Page 83 of Deadly Secrets
And oh shit.She knows. About which thing though?
Most likely someone in his family had filled her in on the details about Percy that he’d left out.
Only, even they didn’t know the real truth, and he prayed they never would.
I should just come clean. Tell her everything.
Except he couldn’t.
The case was sealed. Buried so deep, it would never see the light of day.
Unless he resurrected it.
Doing so would jeopardize several agents whose careers could be ruined if the truth ever got out.
Because they’d all put their faith in Percy and he’d betrayed them.
Now, their faith rested in Roman.
If he told Brooke the truth, the real story underneath all the lies and cover-ups, he would betray them all over again.
I’d be just as bad as my brother.
Yet, how could he not come clean to Brooke? She meant everything to him and she hated secrets. He should tell her. Get it all off his chest.
He needed to stall. Get her back to his place and figure out how much to reveal to make her feel she could trust him again.
Because she could trust him. The past and Percy had no bearing on his future with her, right? “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me what’s got you so upset?” He needed to deflect for now. “Was it my mom? One of my sisters? I told you they’d give you the third degree.”
She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Your family is wonderful. As a person who grew up the way I did, yours is pretty perfect.”
“It’s always appeared that way, but as the black sheep of the family, I can tell you, growing up in that household was far from perfect.”
“Felicity said you got into a lot of fights as a kid.”
“Dad always said it was the Irish blood in me. My temper used to run pretty hot all the time.”
“What were you fighting about?”
This was good. They were talking about him, not Percy. “Whatdidn’tI fight about? I was this scrawny kid with a learning disability, an older brother everyone loved, two younger sisters that stole the show everywhere they went, and I had a big chip on my shoulder about bullies. Which were prevalent in the overpriced private school my mother put all of us in.”
“You have a learning disability?”
“Dysgraphia. I have trouble putting things on paper, writing things down. Went undiagnosed during elementary and hit hard in middle school. Teachers thought I had a behavioral problem, I was misdiagnosed with ADD, the usual. Even when I knew an answer or understood a problem, if I had to write it out, I struggled. My parents thought it was laziness and puberty.”
“How did they figure it out?”
“My mother is a force of nature, so while Dad put me in boxing lessons to work out my frustrations, Mom took me to a dozen different experts. One of them finally figured it out and things got a little better after that. My therapist taught me strategies that gave me some control back.”
“They must have worked well since you went on to get your doctorate.”
“Spell checkers and speech recognition software saved my ass.”
“I’m sorry.” She reached over and touched his arm. “That must have been rough.”
“At least I got help. Some kids never do. They drop out of school, join gangs, end up on the streets.”
“Do you still struggle with it?”
