84

84
Chapter 84

"So, Jonas, can you please just tell me the truth please... why haven't you told anyone my secret?" Jenna wanted to know. She fought back her tears as she looked up at Jonas, but the liquid spilt from her nose instead, which was even worse.

She sniffed and tried her best to focus on not bursting into tears in the middle of the office canteen. Luckily they were the only people about but she could hear the others milling about in the next room, busying themselves with their work tasks.

"What do you want me to say exactly?" Jonas pressured her after a moment's pause. He curled his lip and pointed at his nose, indicating for her to wipe her own. "There's no need to cry, I am not going to tell anyone... for now at least."

"You aren't?" Jenna said, then held her breath, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't she became so nervous her stomach hurt. She had been feeling that way a lot recently, especially at home.

Life with Kai had always been hard, but it was a lot harder now that they had a daughter together, trying to juggle life as a mum, doing a degree and now working.

She stared at Jonas, almost half wishing he would just scream it from the rooftops so she could just forget everything and curl up in a ball and cry.

'But you have to be strong for Lacie at least,' she told herself. 'The most important thing is to be a good mum, and that means sucking it all up and just surviving one day at a time.'

"What made you think you could just steal a job without having the proper certification?" he asked her, jutting his head out as he spoke to her. He seemed angered by her pathetic display of emotions.

Jenna looked to her left and then her right, making sure nobody else was in earshot. The small Asian guy who made the coffees was walking past with a fresh jug, but he didn't look up or make any indication that he had heard anything, just coughed and scratched his nose with his free hand.

After the guy whose name Jenna had not bothered to learn yet placed the coffee pot in its place under the filter machine and walked away, Jenna smiled at him and then turned back to a very smug-looking Jonas. He flashed one of his smug smiles and looked Jenna up and down knowingly.

"But there are going to be consequences," he told her. "My silence does not come for free and I suspect, from your expression on your face, that you have found yourself in situations like this before."

'Here we go again,' Jenna thought. She had had enough of blackmailers and freaks taking over her life so she knew the signs to look out for well enough by now.

After everything that had happened to her, you would think that she would know when to quit and give up, but these bullies always found a way of worming their way into her life.

"What do you want?" she asked. "Money?"

She hoped it was money, not that she had a lot to spare with Kai's business not making enough to make ends meet and Lacie's school fees piling up.

"Heh," Jonas scoffed. "You think I would be so boring as to ask for something like money? Look at my shoes for example. These cost what you make in a month."

Jenna did look at his shoes but saw nothing special in the polished Italian loafers. She shrugged. "Shoes are shoes."

"What kind of shoes does your scruffy husband wear?" he wanted to know.

"He wears trainers and workboots like most average guys," she answered honestly.

"Hah, you think of your husband as an average guy," Jonas chuckled. "Just a boring old average guy, eh?"

The way he was looking at her as if he had just cracked the Enigma code and uncovered some sordid secret was infuriating but Jenna help her tongue.

"I mean he's average as in he is a working guy. Not rich," she explained. There was nothing average about her guy but there was no need to tell this guy that much. After everything, Kai was still very much the guy she had met as a stepbrother and almost died for, as much as he annoyed her at times and made her life hard.

"I know all about your precious Kai," Jonas said with yet another one of his smug little grins.

Jenna felt her heart drop. The whole story of him being kidnapped and held prisoner had been printed, along with her own story of woe, but all the names had been changed for their protection.

"How do you know?" she asked, feeling sick on the inside.

"Oh I have my ways," he said and paused for effect.

Jenna waited for him to go on but he said nothing more.

"You read the story in the newspaper I guess?" she asked

"What story?" Jonas asked, straightening up his back. He tilted his head forward, staring directly into her eyes. "I was just fishing for information."

"Oh shit," Jenna muttered under her breath. "Nothing, it's nothing, can you please just forget I mentioned anything?"

The air in the room became warm and cloying as he considered her request.

She took off the black work jacket she had been wearing to look smart. She had bought a whole new wardrobe just for this job, not banking on anyone finding her out and firing her within the first week. The smart black shirt was laden with sweat, and she noticed a bad smell coming from her undershirt as she shuffled about from foot to foot on the spot.

"Heh, you look the part but you forgot to bathe, clearly," Jonas said wrinkling his nose at her in disgust for the second time. "You need to wear better deodorant if you are going to attempt to stay in this role, princess."

After laughing at her, a couple of people Jenna hadn't met yet walked into the room - a man and a woman dressed very smartly in suits. They had to be other designers or part of the sales team.

"This is Jackson and Anna," Jonas said, making a big fake smile. "Anna and Jackson, this is the lovely new thing in the design team."

"Oh well, we have heard great things about you," Jackson said, offering a hand.

Jenna shook it with her own, shaking and sweaty hard.

'Please don't say anything bad about me,' Jenna prayed silently.

"And there is something very important about Jenna that you all need to know," Jonas announced as everyone else gathered into the tea break room for their coffee.

"Jenna is a total..."