Page 27 of Just a Little Promise

They ate their dinner, enjoying the delicious Chilean sea bass, sauteed vegetables and rice pilaf, and when they were done and she sat back with a satisfied and content sigh, Tripp decided it was time to broach the subject of her ex-husband.

He hated to shatter the tranquility of the evening, but the conversation was just too important for him to let it go any longer. If he and Skye were going to embark on parenthood together, then he needed to know that she, and any child they had together, were always safe and protected, and he couldn’t do that without knowing what he was dealing with when it came to Jack.

As if instinctively sensing a shift in the air, she glanced across the table at him. Holding her gaze, he softly, carefully said, “You know I have to ask about Jack.”

She visibly stiffened. “No, you really don’t. I don’t want to talk about my ex.”

He’d expected that immediate guarded response. He also recognized the stubborn tilt of her chin and knew he was taking a huge risk of fucking up this entire weekend by pressing the issue. But he also knew, after witnessing her gut-wrenching reaction to Jack’s passive-aggressive tactic,nothaving this discussion wasn’t an option for him. Not any longer.

“Sweetheart, I’m not giving you a choice.” He kept his tone calm and gentle, despite his resolute words.

Her lips pursed, and she stared at him almost angrily, as if that defense mechanism would dissuade him, which it didn’t.

Instead, he pushed forward. “I’m not asking about your past with your ex to be invasive. I’m asking because as the man who is going to father a child with you, and be a part of your life, I need to know what happened with Jack and what he’s capable of. The fact that he can still rattle you so badly just by sending you a drawing is a cause for concern.”

“And that’s exactly why he did it. To rattle me,” she said bitterly, her fingers gripping the stem of her champagne flute way too tight.

He nodded in understanding, and when she didn’t offer anything more, he persisted, trying a different approach. “I know this isn’t a conversation you want to have, but it would mean everything to me if you would trust me with what happened. I need to know, Skye, because like you told me that first night at the bar, you’re not the same girl you once were.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she turned her head, looking back at the city skyline.

She looked so vulnerable, and his chest tightened at the knowledge that if he’d never ended things with her back then, he could have saved her the pain and misery she’d gone through with Jack. His choices had changed a part of her life and future, and not for the better as he’d thought it would.

Reaching across the table, he took her hand in his, and while she let him touch her, she didn’t glance back at him yet. Which was okay, because he knew she was listening.

“I would doanythingto go back in time and do things differently with you,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse with his own emotions. “But I don’t have that choice and that’s my regret to live with. But I do have the ability to be the best version of myself for you now, in whatever capacity you need. All I ask is that you open up and trust me because the last thing I would ever do is hurt you in any way. You have to know that.”

She nodded and finally met his gaze, the lingering pain in the depths of her eyes feeling like a knife to his heart. “I do know that.”

Her assurance relieved him and he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “And with us potentially co-parenting a child together, I don’t want any secrets between us. I don’t want to be blind-sided by something your ex might be capable of doing.”

He watched as she swallowed hard and seemingly gathered her thoughts but didn’t speak immediately. He waited patiently, because that’s what she needed from him—his patience—and he was more than willing to give her the time she needed to dredge up what had to be traumatic memories and share them with him.

After a few long minutes passed, she finally pulled her hand from his, exhaled a deep breath, and spoke. “When I first met Jack, everything between us was great. Honestly, from our first date he said and did all the right things and swept me off my feet, and I was stupid enough to fall for his confidence and attention and the charismatic man he pretended to be, which I now know was nothing more than a lie.”

Her eyes flashed with resentment and contempt over the other man’s deceit. “I can look back with a clear mind and admit that I was hurting from our breakup, that I was incredibly vulnerable and so it was easy for me to get caught up in Jack’s charming persona. I didn’t see his attentiveness as obsessive and controlling at the time because he’d couch his actions as being romantic. And our courtship was a whirlwind. Within six months we were engaged, by a year we were married... and that’s when he started showing his true character.”

Tripp hands balled into fists on his thighs. He found listening to her story difficult because of his rage toward Jack that was already simmering beneath the surface. The man was clearly a master of manipulation, and Tripp could easily understand how a woman as sweet and guileless as Skye had been back then would have taken Jack at face value.

Now that he’d managed to get Skye to open up to him, it was as though she couldn’t stop the outpouring of pain, as if sharing all the heartbreak and disillusionment of her marriage was like a cathartic release for her. She continued talking while he listened, painting a horrific picture of what her life had been like as Jack’s wife. Certainly not the kind of fairytale she’d no doubt envisioned.

He learned how Jack had systematically isolated her from friends and family and how she’d made excuses for his behavior, while also pretending to those same people that she was happy in the marriage when she’d been completely miserable. How he’d stripped her of her self-worth and confidence, destroyed her resistance and morale, and how nothing she did was ever good enough for him.

In a pained voice, she told Tripp how she’d lived in a fog of uncertainty and self-doubt, and how he’d undermined her emotions as a way to invalidate her reality of a situation and question her own sanity. He constantly criticized her, accused her of being too sensitive, and made her feel insignificant. And when she tried to confront him on an issue, he’d twist things around and left her feeling as though she was the one at fault.

His heart nearly broke when she revealed that her life for two years consisted of living with anxiety and frequent panic attacks.

Everything she told Tripp pointed to classic signs of being gaslit, of Jack eroding her self-esteem to gain power and control over her. Skye was a smart woman, but she was also very trusting, and Jack had violated that gift in a way that was extreme and inexcusable.

Skye paused for a moment, staring off in the distance, her expression still lost in the past before she shifted her gaze back to Tripp and continued. “The second year into our marriage, Jack thought we were trying for a baby—at his insistence, not mine. As much as I wanted one, I knew I couldn’t bring a child into our toxic relationship so I hid my birth control and kept taking it. Of course he blamed me for not being able to get pregnant and made me feel inadequate as a woman. At that point, I knew I had to get out of the marriage, but I was scared and didn’t know how to leave him because he’d threatened me with bodily harm if I tried.”

She shuddered at the horrible recollection, and it was all that Tripp could do to sit across from her and suppress his rage. “What made you finally leave him?” he asked, keeping his tone as neutral as possible.

As soon as she absently lifted her hand and touched her fingers to her cheek, Tripp’s entire body tensed because he knew what had happened before she even spoke, that her ex had crossed the ultimate, unforgiveable, and reprehensible line. Still, Tripp braced himself for the details.

“I discovered he was having an affair,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I had undeniable proof, so I confronted him, and he didn’t like the fact that I wouldn’t back down. I didn’t cower from his intimidating tactics. I told him I wanted a divorce, and that’s when he shoved me against the wall and punched me in the face. It was the first time he’d ever hit me. The first timeanyonehad ever hit me.” She pulled in a deep breath. “I’d stayed with him through everything else but I knew that hit wouldn’t be the last. So, the next day, while he was out of the house, I packed up my things, called my brother, Spencer, to come and get me, and left for good.”

She’d lifted her chin, showing him that while her ex had tried to break her, he hadn’t succeeded. Her spirit might have been temporarily damaged, but she was no longer broken. She’d survived the abuse and persevered, even if the asshole had left her beautiful heart battered and bruised in the process.

---