Page 42 of The Problem with Dating
I heard Echo take a deep breath and I knew she was going to expose the truth. I really didn’t think she needed to share something as painful and personal as what her ex had done to her, but she didn’t know Nate and Sayer the way I did. She thought they needed an explanation, but they really didn’t. Those two would back me in whatever I did, no questions asked. All this bullshit was just a high-intensity cocktail of adrenaline, confusion, and concern.
She looked over at my brothers and spilled her secrets. “Marco didn’t always keep his hands to himself,” she said, her voice clear and matter-of-fact.
Nathan and Sayer stopped in their tracks, and just stared at her. They were probably struggling with the same thing I had when I had first found out. Like me, they had no experience with domestic violence. They’d been raised to adore women, too.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nathan seethed. “Are you saying he…that he…”
Sayer’s reaction was worse. His voice was cold and dark and telling. “He hit you?”
Echo’s shoulders dropped, and she looked so tired all of a sudden. “It only happened twice-”
“It shouldn’t happenever,”Nathan snarled as he got to pacing again. “We should have let you kill the motherfucker.”
“It was three years ago-”
“I don’t give a fuck if it was three decades ago,” Sayer snapped. “If he ever comes near you again, it’ll be a race to see which one of us gets to him first.”
“You guys can’t just go around beating up people,” Echo screeched.
And in true Nathan fashion, he asked, “Why not? I got money to bail us out.”
Echo just stared at the man.
After a few seconds, she said, “You guys are crazy.”
“Yeah, well, once you officially meet Dad, you’ll see we never stood a fighting chance,” Sayer grumbled.
You could tell this heavy shit was exhausting everyone, so I told my brothers, “Me and Echo need to talk. Do you guys think you can-”
“Say no more,” Nathan jumped in. “I need to go home and love the fuck out of my wife, anyway.”
“No shit,” Sayer agreed. “Thank God Leta’s with Thomas.”
Then Echo’s eyes widened in surprise as both my brothers gave her a kiss on the top of her head before they walked out of her house. Since she already knew Nathan, she was probably more surprised by Sayer’s show of affection than Nathan’s, but she didn’t know that they knew what she meant to me.
Once the door closed behind them, I asked, “What did he want?”
“Gideon, do-”
“What in the fuck did he want, Echo?” I wasn’t in the mood. Our fight had put me in a sour fucking disposition, and the fight with her ex hadn’t really eased any of the tension I was feeling.
She just stared at me, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached out, grabbed her by her shirt, and yanked her towards me, until she was standing in between my legs. The stress, anger, and confusion in her eyes were almost my undoing.
Yep.
I was in love with this woman.
“What did he want, Echo,” I repeated.
She threw her head back, mumbled something about stubborn assholes, and then looked back at me. “I guess he was seeing someone, and…there was an altercation-his words, not mine-and she’s made a public claim,” she finally divulged. “As I told you that first night, he’s a city councilman unless he’s moved up, and he was concerned the press might come looking for me for dirty details about our divorce.”
What a motherfucker.
“And he wanted you to keep his secret?” I deduced.
Echo nodded. “Yeah. He wants me to stick to the story of irreconcilable differences. He doesn’t want me adding any credibility to his girlfriend’s story.”
I let out a dark laugh. “I should have killed the bastard.”
