Lessons in SECRET (14 page)

“Home. My God, Isa.
Nothing has ever felt like coming home before you.”

“It’s the same for
me,” I tell him as I kiss him.

I shift my hips back
and forth, loving the slide of him inside of me. He groans before
taking over the work. We’re completely silent as he makes love to
me, going slow until both of us need more. As he speeds up, he moves
my hand between us.

“Touch yourself. I’m
getting close.”

I do it without
question, moving my fingers like I would if I was alone. It should
embarrass me, but it doesn’t. Everything he does to me, and with
me, makes me feel bold and desirable.

“I love this. I love
being inside of you, Isa. I’m just jealous of my cock right now
because I didn’t put my mouth on you first. I should have your
taste on my tongue right now.”

He goes back to
nibbling on my neck and collarbone as I use that boldness he infuses
in me to give him what he wants. I take my fingers from between us
and move them to his mouth. He pulls back to look at me as he sucks
my fingers into his mouth. His eyes close as he savors what I just
gave him and that’s all it takes. I come hard, harder than I think
I ever have.

He’s right behind me,
and when his head bangs on the desk next to my head, I know he’s
just as affected. We both lie there for a few minutes, breathing
hard. He slips out of me, but stays where he is. I rub his back as he
runs his fingers through my hair.

“Did that help, babe?
To erase whatever Ryan Griffin did to you?”

I stiffen in his arms,
because he just made real-life come back into this room. “I never
told you it was Ryan Griffin.”

* * *

Mason

Fuck. “Kurt told me.”

Isa pushes me off her.
“Don’t lie to me after what we just did. I know you’ve been
lying to me since the beginning, but not now. Please not now.”

She pulls her jeans up,
and crosses her arms over her chest. I don’t pull my pants up,
because I feel like she needs me to be a little vulnerable right now.
She needs to be in control of what is happening. And I need to own up
to what I can.

“What do you know?”

“I
know
that you were the one who sold me to the highest bidder. That despite
the fact that I believe you love me, you did that to me. Anything
could’ve happened to me, and yet you did it. You
sold
me to him.”

“I went to see him
yesterday. I wanted to kill him. He wouldn’t tell me what he did to
you. His wife and daughter were there, or I don’t know what I
would’ve done.”

“You-you went to see
Ryan?”

“Yes. Friday night
was the worst night of my life, Isa. I’ve had a lot of bad nights,
but nothing compared to that. I didn’t sleep, and I wanted to go up
to that room and get you. I knew I couldn’t, but I wanted to.
Thinking of him touching you…and whatever else he did. Tell me what
he did that we haven’t. I need to do it if you want, or do
something else to help erase it. Please. I need to know.”

“We did it Saturday.”

“Saturday? But we
just slept in your bed. Away from each other.”

“Yes. And that’s
what Ryan and I did.”

“He didn’t touch
you?”

“Well, he held my
hair when I threw up, and washed my face. After he told me you were
Kurt’s boss.”

What? Oh shit. She’s
been broken because of me. Because she knew. Which means she lied to
me, too. I’m a bastard for it after what I’ve been hiding, but I
call her on it anyway.

“You lied to me. You
said the other Griffins didn’t know.”

“Don’t you dare try
and turn this on me. You
sold
me. More than once since Kurt works for you. How is what I’m saying
not getting through to you? You can’t deflect the blame, or try to
pretty it up.”

Her movements are jerky
as she puts on her bra and shirt. I want to go to her, and hold her
again. But I can’t. I did what I had to do, but that doesn’t make
it right.

“I didn’t have a
choice. That doesn’t come anywhere close to excusing what I did,
but I need you to know that I had to do it all.”

“You’re the boss.”

“And I have a boss,
too.”

I shouldn’t tell her
that. It means she’ll know that this thing, this disgusting and
horrible thing, is bigger than she thought. But I need her to know
that I had to do what I did. What I’ve been doing.

“You chose your boss
over me.”

“I chose to live. But
yes, you should’ve come before that.”

I know that now. I know
that when the time comes, I’ll lay down my life before I let anyone
threaten hers. Without even blinking.

