All Chapters of Decisions I made : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

I had just started correcting the last section of the report when my office phone rang.I barely looked up.“Lela.”“Hi, Ms. Moretti,” the security desk said. “You have a visitor down here.”I blinked and pulled the phone away from my ear for a second like maybe I’d heard them wrong.“A visitor?”“Yes, ma’am.”My stomach immediately did that little flip.Because there was only one person it could be.“Who is it?”There was a pause, and I could hear the smile in the guard’s voice before he even answered.“A gentleman named Jack. He says he has your dinner.”I laughed before I could stop myself.Of course he did.I looked around my office—papers everywhere, my laptop open, calculator on the desk, coffee cup half empty, heels kicked off under my chair—and suddenly felt a lot less miserable than I had thirty seconds earlier.“Send him up,” I said. “I’ll call down and have him signed in.”“Will do.”The second I hung up, I smiled like an idiot.Again.I called security back, gave them the

Jack stayed in my office while I finished the report.Not in a distracting way.Well… not too distracting.He sat across from my desk with his jacket draped over the back of the chair—thank God—and quietly worked his way through the rest of the fries while I fixed line items, rechecked totals, and waited for Ron to call me back with whatever fresh disaster he discovered.Every once in a while I would glance up and catch Jack watching me.Not in a weird way.Just… watching.Like he was trying to figure me out.Which honestly made me more self-conscious than if he’d been talking nonstop.After about twenty minutes, my office phone rang again.I froze.Jack raised one eyebrow.“Round two?”“Don’t.”I answered it anyway.It was Ron.And for once, the news wasn’t worse.Apparently Hannah had touched four reports total.Two of them were definitely wrong.One was questionable.And one, by some miracle, was fine.I pinched the bridge of my nose.“So what are we doing?”Ron sighed.“I’m pullin

By the time we got upstairs, I was running on fumes.My makeup felt heavy.My feet hurt.My brain was still half stuck in vendor reports and bad numbers and Hannah’s inevitable execution the next morning.I dropped my purse on the chair in the corner of my room and kicked off the last of whatever was left of my workday.Jack stood near the end of the bed, hands in his pockets, taking in the room the way people always did the first time they saw it. My room at my parents’ house never really felt temporary, even when I was trying to convince myself it was. It still looked like me—soft neutral colors, books stacked on the nightstand, a throw blanket at the end of the bed, framed photos on the dresser, and the television mounted on the wall opposite the bed that Dad insisted every room in the house needed.“I’m taking a shower,” I told him, already heading for the bathroom.Jack nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed like it was the most natural thing in the world.“Take your time.”I

For a second, nobody moved.Nobody spoke.The name just hung there in the middle of the foyer like smoke.Dugan.Uncle Carmen’s right-hand man.Not some random drunk.Not a burglar looking for jewelry.Not a kid trying door handles in the neighborhood.Dugan.I stared at Paul, waiting for him to laugh and say he was kidding.He didn’t.My mouth went dry.“What do you mean it’s Dugan?” I asked, even though I had heard him perfectly the first time.Paul’s jaw tightened.“I mean it’s Dugan.”“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Why would Dugan be here?”“That,” Paul said flatly, “is exactly what I’d like to know.”Belle was still pacing in circles around my legs, whining now instead of barking, like even she could feel the tension in the room. I bent down automatically and ran my hand over her head just to give myself something to do besides panic.Jack’s hand stayed at the small of my back.Quiet.Steady.Grounding.I looked up at my brother again.“Did he say anything?”Paul laughed once, b

For a second, nobody said anything.The silence was so complete I could hear the kitchen clock ticking over the refrigerator.Jack stayed perfectly still beside me.Not stiff.Not panicked.Just very, very still.I looked at Paul.“What do you mean he was asking about Jack?”Paul leaned back in the chair, exhaustion and irritation written all over his face.“I mean exactly what I said. Chris has been asking around about the guy you’ve been seeing.”My stomach dropped.“How does he even know I’m seeing someone?”Paul gave me a flat look.“Lela.”I stared back at him.“No. Seriously. How?”He folded his arms across his chest.“You think you’ve been hiding this?”I blinked.“Yes?”Jack actually laughed under his breath.I turned to glare at