Loving My SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 10) (14 page)

“Just head over.
We’ll all drop whatever we’re doing to see you.”

“Thanks. I’ll leave
now.”

“See you soon.”

I hang up, grab the
handle of my suitcase and take an elevator to the lobby. I smile at
the guards before making my way to the underground garage, and my
car. Once I’ve loaded up, I take one last look around. The garage
isn’t something I thought I’d miss, but for some reason, looking
around this space is making me want to cry. I can’t cry right now,
though. I need to go talk to my friends, and then see Matt. Those two
things are what I have to do in order to move forward with my life.
Hopefully, I can survive them both.

I drive to the parking
lot, where the guards recognize me and wave me through with a smile.
The C&C lobby guards do the same. It makes sense that no one has
been told that I’ve resigned yet, but it’s still weird to have
everyone greeting me like nothing happened. I make it to the
Foundation offices, and Alex comes around to hug me tight.

“Ainsley already told
us you were on the way up. Let me just take care of the phones, and
lock the door. Then we can go in.”

“Great,” I tell her
with more enthusiasm that I really feel.

I’m practically
tackled when we walk in. I’d seen everyone in the hospitals, and on
the plane, but everyone’s focus had been on Matt, including mine.
As I see them all now, the tears start to fall as I realize what I’ve
already put them through, and how they dropped everything to come for
me. If I thought I could go on living my life the way I have been,
I’d stay with them. Deep in my heart, I know that I can’t.

“Don’t cry, Rei.
You’re back with us now, and that’s all that matters,” Isa
says.

I shake my head. “I’m
not back. That’s why I wanted to talk to all of you at once.”

“No. Don’t do this.
Matt came for you, and almost died. You have to know how much he
loves you. He’s committed to showing you that from now on,”
Audrey tells me.

“I believe he loves
me, but it isn’t enough. I love all of you, but I need to start
living my life for me.”

“Is there any hope of
us changing your mind?” Faith asks me.

“No. I’m sorry, but
I have to leave.”

“Then lay it on us.
What are we going to do without you? I know you have a plan,” Jade
says to me.

“I do. I hate to take
Jane out of retirement, so the only other option we have is Alex.”

“I can’t,” she
says.

“With help, you can.
If you weren’t pregnant, Aud, I would ask you to step up. For right
now, I think Stella and Tegan can make the decisions, with Alex being
the public figure for a little while. I truly believe you could take
over for real, Alex, if you immerse yourself into the Society.”

“What about the front
desk?”

“I trust you all to
find the right person. Or take turns.” They all groan, while I
laugh. “I cannot believe we are all so scared of those damn
phones.”

“Why are you leaving,
this time?” Ellie asks.

“When I was growing
up, I only wanted one thing for myself. I wanted to become a nun.
That dream was taken from me, and so I just went along with Jane when
she offered me the Society. I
love
this place, and all we’ve done. I love all of you. But I missed out
on so much. In college, I studied everything I could that would make
me a better spy. I skipped the parties I was invited to, and other
than Matt, I skipped out on romance, too.”

“So you want to get
drunk, and kiss boys? It’s not a bad plan,” Stella says with a
smile.

“Honestly, yes. I
want to do those things. I also want to travel, and not for work. I
want to just walk down streets, and stop in shops. For fun. I
could’ve done all that, I guess, but I never really felt like I
could.”

“I never thought of
what you were going through. We’ve all taken breaks, and we’ve
all gone out and had our fun. Now that I think about it, you never
have. You went out with us, and took a few guys home, but thinking
back on everything, I think I understand,” Tegan tells me.

“Do you think you’ll
ever come back?” Darcy asks.

“Jane has left that
door open for me, but how could I do that? I can’t expect you guys
to let me just walk back in, and what? Be in charge again?”

“Hell yeah,”
Ainsley says.

“I second that, but
with a ‘fucking’ added in. So, fucking hell yeah, Rei,” Stella
tells me.