“You’re in danger?”
she asks, walking over to me and placing her hands on my chest.

“I’m always in
danger, Isa. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. But I know
what you’re asking, and the answer is yes. My boss would kill me
without a second thought. He’d kill you, too. And every one of
those girls who work for him.”

“You have to get
out.”

“I’m working on
it.”

“I’ll help.”

“No. Absolutely not.
You have a job to do. And that includes taking me down. I knew I was
sealing my fate when I went to Reina. I didn’t know the student I’d
been lusting after was really a sexy spy, but I knew I was going down
with the ship. I’ve accepted that.”

“You could testify
against him. Go into Witness Protection.”

“That was kind of the
plan…before.”

“Before?”

“Before I fell in
love for the first time in my life.”

“No, Jake. Don’t
sacrifice yourself for me.”

“I’m not trying to
do that. I
want
to
live. I want to marry you one day, and have kids. I want to grow old
with you by my side.”

“Then live. Please
live. Turn yourself in.”

“You’d leave
everything for me? Your job, and your friends? Never see your family
again? Because if I went into Witness Protection, that’s the only
way we could be together.”

“I…I…”

I place my fingers over
her mouth. “It’s okay, my beautiful Isabelle. I know you can’t.
Which is why I won’t go that route. Keep investigating. Bring me
down. Bring it all down because it’s ugly and horrible. Just let me
love you until then.”

“I’m not giving up
on you, but I can’t shield you. There has to be a way.”

“You let me worry
about that. You just worry about what you need to do. I’ll help you
however I can.”

“I want to decline
that offer, but I have to do what’s right. And shutting this thing
down is right. These young girls are being hurt, and I can’t put
them at any more risk than they are already in. Even Grace, who
thinks she wants it.”

“I know. And I’m
truly sorry that I’m a part of this. I wish I wasn’t.”

“How did you get
involved?”

I’ll tell her what I
can. “My mother’s friend is running the whole show. He caught me
at…a bad time. I should never have taken him up on his offer, but I
did.”

“Your mother can’t
help?”

“She’s trying.”

“You’ve never told
me about your parents. You know all about mine, but I know nothing
about yours.”

“When this is all
over, I’ll tell you everything. No matter how it goes.”

“I’ll visit you in
jail. Every day until you’re released.”

“No. I’ll take
every second I can get with you until that day, but once I’m in
jail, you will
not
visit me. You’re going to find someone who can give you everything,
and you’re going to love him with your whole heart, Isabelle
Carlton. Because that’s what you deserve, everything.”

“I already have
everything with you. There will never be anyone else, Jake. You’re
it. The one. I’ll wait for you.”

“You’re the one for
me, too. But I can’t ask you to do that. To wait.”

“You didn’t ask.”

I bend down and kiss
her because there’s nothing I can say that will be big enough for
what she’s offering me. I’m still not sure I’ll get out of this
alive, but if I do, I now have hope. Hope for a future with the woman
I love. Which means, I need to get out of this alive. There’s no
other option. If only it was all up to me.

Isa

I’m sitting in the
large conference room at the Foundation, waiting for everyone to
arrive. Maybe I should be talking to Reina and Maggie alone, but I
need everyone to know. And I need them to be okay with my choice to
stay with Jake. For real. I also want them to understand that I won’t
allow my feeling to jeopardize the mission, or stop me from taking
the man I love down. He knows it’s going to happen, and I know he’s
going to jail. We’ve accepted it, and now I just need everyone else
I care about to do the same.

As my friends start to
arrive, my nerves attempt to get the best of me. I tamp down my
worry. No matter what happens in here today, I’m going to follow my
heart,
and
my mind
for the first time in my life. I’m in love with a bad guy. I can’t
change that, and I won’t change who I am. But he doesn’t want me
to. He loves me the way I am, and that is what’s giving me the
courage to do what I have to. The room fills up and I stand to
address them all.

“Thanks for coming,
everyone. I know how busy you all are, and I appreciate you agreeing
to be here.”

