Irrefutable (The Apprehensive Duet Book 2) (13 page)

I want Jordan to experience that kind of love. When he has it, he’ll understand what I mean right now.

“That’s one of the things I love about you, Quinn. You are ninety-nine-point-nine percent honest to a fault. But my feelings for you and working through them are taking a back seat for the moment. We have to worry about your father at this point. We don’t have much time left before he wants us to get married. There’s no time to waste.”

“What did the lawyers say?” I ask, keeping the conversation on the topic that seems most important to him right now. He’s right. We have to prioritize. I’m also interested in hearing about the possible end of my misery.

“We can’t do anything without proof of something illegal, but I found a way where everyone gets what’s theirs.”

I cock an eyebrow and nod. “Go on.”

“Since we can’t do anything to take him down for whatever fraud he’s planning to commit or is already committing without proof …” he explains, “we have to find some on our own without him knowing.”

This is his big plan? No way will this work. “How the hell are we supposed to do that? It’s not like he’s going to tell me just how he plans to fuck me over.”

“But he might tell me,” Jordan says with a calculated smirk that leaves me feeling very unsettled.

“Why would he tell you?”

Leaning back in his chair, Jordan rests his ankle on his knee and lets the smirk fully overtake his face. “Because we’re going to play him just like he’s playing you. I’m going to go to him and tell him I don’t want to marry you, but I do want revenge for you making me look like an asshole. I’ll tell him I want to continue merging the companies, but we need to get you out of the way because you fucked me over and I want you gone.”

The whole suggestion sounds fishy as hell. He’s going to tell my dad he wants revenge? “Is this your way of getting back at me for lying to you? Are you going to join forces with him while I sit here stupidly helping you, thinking we’re doing one thing but it’s really me digging my own grave?”

Jordan’s facial expression goes from cunning to pissed off instantly. He sits forward asking, “Is that a serious question?”

“Yes, it’s a serious question. You’re angry with me, and this plan seems to fit your actual mood.”

“Yeah, I’m pissed, Quinn,” he fires back, “but I’m not a fucking monster. One argument and you don’t trust me anymore? If anyone should have trust issues now, it’s me.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” I admit shamefully. Jordan doesn’t have the ability to be that cold-hearted. But when you take hit after hit, you need to be constantly on defense. “How the hell are we going to pull this off? And what are we planning to do with the information?”

“We find the fraudulent files and hand them over to the FBI.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes as I try to process the plan. I’m not convinced. My mind’s running a mile a minute as my gears spin thinking about all the ways this could backfire in our faces. “What if he doesn’t take the bait?”

“I’ve put a lot of thought into this part. I don’t think he ever had any intention of leaving the company. Or handing it over to you. Ever. Think about it—what does he stand to gain from the merger if he was going to really leave?”

“His legacy,” I interrupt.

“It’s more than that. His legacy wouldn’t really be affected by this. Yours would. With everything we know about him, he doesn’t give a damn about your reputation. But this would be huge for him. He’s just using you to get it. I think he plans to execute whatever he has in play regardless.”

“You really think so?”

Jordan’s head nods as his lips start moving again. “I bet there’s something, somewhere, with a legal clause in it stating you’ll be let go if there are any legal charges brought against you. Probably your VP promotion. I can almost guarantee there was a contingency attached to it you’re unaware of. Or he could’ve just forged your signature on it. He’s going to blow the lid on whatever he has right after we start formal proceedings for the merger. Why else go through all this trouble?”

Or … “Do you think the whole thing is bullshit and there never was anything tampered with?”

Jordan shoots me a look that screams “Really?” before answering, “Why take the risk if you called his bluff? Does that seem like your dad at all, Quinn?”

Oh, he’s not a bullshitter. But I’d never considered that I’d be going to prison either way. Jordan’s point is valid though. None of this makes any sense. How could I have not thought about this sooner? When has my dad ever done anything the way he says he’s going to? He’s always screwing me over anyway he can. Why would this time be any different?

My anxiety is in overdrive and an unsettling feeling washes over me. “At this point, I’d believe just about anything. But do you really want to entice him to pull the trigger? I really don’t want to go to prison.”

“We need to make it convincing that you’re really fucking me over,” he explains.

“Why don’t you lie and tell him you’ve found out I’ve been lying our entire relationship about actually loving you and you want to cut me out?”

“Because if I told him I’m only walking away and just cutting you out,” he shakes his head. “How would I explain you and I still meeting together? We need to make him think I want something bigger than just screwing you over. He needs to think I want some ultimate revenge and leaving you at the altar, humiliating you, would be it.”

More lies. More planning. More sneaking around. More consequences if things don’t work out. I’m burnt out but Jordan seems to be just getting started.

“It took me a little bit, but I’m almost positive I found a way to manipulate his ego against him with playing the humiliation card. If it looks like you’re out cheating on me and people can see it, I’ll be able to really play with him. He’s a vain man. He’ll understand humiliation. I think you should be seen out in couple’s settings looking cozy. Think Alex would help us out?”