“Yep. We’ll all
cover for you for as long as it takes. If you decide that you can’t
come back, we’ll deal with that then,” Audrey tells me.

“It can be a
sabbatical for you. You know, like a year off. Or more, or less.
Whatever you need,” Isa says.

Alex nods. “That’s
perfect. I want to learn more about the Society, but I have fun being
at the front desk, and getting to pretend we’re just a Foundation.
It’s my own little secret spy gig.”

“You guys are the
best. The best friends a person could ever ask for. I’ll agree to
this on one condition. The public needs to think it’s permanent,
for two reasons. One, I may not come back. I want you all in my life
forever, but I need to figure out if I want the Society there, too.
And two, we need everyone to believe that Alex has the power, or they
will start to doubt all of you, and try to take advantage. I won’t
see the Society destroyed just so I can go off and have some fun.”

“This is about more
than you having fun,” Audrey reminds me. “I agree, though.
Everyone outside of our circle needs to believe this is real.”

“I can’t lie to
Zack,” Ainsley says.

“I don’t expect you
to. Tell the men in your lives, but your families, can’t know. It’s
not that I don’t trust them, but we can’t take a chance on
anything being said by accident. Also, the teams shouldn’t know.
We’ve already had one breach, and while I’d like to say it won’t
happen again, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“I agree,” Tegan
says. “We’re going to make you proud while you’re gone, and
live vicariously through all the pics you’re going to send us.”

“You always make me
proud. All of you, always. And yes, I’ll send pics.”

“What are you going
to do about Matt?” Darcy asks.

I look down at my
hands. My friends deserve the truth. “Because he almost died, Aiden
gave me a note from Matt. It had an email address and password. He
has apparently been writing emails to me for almost twelve years.
Things he couldn’t say to me in person, so he wrote them down.”

“That’s so
romantic,” Isa says.

“No. It’s bullshit.
Why didn’t he just tell you?” Stella asks.

“That’s how I feel.
I read so many of the emails, and they made me more and more upset.
If he really loved me so much, why couldn’t he trust me with his
secrets, and his love? I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“Reina, you don’t
mean that,” Ellie says. “Aiden feels bad about the emails, but he
thought they would make you happy.”

“Matt thinks that,
too. I’m going to go see him when I leave here.”

“It’s going to be
bad,” Jade tells me. “From what Nate has said and what Matt told
us before we got to Mexico, he really thinks you two can have a
future now that he’s ready to stop fighting his feelings.”

“We can’t. And
thank you, all of you, for coming for me.”

“Of course we came
for you. We’ll always come for you, Reina. Even if you’re not
working here. You call us, and we’ll come,” Audrey says.

“I love you all so
much.”

They tell me they love
me too, and we all cry some more. I know they understand why I have
to leave, and I understand why they want to think of it as temporary.
None of us want to lose each other, and we won’t. No matter what
happens, we’ll be together forever. Unlike Matt and I.

Reina

I take the elevator
down to the hospital wing. Kendrick is waiting for me at the nurse’s
station. I know he gets alerts when anyone is accessing his floor, so
I’m not surprised to see him.

“Hi Ken.”

“He’s in better
shape than he was two days ago, Reina, but he’s a long way from
being fully recovered.”

“I’m sorry, but
this conversation really can’t wait any longer.”

“He’s a good man,
Reina. A cocky, ridiculous man, but underneath it all, he’s one of
the best men I’ve ever met.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to
break his heart anyway, aren’t you?”

“He broke both of our
hearts a long time ago. It’s time for me to try and put mine back
together.”

“I’ll stay out here
as long as I can, but if I think he’s in physical danger—from
you, or what you say to him—I’ll have to intervene.”

“Understood.”

I walk past him, and
into Matt’s room. “What did Kendrick stop you for?”

“To try and convince
me not to come in here today.”

“I need you in here
with me. I’ve needed you every day,” he says, holding out his
hand.

“No. I can’t,
Matt.” He drops his hand, and looks at me, his eyes imploring me to
give him another chance. “I can’t go on like this. The divorce
papers are signed and it’s time for us both to move on with our
lives.”

