The skin around his glacial blue eyes pinches. “It’s important.Please.”
It takes every ounce of self-restraint I have not to ask, what’s so important? But if I didn’t snoop around at the doctor’s office, I sure as shit am not going to lower my standards with this prick.
“Not interested.”
“Look, it’s not about his condition. I’ve kept my mouth shut just like he asked me to. Learned my lesson there. I don’t need him punching me in the face again. It’s about something else.”
Rage burns in my chest. “Fuck off, Duporth,” I growl and spin around, storming through the front doors, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing my reaction.
I amlivid.
Not only has Jackson told me diddly fucking squat, but Ridge Duporth knows more than I do. What warped reality is this?
I have been nothing but kind and patient and accommodating to Jackson this whole time. The one,the only, thing I’ve ever asked for in return is that we’re honest with each other. No more lies. We made a deal. He shook on it. Willingly.
And so what does he do? He lies to me and tells Ridge the truth.
That’s it.
I’ve had it.
I’m going to track Jackson down and introduce him to a side of me he’s never seen before.
31
Jackson
“My office, now!” Maverick snarls, interrupting my conversation with Dale, one of my best stable hands, about what I’ve missed this morning.
“I should probably go,” I say to him.
“What did you do?” he asks in a conspiratorial whisper.
“This time, actually nothing.”
He chuckles dryly and claps me on my shoulder. “I’ll keep you in my prayers.”
I leave the rehabilitation pasture and make my way to the barn, counting the paces silently in my head. Once inside, I veer to the left, find the stair railing, and start climbing up to Maverick’s office, racking my brain for a reason as to why Maverick is so pissed off.
We’ve barely seen each other these past few weeks, so I can’t have done anything to upset him. If anything, I should be angry at him. Not exactly professional boss behavior to be ignoring your head handler, now is it?
But in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t change anything. We’ll deal with whatever bug crawled up his ass first, and then I’m going to do the two things I should have done a long time ago.
First, I’m going to tell him about my condition, and then I’m going to end things between us. My heart twists, but it’s the only fair thing to do.
The door to his office is open, so I make my way inside. A dark figure is pacing by the window, zipping from left to right, right to left.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, remembering there are two couches in the middle of the space, and make my way to them.
“You tell me.”
“What?”
“Guess who I ran into at Bunny’s?”
“Why were you at Bunny’s?” Don’t tell me he started drinking. Oh god, please don’t make me be the reason he’s drinking again.
“That’s not the point. I wasn’t there to drink. I needed some time to go over a few things.”
