And maybe this shock wouldn’t have hit me so hard if I had only known the truth all along. If I had known what Jackson held over me, what he planned on doing.
“What was the deal?” I spin around.
Zach who nearly collides into me trying to keep up. “What do you mean?”
“With Jackson. He was blackmailing you, wasn’t he?”
The lump in Zach’s throat bobs up and down on a hard swallow. His cool eyes study me, trying to determine the best method of delivery for news I don’t really want to hear.
“Yes.”
“So what was the deal?” I ask again. “He gets the apprenticeship, and your name gets kept out of the papers?”
“Notmyname, Aly.” Zach shakes his head. “Yours.”
Right.
A lot of good that did either of us. Though it does make one thing perfectly clear. “So you admit this involved me somehow? But you didn’t think it necessary to include me in the decision?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. I figured I could handle it on my own.”
“Yes, well, we see how well that worked out.” He had plenty of opportunities to prepare me for this. What other secrets would he keep from me in the future, all for the sake of sparing me my feelings? “Why didn’t you tell me? Even afterward. Don’t you think this is something I deserve to know? To be prepared for in case something like this happens?”
Those horrible things. The awful ways they chose to describe me. I’ll never be able to get them out of my mind.
“Aly, I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”
“No. I don’t think you did.” My legs weaken as I stand here. I won’t be able to keep myself from collapsing for much longer. “You’re still trying to fix everything on your own when we’re supposed to be doing this as a team.”
He stays silent.
I’m getting nowhere arguing like this in the hallways of the administrative buildings. At least we’re in a wing of the building that is significantly less populated than others. Though I’m certain there are people who have crept closer to hear our conversation and add it to some hot gossip chain.
“I just need to be left alone for a while,” I hear myself say.
I need time away from him, time to sort out my life and what I want without all the distractions he brings.
It’s time to start over.
Even if that means leaving Zach behind.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zach
“So that Jackson kid got pulled out of my class today on stalking and blackmailing charges,” Derek says, without lifting his eyes from the blueprints in front of him. “You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”
“I think it’s technically extortion. Blackmailing has to be in writing.”
At that, he faces me, concern seeping out of every corner of his face. “Zach. Please, tell me you didn’t.”
“If I say ‘I didn’t,’ will you sleep easier?”
“They took the kid out in handcuffs.”
The corner of my lip twitches upward. Any amusement I get out of this is justified, I convince myself. The kid had it coming. I don’t intend to press charges for long, but at some point, he’ll have to learn that every dirty deed has a price. I learned that the hard way.
“He’ll be fine.” I wave off the concern in Derek’s face. The man worries too much. After all, Jackson was the one blackmailing me. Don’t I deserve any sort of retribution? “Most he’ll do is community service. I just want him to sweat a little. Get back my fifty grand.”