Dirty Little Secret(54)

For Alex, it had been like getting bashed over the head with a truckload of bricks; he could only imagine what seeing the proof of her father’s depravity had felt like to Sara Beth.

“So many women,” Sara Beth murmured. “They deserved better. Better than having their jobs depend on putting out. Better than having sexual harassment charges swept under the rug. I just can’t believe… What if it had been me? Would he have turned a blind eye on it then? Would he have actively helped a man who abused me?”

Wasn’t that what John had done all along? He hadn’t sexually abused Sara Beth, but he’d forced her into a marriage he didn’t really care if she wanted, attempted to control her life with bribes and demands, even to the point of pressuring her to have children whether she wanted them or not. The fact that John had both condoned the harassment and actively participated in it didn’t surprise Alex in the least.

Not that he’d say any of that to Sara Beth. He had a feeling she already knew it; she didn’t need to hear it.

Sara Beth finally turned and buried her face in his T-shirt. “Oh God, Alex, what if this doesn’t work?” She began to cry, and the sound of her sobs and the wetness of her tears on his skin tore his heart out.

“It will,” he whispered into her hair. It has to. The anger he’d fought all day rose to choke him. John had done this, and he had yet to pay. That was Alex’s responsibility—Sara Beth, Sam, and Cailin were his to protect, and he wasn’t about to fail them. John had a firestorm headed his way, and the satisfaction of bringing the trouble right back to his father-in-law’s lap was the only thing that could settle his rage over what they’d discovered today.

Sara Beth’s tears finally quieted to sniffles, then silence. When she finally spoke, she sounded more resigned than worried. “Were we wrong?”

“About what?”

“Getting married. Maybe there was something else, some way around it.”

“Why would you say that?”

Sara Beth shook her head. “I just can’t help thinking about the women they’ve hurt in the past two years. While I was feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t live openly with Sam, there were women who couldn’t even go to work without… I married you to protect these people, and it was all for nothing.”

“Not for nothing.” His chest ached. “Look at me, Sara Beth.” When she lifted her gaze to his, he said, “Hindsight is twenty-twenty; isn’t that what they say? You can’t fix what you didn’t know, didn’t even suspect. None of us did.” He smoothed her bangs out of her tearstained face. “We did what we knew to do under the circumstances.” He thought about something Cailin had said to him the other day. “And honestly, hard as it’s been…I would never have traded this time with you.” He cupped his hand around her cheek and kissed her, right there on the corner of her mouth, the place she’d dubbed “his spot.”

“You have given me so much, love,” he told her softly. “Made me a better man. I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for you.” He willed her to see the truth in his words.

The tiny smile that stretched her lips reached her eyes this time.

“We do what we can do, Sara Beth. That’s it. Let the chips fall where they may.”

He watched as acceptance settled on her, relaxing her body and the tight grooves around her eyes.

“Thanks, Alex.”

“Anytime.”

They lay for a long while, sharing the silence, until finally Sara Beth said, “What’s next?”

He knew she didn’t mean the company; they’d discussed that at length. If she meant personally… “We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, we will. Sam and Cailin have stuck it out this far; they aren’t going anywhere.”

Alex grunted his response.

Sara Beth looked at him. “What did that mean?”

“Nothing.”

Turning, she raised up on her elbow to face him. “Cailin’s not going anywhere, is she?”

I hope not. He wouldn’t know; he hadn’t asked her. Call him a coward, but he’d never asked a woman to marry him when there wasn’t a built-in guarantee that she’d accept. And Cailin had more reason than most not to commit after the pain her ex had put her through. Not even under the threat of torture would he have given away his uncertainty where she was concerned.

Apparently he didn’t have to. Sara Beth smacked his shoulder. “God, you are such a man!”

He looked down his nose at her. “What? I didn’t say anything.”