Page 39 of Big & Bossy

She nodded, her gaze wary as she watched me.

She deserved to know the truth. The whole reason I’d moved my company to Boulder was because of her. If what had happened between us all those years ago was the only thing holding her back from being able to let herself go with me, then Wade was right—I needed to tell her.

Wade was always right.

“I…” I took a deep breath, my palms already beginning to sweat. I wiped them on my slacks. “It’s…”

“You okay?” She asked, her brows creasing as she watched me.

“Yeah, fine,” I lied. “I’m just… I’m trying to figure out how to word this.”

“I can get you a dictionary,” she joked, her eyes softening.

I breathed out a laugh. “It’s about that night.”

Her brows rose, her breath going silent. “Okay.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted, pushing my hands through my hair to calm myself. I hated talking about it. I hated thinking about it, but I had to do this for her. “ I guess I should start with the military.”

“The military…?” She asked, clearly confused.

I nodded. “So, while I was studying, I was working on the side within the intelligence section of the military. My family has ties going back generations, so I was a shoo-in,” I explained, forcing my voice to be calm. I didn’t want to scare her, I just wanted to explain. “I’ve always been good with tech, Mandy. I didn’t need a degree to further that. But it was useful in the meantime.”

“I don’t really understand,” she sighed.

“That’s okay. I’m not done yet.” I flexed my hands, wringing out the tension. “Do you remember when you’d call me and I’d be too busy to see you for a few days? It wasn’t because I was too busy studying for a test or had a project to complete. I whipped those out easily. It was because I had been called in to dig into something or someone. I didn’t really get to choose when or where I was needed, and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about what I was doing. Only my family and Wade knew.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, her finger playing with a hole she’d ripped in the stockings she wore. “So Wade did know.”

“Yeah. He did. But he wasn’t allowed to speak about it.”

“I knew it.”

“You did,” I nodded, giving her the smallest smile I could muster. “That night, I got a call around three in the morning. I can still remember how warm you felt pressed up against my back, your arms holding me as tight as they could. They told me I had five minutes until someone would be there to collect me.”

“I don’t remember that,” she said.

“Thankfully you slept through all of it. I thought about waking you up, but you had class in the morning and I knew you were stressed out of your mind because of midterms. I didn’t want to ruin your sleep and besides, I didn’t think it was going to be anything different than what I was used to,” I explained, my voice cracking at the end. I cleared my throat again, forcing my hands to grip my thighs to calm down. “I had no idea what was actually happening.”

“And what was that?”

“Three of my colleagues’ family members had been kidnapped. And a fourth had been taken about an hour before they came to get me. Wives, kids, partners. They’d followed them, held them at gunpoint, and took them. I needed to be secured because apparently, they were actually after me. And that put you at risk,” I said. The backs of my eyes were burning, the memories too much. I refused to allow the tears to escape, though. I needed to get through this. “They came into your dorm. There were four of them, armed with assault rifles, there to escort me somewhere safe. Nothing like that had ever happened before.”

Mandy’s face was pale as she lowered her legs to the floor. “There were four armed men in my bedroom?”

I nodded. “Thank God you never woke up. They broke my phone and told me I’d be gone for a while. I asked if I could leave you a note and they said there wasn’t time.” My voice had dropped to a whisper, little cracks breaking through. “I wanted to wake you up. I wanted to tell you I was sorry that I had to leave. I wanted to explain everything. I wanted to tell you I loved you. I just kept seeing you lying there, your hands resting where I’d been, the sheets turning fucking cold?—”

“It’s okay,” Mandy said quickly, her body shuffling out of the chair. She crossed the aisle, sitting down on the couch next to me, her knees bumping against mine as she took my hands in hers. “Breathe, Jack.”

I nodded as I took in a shaky breath. “They kept me away from the world for a year,” I sighed, directing my gaze at the floor. I couldn’t look at her. Didn’t want her to see the wetness building in my eyes, didn’t want her to think I was weak. “An entire year, Mandy. I couldn’t speak to anyone outside the program apart from Wade and my family. Everyone was told to act as if I didn’t fucking exist. I tried so many times to sneak a message to you, to get onto Facebook or anything where I could reach out, but they blocked it all in ways even I didn’t know how to get around. Wade kept me updated on your studies, how you were doing. He told me when you graduated. Even showed me a photo of you in your cap and gown.”

Her hands squeezed mine. Just as I’d taken care of her and calmed her when she was overwhelmed, she was now doing the same for me.

“When I was finally released, they told me that I’d have to be extremely careful. That security would always need to be at top of mind and although I was used to that in my family, I wasn’t used to having armed men around me twenty-four-seven. It was a lot. I wanted to come to you, to explain everything, but at the same time… fuck,” I gasped, wiping the dampness from my eyes with the back of my hand. “I didn’t want that for you. A life of secrecy, a life of always looking over your shoulder. Wade said you’d moved on, and even though it hurt like a fucking bitch, I stayed away, keeping tabs on you through social media. I couldn’t bring myself to cross that line and bring you in on my shit. Just the thought of you getting hurt because of it was too much to bear.”

“Jack,” she whispered, her own voice cracking.

“I left the program. I started my own business. I still have security, but I’m not a massive target anymore. And so when I was presented with the opportunity to move my campus, my team…”

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