I was proud to be a Sutton when all he wanted was the money attached to the name, not the honor it held.
All I needed was to learn about the man he turned out to be and validate my hatred for him.
Hell if I didn’t get all of that . . . but I also fell in love with his widow.
Every-fucking-crazy-thing about her.
“Open the door, Tate.”
I pound the wood as I slide to the ground and rest my back against it.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to sit here until you talk to me. And after you hear it all, if you want me to go . . . then I’ll still go.”
“Go away,” she says, voice muffled and laden with hurt but still there.
At least she’s still there.
It’s something.
“A few months before my dad died, he found out he had another son. He ran into an old mistress somewhere, and when she heard he was sick, she told him about the son he never knew he had. To make a long story short, he contacted him and asked to meet. The son didn’t believe him.”
