Page 43 of Doctor Grump

At this, I felt Ian’s body tighten beside me. I glanced at him in confusion.

“Dishonorably discharged?” I asked. “What is he talking about?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Santiago said before continuing in an angry tone, “Apparently, your fiancé over here got discharged from the military for assaulting and beating up another female officer.”

18

IAN

The sneaky bastard.

I had enough training not to give any outward appearance that Santiago’s words had gotten to me. I wouldn’t give the asshole the satisfaction, although I was pretty sure he was very pleased with himself.

The truth was that I didn’t give a damn that Santiago had discovered my “dirty secret,” or so he thought. I wouldn’t have cared if he had announced it in front of the entire town…hadshenot been here. Because the only person’s opinion that mattered to me was Piper.

And I did not want her to think of me like that…to see me as that sort of person.

“What’s the matter, Graham?” Santiago poked, taking a step forward. “Cat got your tongue all of a sudden?”

“Santi, stop,” his wife said quietly, putting her hand on his chest. But then she glanced at me when I took a step forward, too, getting right in the mayor’s face.

“Ian.” I felt Piper grab my arm, but I didn’t look at her. “What’s he talking about?”

“Something of which he has no fucking clue.” My voice was a low growl that might have carried, but I didn’t give a damn. The mayor had pushed my only button, and right now, I wanted to forget that I was a civilized human being and go ham on him.

“I don’t have a clue, you say?” Santiago gave an irritating, know-it-all smirk. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I am not going to let one of my closest friends date a guy who abuses women.”

“Wait, Santiago.” Piper’s head swung between the two of us like a pendulum before finally settling on the mayor. “How do you know all this?”

“I had a pal of mine look into your friend over there.”

“Monty?”

Shit, it made sense that it was him, given Monty’s previous job as a PI. No wonder he had been incessantly questioning me all this time—the mayor probably put him up to it. They were friends, after all. Damn. I felt a vague sense of betrayal that the man I had come to consider a friend had been secretly investigating me the whole time.

“Nah,” Santiago said, ending that train of thought. “Monty refused to do it. I had another friend of mine run a background check on him, and that good, old dishonorable discharge popped up.”

“From the military.” It wasn’t a question, but there was a surprise in Piper’s tone nonetheless.

“Yes,” Santiago responded. “So, of course, I had to look into it further because, as an ex-Marine myself, I knew that couldn’t be a good thing. Thought maybe he got kicked out for some anger issues or refusal to follow orders, you know, something that’s fitting with his arrogant, temperamental ass. But as it turned out, it was even worse. He got discharged for trying to force himself on a female soldier and beating her and her boyfriend up afterward. Is that the type of man you want to be dating, Piper? Because it sure as hell isn’t the guy I want for you.”

I could feel Piper’s eyes on me now, but I refused to look at her, keeping my gaze on the mayor instead. Damn it. This wasn’t how I wanted her to find out. I had hoped she would never have to find out about the shit from the army.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Piper addressed the quiet question to me, but Santiago answered anyway.

“Because he’s a coward,” he said. “See? He does not even deny it."

It was a clear provocation to attack, and I saw right through it. Santiago wanted me to jump on him to prove to Piper that I was the violent maniac he painted me out to be. But he was shit out of luck because I wasn’t going to take the bait no matter how much he got under my skin.

Santiago glared at me, and I glared back. This wasn’t how I wanted to do this. It wasn’t necessarily that I was trying to hide my past, but I hadn’t wanted to reveal it like this. No, I hadn’t wanted to reveal it to her like this.

Because the truth is, I didn’t care that everyone else in the world had bought that story about me, but for some reason, I cared what Piper thought about me. And I didn’t want her to see me as what this fucking bastard was trying to tell her I was.

“Ian,” Piper said, her quiet voice penetrating the aggression palpitating between Santiago and me. “Do you have anything to say?”

I looked down at her. Surprisingly, her gaze was nonjudgemental, merely curious.

“Do you have anything you want to say about what Santiago said?” she asked again.

---