Page 56 of Secrets of the Past
Her eyes flashed, cold and hard.“I convinced you of nothing.You came to your senses.You realized what kind of girl she was, grasping, needy, willing to trap you if you were too blind to see it.”
The woman was delusional, her memory dulled by time and twisted to fit her own version of the truth.The reality was far different—he’d been abandoned on his college doorstep, a hollowed-out shell, a broken young man left to pick apart the ruins of what had happened, desperate to understand why his world had been ripped away.
The words sliced at old wounds, but Tripp didn’t let them show.“You can repeat your script all you want, Mother.It doesn’t change the truth.I loved her then.I love her now.”
Her composure cracked, the guise slipping to reveal the woman beneath.Her voice turned sharp, vulgar.“Love?”She spat out the word as if it were filth.“Don’t talk to me about love.Love is weakness.Love ruins men.What lasts is money, family, and the name you pass on to others.Do you really think that girl could carry our name with dignity?She’s trash, Tripp.She always was.And her family…really, son.Gutter trash.”
For a long moment, he just stared at her.He saw not the elegant society matron she wanted the world to see, but the truth beneath it: a woman who had built her life on control, who would poison anyone who threatened her grip on it.
“What happened to make you so cruel?”
She didn’t respond.
Slowly, he rose, pushing back his chair.His voice was steady and low, yet it carried.“Then you don’t want me around any longer.”
Her head snapped up.“What did you say?”
He leaned across the table, holding her gaze without flinching.“Because when Nicole and I get back together, and we will, we are not going to let family destroy us a second time.”
The chandelier hummed faintly overhead.Neither of them moved.
Finally, his mother scoffed, lifting her glass of wine as though dismissing him.
“You’re a fool, Dustin.Mark my words: that girl will be the end of you.Don’t expect me at your wedding.The birth of your first child or anything else.In fact, don’t think I won’t sell the law firm.”
Threats.More and more threats.He’d had enough.Time for it to end.
“All my life, you’ve been threatening me if I don’t do things your way.”Tripp straightened, adjusting his jacket.“Do it.Sell the firm.At least, I’ll finally be living my own life without your threats.”
He turned, walked across the polished floor, and left her sitting alone at her perfect table.
For the first time in twenty years, he didn’t look back.It felt good to call out her threats.After the trial, he’d see about his own law firm, one with Nicole.
“By the way, I’m moving out Saturday,” he said.
He heard her wine glass hit the floor.Damn, she was mad.Good.
Like any son, he loved his mother, but he loved Nicole more.Seeing her again, all the old feelings had returned like a tsunami crashing toward shore.
When this trial was over, they were going to be together.He expected the trial to end tomorrow, when he introduced new evidence.Evidence that had been right in front of him all along.Evidence that would spin this trial on its head.
Time to be a good lawyer, and then he could have Nicole back.
Chapter19
Nicole rose this morning with grit in her veins and a knot under her breastbone that refused to loosen.She’d known hard mornings, after heartbreak, after betrayal, after the kind of sleepless nights that left salt behind her eyes, but this one carried a different weight.
The conversation with Tripp still vibrated under her skin, a live wire she couldn’t ground.His voice, his conviction, the heat that had once been theirs, old embers flared as unwelcome light on everything she needed to keep in shadow.
Not here.Not now.
She smoothed her jacket, lifted her chin, and stepped into the arena of polished wood and fluorescent truth.
After the judge and jury were seated, she rose.
“Your honor, the prosecution rests.”She made herself sound steady, as if the past hadn’t just brushed the inside of her ribcage with cold fingers.
Judge Price nodded.The bailiff called the room to order.And then Tripp stood.