My face drops and I feel it pale several shades. “Alex?” I repeat in a squeaky voice.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about everything over the last two days. It wasn’t hard to miss the way you changed when he came back. I guess I just chose to ignore it, but you became distant and always distracted. I might’ve only seen you two together once, but the look in your eyes every time he was in the room should’ve been my first clue you guys have a lot of unfinished business. You still have feelings for him, and I’m pretty sure you’ll try to work things out when all is said and done. It sucks for me, but it is what it is. You never promised me anything more.”

This just keeps getting better. Not only did I just crush his hope of us ever being something real, but now he’s telling me he knows I’m still hung up on someone else. “Is it that obvious?”

“It was easy to see when I looked,” he says with a sadness in his voice that makes this hurt even more. “We’ll get your father. My feelings don’t have anything to do with this plan. Alex will be the most convincing man for the job”

“I don’t like the idea of people thinking I’m running around on you.” I shake my head. “Not because of me, but because you don’t deserve that. Humiliating you in this arrangement was never part of my plan.”

“Quinn, your father tried to use my family. He tried exploiting my father’s cancer and then tried to pull my mother into this. Not to mention what he did to you. Trust me, a little embarrassment is nothing compared to the victory of making that piece of shit pay.” His voice is firm and steadfast. This has become personal to Jordan now too.

“Oh my God, Diana,” I gasp, my hands covering my mouth. “Your mother’s going to hate me. She shouldn’t have to deal with all this so soon after losing your father.”

“Relax,” Jordan hushes me. “I’ve already spoken to Mom and explained everything. She shed some light on some things I didn’t know about her and my father and why he wanted things done in the order he wanted them.”

Jordan spends the next half hour giving me a condensed version of everything that happened with his mom over the last few days. “You mean she doesn’t hate me for lying to her and your father?”

“She’s pissed we lied and didn’t come to them for help, but she’s not the type of person to hold a grudge, Quinn. She flat out told me that you’re still part of this family and we protect our family. Your father succeeded in giving my mom something else to focus on. Too bad for him it’s not a wedding, but a plan to get him out of your life entirely.”

“IT’LL KEEP GETTING easier, Quinn. Today went great—you opened up, and it’s only the beginning. I’ll see you in a few days,” Dr. Stein says as he walks me out of his office.

This was only our second session, but he seems positive, so maybe I’m not too fucked after all. After going over Jordan’s plan with him, I knew that I would need a clear mind for it. There’s so much fucked-upped-ness going on inside me. If I ever want to move forward as a better person, then I need to face everything that has made me the way that I am.

Ashley swore up and down that I should see her therapist, but it just didn’t seem right to me. It felt weird. Dr. Patterson was a godsend for Ash, so she asked her for a recommendation for me.

Dr. Stein is an older gentleman who reminds me of a TV grandpa. He wears button-up sweaters and smells like peppermint. Surprisingly, he makes me feel comfortable. He seems to know just how to get the words flowing from my mouth.

Sitting in a chair telling a complete stranger all the screwed up things about me and my family is something I never pictured for myself, but I figured it couldn’t hurt anything to see if someone could help me find my way to a peaceful existence.

We spent today talking about the ways I’ve been dealing with everything that’s transpired in the past few months. He asked how I felt after opening up and telling everyone the truth about my dad’s threats. How I was feeling after smoothing things over with Ashley. How I felt after Jordan told me he loved me and walked out. It was a lot of talk about my feelings.

Owning up to my mistakes and trying to mend fences, regardless of the outcome is something positive, and I did that all on my own.

Fixing things with the people in my life who care about me has made me feel better, but there’s never going to be a time when things with my father will be resolved and I’m dealing with that. After Jordan pointed out he didn’t think this battle with my father was going to end, I saw it too. My dad’s never going to let me be.

This plan better work.

All I want to do is run to Alex and see what he says. See if he thinks we’re crazy for even thinking about trying to pull this off.

The only person I’ve yet to really talk about with Dr. Stein is Alex. Even with all the bad shit going on right now, Alex is always at the forefront of my mind. I don’t know where these feelings have come from all of a sudden … I’ve gone from hating him and trying to forget him for two years to not being able to get him out of my head.

Whenever my world seems like it’s about to crumble, Alex appears and saves me from falling. Each recent encounter with him has intensified something buried deep down inside me causing all my feelings to bubble to the surface.

I thought I buried them deep down when I walked away from him, but I was so fucking wrong. The minute my eyes landed on him in the kitchen at Ashley’s after Michaela’s baptism, they flooded back in.

Seeing him there with Tiffany, thinking they were an item, hurt bad. I’ve never truly encountered a jealousy like that before.

Lust was added in the first time he came to my place after moving back. It was easy to hate him from a distance. I could pretend he was just some asshole and no one important. Having him near made that nearly impossible. And I couldn’t help but want him.

His presence alone calls to me on some molecular level I have no control over. The moment his skin touched mine, it lit me up, reminding me of that part of myself I shut down.

Fighting him with bitterness and a sharp tongue was easy at first. I was able to keep him at a distance that way, but no matter what I did, it was never enough to keep him away. The compassion and understanding he shows me time and time again, when I don’t deserve it, has become impossible to fight.