Page 51 of Winning Her

“Emily,” I said quickly as soon as I’d answered the call. “Emily, I need to talk to you.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “I need to talk to you, too.”

Her voice sounded so subdued I lost my urgency, wondering what had happened.

“I have something I need to tell you,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a secret, but I want you to hear it. It’s about my dad.”

“Is he ill?” I asked hesitantly. “There hasn’t been any news at all…”

“My father isn’t sick,” Emily blurted out. “He was never sick. He just wanted my brothers to come back home, so he made it up and had me help him. He’s putting off seeing them because he knows they’ll notice the moment they see him that there’s nothing wrong with him, and he’s worried they’ll leave again.”

That gave me pause. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. Matthew Thompson was never quite so manipulative. This plan was something I would expect to see Trent using before his father. Was the man that desperate to have his children back? I knew for Trent to come back home, he had to have been worried about his dad. How would he react when he found out?

“That’s the kind of family that I have, Jessi,” Emily said, her voice sad. “So do you want to tell me why you were calling me over and over now?”

“No,” I murmured. “I’ll call you back, Emily.”

I cut the call because I had some more thinking to do. I’d been so ready to go back, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Was that really what I wanted to go back to? Did I want to have anything more to do with that family? Having heard what Emily wanted to tell me, I felt more like I’d dodged a bullet. The Thompsons had always seemed like the perfect family on the outside. I knew some of their secrets that made that image not entirely true. But this was even worse.

Behind all that wealth the family held, the glass smiles they gave to people in public, there were so many lies. So many hidden secrets and emotions they never let the world see. So much deceit. Trent was the perfect example of it all, and I had been in love with him for years.

Maybe… I was lucky, to be able to leave? Because in a way, I had escaped getting entangled with them. My heart felt heavy as I watched the sunset on the beach as I wondered, feeling conflicted.

Was it the right decision to leave home, in spite of everything?

21

Trent

“Here are the documents you needed, sir.”

I waved my hand at the secretary to leave them on the desk in front of me without looking away from the computer monitor, though I did spare her a glance when I heard the folder hit the desktop.

“Thank you,” I murmured distractedly, pulling the keyboard closer to me to type something out.

“Any time, sir,” she said, then walked out. I heard the door closing behind her.

I finished what I was working on, then pushed the keyboard to the side and reached for the new folder.

“Shit is getting a little too busy around here,” I muttered to myself as I opened it up to look at the contents.

In the time since Jessi had left, I had been busy. So super fucking busy that I barely had the time for regrets, and still, I kept thinking about Jessi and how we’d left things, how my sister had all but commanded I go after her. I’d made the decision that I had to… but because I was an idiot, work came first.

If I was being honest with myself, I would admit to being afraid. So damn afraid about everything. The moment Emily had left my office, I’d been about to drop everything to run out and do what she’d wanted, to go looking for Jessi to bring her back. I only stopped myself at the last minute because I realized that wasn’t like me at all.

Just what was happening to me?

It was terrifying for me because I’d always been in control of myself, ever since I was a teenager. I’d forced that control on myself, thinking it was the only way I could live. And then, out of nowhere, I needed someone else. It was a weakness that came out of nowhere for me, because I’d pretty much killed the word “need” in my vocabulary. If you needed, then you were opening yourself up to pain and disappointment.

And yet, I had this deep need for someone’s presence, and that someone just had to be Jessi of all people. I’d never felt that way towards anybody, not since Mom died, anyway.

The terror that arose from it was something foreign, something I’d thought I got rid of a long time ago. I’d stopped being afraid of things by the time I was six, after Mom was gone, and Dad was too busy to even be there for me, all I’d had was myself. I’d taught myself to kill fear and had lived without it for two decades. So what the fuck was happening now?

A knock on the door made me look up. I was distracted anyway, I’d only got to the middle of the document before what I was reading blurred and I focused on my thoughts. The secretary walked in, and I arched an eyebrow her way.

“Can I help you with anything?”