“I burned those
fucking papers.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they were a
mistake. I want to be your husband, Reina. More than I want anything
else on this earth.”

“Maybe you could’ve
decided that before you blindsided me with the papers. Oh yeah,
that’s right, you made me think that you had decided it. You told
me you loved me, over and over again, and then you asked me to sign
the papers.”

“I never asked you to
sign them,” he says in a quiet voice.

“Really, we’re
going to get technical now? I walked into your damn office thinking
we could have lunch together, and talk about our future. You had that
little prick in there with you, and you’d signed the papers
already. I didn’t need it spelled out for me any more clearly.”

“He is a prick.”

I throw my hands up.
“That’s what you’re going to focus on? That one of your lawyers
is an asshole?”

“No. I shouldn’t
have signed. I was just…scared. I knew if I finally made everything
real, I’d have to tell you my secrets. And what if you left me when
you knew what I’d done?”

“That right there is
why we can never be together. You will never think I’m a good
enough person to look past what you’ve done in the past. I will
never be enough.”

“You’re more than
enough, Rei. That’s the problem.”

“No. If I was even
close to being enough, you would’ve told me about Aqeelah’s
husband.”

“We had only spent
two weeks together in person. I-I couldn’t tell you. I was too
ashamed.”

“So, what? You
decided that making me feel sexually inadequate and boring was
better?”

“Huh? What the ever
loving fuck are you talking about. I
never
said that.”

“No, you just told me
you wanted to see other people. I was eighteen, and you were my first
everything except for kissing. What did you imagine I would think?”

“Who? Who was your
first kiss?” he asks, his eyes blazing.

“It doesn’t
matter.”

“Who, Reina?”

“The man you emptied
two clips into.”

“I wasn’t the only
one keeping secrets. You pretended you were some proper rich girl who
had moved to the States for her father’s career. Why didn’t
you
tell
me
your secret?”

“Don’t try and turn
this on me. I kept my kidnapping from you for those two weeks, but I
was going to tell you when you came home on leave again. I wanted to
make sure what we had was real before I told you. When you sent the
email telling me you wanted to marry me, I knew it was, but I didn’t
want to tell you over email. I felt that was too impersonal of a way
to tell you about the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Or at
least what I thought was the worst thing. You, Matt Corrigan, have
been worse for me than anything else. And I blame myself for letting
you have that power over me.”

“You’re comparing
me to a fucking human trafficker? Saying I’m worse?” Matt asks,
his eyes wide.

“In life, no, the two
of you don’t even come close. When it comes to me, yes. You are far
worse. The fact that you can’t see it just illustrates the problems
between us.”

“We can get past
them. We always get past our fights.”

“This isn’t a
fight, Matt. This is the epic battle that determines the fate of the
war. It started when we came to Las Vegas, and it ended when I read
those emails. We lost the war. Both of us, because it was never
really me against you. It was us against your fear and my
insecurities. They beat us so easily that it’s like we weren’t
ever really fighting.”

“I still don’t get
why the emails didn’t make you feel better. All my love was in
there for you to see.”

“No. It was in there
for me to read. I didn’t see it. I only got to see the man who
would come to use my body when he needed it, but never let me have
his when I was in pain. I saw the women you’d flaunt at me the day
after I’d let you have me, because you wanted me to know that I
wasn’t special. I saw the man who called me ‘Princess’ over and
over again, because he wanted to make sure I knew I wasn’t enough.
I can take down a government without questioning myself, but with
you, I have always been that scared teenager who wants what she can
never have.”

“You have me. You’ve
always had me. Mi Reina Hermosa, I am yours.”

“Words. Such
beautiful words. Too bad it took you almost twelve years to use them
again.”

“I used them every
day in my mind,” he says, his eyes shining with tears that are
ready to fall.

“I wish I’d been
enough for you to say them out loud.”

“You keep saying
that, that you’re not enough. It couldn’t be farther from the
truth. My emails should’ve explained that to you.”