Page 129 of The Deal with the Playboy

“Where is the video?”

“Are you eating well? Are you taking your vitamins every day? Do you need anything from me?”

She dusts off her blouse and my eyes zeros in on her huge tits, causing my mouth to water. Images of me titty-fucking her pops into my mind.

“Don’t concern yourself with what I’m doing, Jasper. Besides, I tried to trap you with a baby, remember?” she snaps.

Her words burn, but I deserve them. I deserve her wrath. I deserve everything she wants to throw at me, because I hurt the one person who loves me more than anything in this world.

I point to the desk. She acts like she’s not fazed by me, but I know deep down she still loves me. I’ll stick to the plan and wait for the right moment to grovel. I need to give her some time to cool off and I don’t want to stress her out any more than I already have.

“Can I sit behind the desk?” she asks.

I nod as I stand behind the executive chair and she flops down and wiggles the mouse. “What’s your password?”

“It’s our wedding anniversary and your first name.”

She glances at me in surprise before shaking her head. Poppy finally hits Play on the video and I watch the footage of my stepmother, Katie, pushing my mother’s head underwater as she struggles to fight her. I see a younger version of myself wandering in the backyard, looking for my mother, and Tommy walks from the boathouse and tells me to go back into the house. I couldn’t see Katie and my mother because they were behind the boathouse, and I ask Tommy where my mom was and he says she went to the store. Of course, the cops didn’t think to ask for recordings and camera footage because it wasn’t prevalent back then. So, this must have been recorded on a VCR recorder and then transferred to a drive.

It all makes sense now, why he paid Judy off to keep her mouth shut. He wasn’t protecting himself; he was protectingher, my stepmother. I knew Tommy was having an affair and cheating on my mother before she passed away, but this confirms it.

Poppy cuts the video off, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Jasper.”

She reaches for me but then quickly drops her arms, getting up from my desk chair. I hug her anyway, and she rubs my back as pure rage pools in my pupils. I want to go apeshit. I’m going to turn it in to the detectives who were working on my mother’s case, but first I need to make Tommy and Katie pay, because going to jail is not enough. If I go over there and confront them, they’re going to end up on stretchers, and I have so much to live for than to lose it all on that jackass.

If I would have just walked a little farther, I would have witnessed my mother’s death, but being a kid, I never thought Tommy would do something so fucking vile. He and Katie are going to pay.

I stand there, holding on to Poppy for dear life, inhaling her lavender scent, taking in the essence of her.

Poppy pulls away. “What are you going to do?” she asks, grabbing her jacket.

I don’t want her to go anywhere. I have missed my wife so much and I ruined it by being an idiot.

I run my fingers through my hair. “Turn it into the police.”

I promised Judy I was going to keep her name out of it, and I will. I just want to bury this motherfucker and his wife. I want to see them suffer. He clearly wanted my mother’s businesses and insurance money, otherwise why else did he let his now wife drown her?

“Well, I have to go.”

I nod. “How is the baby? Michael informed me you had a doctor’s appointment?”

“How di—” She shakes her head. “You’re still keeping tabs on me?”

“I want the mother of my child to be safe.”

“The same mother you don’t trust? The same mother you feel has trapped you with a baby, because it was her dream to have a child someday. And her selfish-ass husband won’t let her have said baby in peace because he’s too caught up in his own fucking head.” There is a bite in every word as she rolls her eyes. “The baby is fine, and I’m fine. I found out I’m two months pregnant.”

Shock washes over me. “T-two months pregnant?”

That can’t be possible, right? We only stopped using condoms a month ago, so it means it was around the time we first agreed to fuck each other, around the time the condom broke. She was taking her birth control, and I know because I checked for a week. Then I stopped checking.

I feel like an idiot.

So dumb.

I hurt my angel.

Fuck.

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