“Of course we’re
here, Isa. We know you wouldn’t call us here if it wasn’t
important,” Audrey says. She just returned from her mission last
night, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet.

“It is. As you all
know, Mason Wells is Kurt’s boss in the prostitution ring.”

“Yeah. We know. Don’t
worry, Double G, we’re going to take care of him once it’s all
out in the open.”

“Thanks, Matt, but if
you lay one hand—or bullet—on him, I’m going to kill you
myself.”

“Isa? What’s going
on? I know I asked you to pretend until we could find out if this
went farther, but why are you threatening Matt?” Reina asks.

“Because I’m not
pretending. I love him. And he…he loves me. He knows I know, and
that I’m going to take him down, but he still loves me.”

“He’s lied about
everything. You can’t believe his lies. Especially if he knows.
He’s lying. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you don’t have much
experience being out in the field. He’s just using you. You have to
realize it, or it’s only going to hurt more.”

“Really, Reina? And
when have you spent time with him?”

“I-I haven’t.”

“That’s right. I
know I keep to myself and don’t go out with all of you, but that
doesn’t mean I’m completely clueless about the world.”

“I didn’t say
that.”

“Yes. You did. He’s
not lying. He told me not to wait for him, but I’m going to.”

“No, Isa,” Audrey
says.

“He does love her. At
least Ryan is sure he does,” Maggie says.

“Ryan? How would he
know?”

“During the infamous
‘auction,’ Ryan says that Mason was barely holding it together.
As the bids rose, he got pale and Ry was afraid he would pass out.
When Ryan won, Mason looked like he wanted to kill him. He had that
same look when he went to his house on Sunday to confront him about
what he did to make Isa so ‘broken.’ Ry told me that he honestly
thought he was going to have to fight for his life. While Chloe and
Erin were in the other room.”

“He’ll leave Ryan
alone. I told him nothing happened. Mason knows he’s the one who
broke me. He’s putting me back together now, though.”

“I need a little more
information, Isa. How did this all come about? Did you just tell him
you knew? Were you unable to keep pretending?” Jane asks me. Until
the wedding next month, she’s still in charge although Reina’s
taken over almost all of her duties already.

“I was pretending. It
wasn’t easy, but I was doing it. Even when he said things that left
it wide open for me to tell him I knew. But then we…we were
together in his classroom after school. After, he told me he hoped it
erased some of what Ryan did. He said his name, and I just couldn’t
let that go. I confronted him about how he knew it was Ryan.”

“What did he say?”
Reina asks.

“He told me he has a
boss, and that it’s a friend of his mother’s. He wouldn’t tell
me more about her, or the boss, but he said he’s trying to get
out.” The next part is hard, but I have to tell them. “He said
he’s thought about turning himself in, and Witness Protection, but
he knows I couldn’t leave all of you. And he can’t leave me. So
he’s prepared for us to take him down.”

“Whoa,” Nate says.

“Yeah. I know. I’m
not leaving him. I just have to tell you all that. I
will
see this through, and put him in jail. But I’ll
stand by him through the aftermath.”

“And we’ll stand by
you, Isa. Always,” Jade tells me.

“We haven’t made
that decision yet,” Reina reminds her.

“I have,” Ellie
says.

And then everyone
speaks up. Well, everyone except for the mentors and Reina. The other
agents, and the guys all pledge their support to me. And then I wait
for the ax to fall.

“You can do this?
You’ll take down the man you love?” Maggie asks me.

“Yes.”

“Then you have my
full support as well.”

Helen, Mallory, and
Cyndi also say that they’re with me. Reina and Jane share a look.
When Jane nods, Reina turns to smile at me. “Whatever you need is
yours, my friend. Please know that I am your friend, even if I have
to all be your boss sometimes. I also get caught up in my
own…problems from time to time. I promise to try and be a better
friend to all of you.”

“Thank you. For all
of what you said.”

“You’re welcome.
Now, if everyone could excuse us, I need to talk to Isa, Ellie,
Tegan, Ainsley, and Scott.”

“Don’t forget our
wedding meeting later,” Stella reminds her.