As soon as Karl was out of the door Van began to brew more coffee which she offered a cup to Jake and kept another for herself.
They both sat at the rickety old table and Van sipped her coffee as she watched Jake through the rim of her cup. He was looking everywhere but her clutching the cup in a death grip.
"Thank you for giving me a chance to explain." he said and this time he met her gaze. His voice was hoarse and tired.
"I want to hear the whole story." She told him and he managed a small nod.
"When I was six and Karen was just a baby my dad began to see someone else."
Van flinched as she could guess by now who that someone was. Hadn't she always known that her mom had been unfaithful to her dad there was a time when Van was sure she'd gone to be with her lover abandoning them, that was about the same time their lives began to fall apart and her father's health began to deteriorate.
However, she didn't interrupt Jake as he told his story.
"My dad would come home late or not at all and my mom would cry every night and they'd argue all the time. It was horrible."
Van agreed that it was horrible because now she could remember all those horrible arguments her parents always had, it wasn't something she could forget.
She remembered her father accusing her mom that she'd never really cared about him.
"My mom's health began to deteriorate, the doctors said she simply lost the will to live." Jake choked with emotion. "I found her dangling from a rope from her bedroom window. And then after that I made a promise that I would avenge her, that I would make the other woman suffer." Jake paused and gave Van a pained look not knowing if he should continue or not.
"Go on." Van encouraged him, her voice was surprisingly steady considering how much she wanted to explode right then.
"I hired a private investigator years later and I found out about Perla Wilkins, your mom,"
Van released a shaky breath she had no idea she'd been holding. "But when I found her at last she was already dead."
Van had a feeling she knew where this story was going after all but she didn't interrupt him even as the battle within her raged on.
"I realised that there was nothing I could do to a dead woman then it occurred to me that she had a daughter, you, and that's when I began to plan my revenge on the daughter of the woman who ruined my family."
Van didn't cry, on the contrary she was angry, no enraged was more like it. It was sheer willpower that stopped her from lunging at him across the table and strangling the effrontery in him so she let him continue.
"When I met you for the first time and you wouldn't give me the time of day I knew you were in dire need of money for your dad's operation and I knew then it was the only way to get to you and so I had this plan to sleep with you and then dump you but after I succeeded in doing just that I couldn't let you go." He held her gaze. "The feelings I was beginning to have for you warred with my desire to keep the promise I made to avenge my mom but in the end my feelings for you won. I love you Van more than life itself and I know that no amount of sorry in the world could erase the damage i've caused."
Jake looked so hurt and remorseful that for a moment he had Van thinking that everything else didn't matter but who was she kidding? She wouldn’t be that little fool anymore.