“From the beginning.”
“Okay.” She blows out a puff of air. “The Queen approached me at the beginning of the year. She said she needed information on the men’s ice hockey team and would pay me enough to make it worth my while. And she did. Working for her made my tuition a little more bearable.”
“You could have taken student loans,” I growl.
“I have loans and a partial scholarship, but Strick U tuition is expensive. The Queen offered to pay off the balance at the end of each semester. I still hated you for tossing me aside like a piece of trash. It didn’t matter that it was years later. The old wounds were still there.”
“I want to understand,” I confess. “I want to forgive you, Sam. I get that your life is harder than most. It’s a lot harder than mine. I won’t pretend that I know what you’re going through or that I get what it’s like to want something and not be able to afford it. But your reality doesn’t make mine hurt any less.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she counters. “I don’t want your pity.”
“I don’t pity you. I never did.”
It’s the truth.
“I wish I could take it all back.”
She blinks a few times. Her eyes are glassy under the lights.
“If I could change the past, I would. I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, Tucker. I never knew it could hurt this much to live without someone. I haven’t felt this much pain since my mom died.”
Her voice cracks at the mention of her mom. She never talks much about her parents.
“I want it to stop. I need it to stop. Take away my pain, Tuck. Please. I’m sorry. I love you. Forgive me.”
I jump out of the chair, and she stands, reaching out to touch me. I slip my fingers between hers and pull her into a hug. Her skin is so soft and warm against mine. She smells of citrus body wash, and I drink in her delicious scent.
Sam presses her face to my chest and bawls her eyes out, her sobs shaking through me. I hold her head as she cries, waiting for her to get it all out before wiping the last tear from her cheek.
“I love you, Sam. I don’t want to be without you either. So, how do we fix this? We need to get that bitch out of our lives.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. She doesn’t use names. I communicate with her in person every month and via e-mail.”
“Okay, give me her e-mail. We can start with that. Maybe Jamie can figure out who she is. He’s been looking for months with no leads. It’s been driving him crazy.”
Sam lifts her cell phone from the desk, flips through her e-mails, and then scribbles the address onto a piece of paper for me. I shove it in my pocket, hoping her e-mail address holds the key to finding her.
“When are you meeting her again?”
She pushes her hands to her hips and sighs. “I’m not. She said, and I quote, ‘my services are no longer needed.’”
“Maybe she knows.”
Sam bites her bottom lip, thinking it over. “Maybe. Most of the information she shared on her blog didn’t come from me. I didn’t tell her about Jemma. She found that out on her own.”
“The pot brownies were all you, though.” I wink at her. “Thanks for that.”
She frowns. “Were they pot brownies? I was guessing.”
I nod. “Yeah. I was so hammered I didn’t even remember eating them.”
“You think Jamie can find her with just an e-mail address?”
“I hope so.”
“Is Jamie like a hacker or something?”
I smirk. “Or something.”
