Page 69 of Brewing Up a Bad Boy

“I just... Ah, Poppy, I was a bigger dick than you can imagine. I was angry and blamed everyone for the fact that our marriage failed.”

“Including me?”

“You, the company, George, my parents. The fact that some of the people who worked under me were underperforming.”

“Oh, so everyone but you?”

“Exactly. One day I’m at work, and you posted about WiCKed Sisters and how good the shop was doing, and I saw red. I was sitting at my desk looking out over the Thames reading profitability numbers on our new tea ranges, and they weren’t great.”

“Were you jealous?”

Jealousy would have been preferable. Or maybe it was part of the mixture of things that drove him down the hall to the manager of product development after the CFO had sent an email outlining that the departments under Ali were underperforming.

He’d yanked that man out from behind his desk, put hands on an employee and let his rage fly. Screamed into the man’s face about how incompetent he was.

George had to pull me off of him.

Poppy’s gasp made him realize he’d been talking out loud.

“I was gone. I mean, not even thinking rationally. I apparently yelled at George, punched a massive hole in the wall and walked out of the office, giving everyone the finger as I left.”

“Alistair.”

Just his name. He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he stared down at Pickle on his lap, calmly petting the tiny dog, who snuggled closer to his stomach.

“I know. Obviously, there was no letting me go back to work. I was put on a permanent leave. I’ve apologized to Stephen, and George compensated him. He accepted my apology and, through his lawyer, suggested I start anger management.”

He leaned back, resting his head against the back of the couch, turning to look at her. Trying to see the effect his story had on her.

She watched him, waiting to hear the rest of it.

“I didn’t go to therapy until six months after the incident. I got really drunk or stoned every night, partying and getting into fights until I got arrested. Mum came and got me and took me to a rehab center.”

Her face fell even further.

He shut down for a moment, going to the place in his mind where he could block his feelings. He didn’t blame Poppy for her reaction. He’d already guessed that she would be disgusted by his actions. He was.

“I started seeing a therapist in rehab and have been in therapy ever since. Stephen and I had a dinner right before I reached out to you on the Tea Society. I finally realized how much of my own failings and flaws I was always taking out on everyone else.”

“Oh, Ali,” Poppy said, scooting over to sit next to him on the couch. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “I’m both sad and happy that you went through all of that. I wish you’d found your way to therapy without that incident.”

“Me too. But I don’t think I could have. It took a total meltdown. Stephen’s forgiveness was the first step to pushing me forward in my therapy. At first, I was doing it to get back to work, but the more sessions I went to, the more I realized that going back to Lancaster-Spencer wasn’t the answer.”

“What was the answer?”

“I still don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out who I am and where I fit in. I’m getting closer to it, but there is a part of me that wonders if I’ll ever really figure it out,” he admitted.

She put her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me.”

When he was raw and open with her, she couldn’t resist him. This was all she’d wanted from Ali from the beginning. To feel like he could be her soulmate. She hadn’t wanted to spend her life with a roommate she had sex with.

His honesty just now was almost painful.

She saw the torment on his face when he told her about his anger. The way he’d calmly kept petting Pickle assured her that the anger that had exploded out of him with Stephen was no longer an issue. Even Merle had witnessed Ali’s new sense of control at WiCKed Sisters, that first day he came back into her life.

This wasn’t like when they first met, when everything felt like a fairy tale. But it felt right.

Pickle hopped off his lap and headed to her bed in the corner next to the fireplace.

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