Chapter 17
Jameson
“SO YOU CAN’T SLEEP then?” The little devil of a darling jumped at hearing my voice.
Good.
It was better if she thought she had something to fear, although I had men and security in every part of this house to the point of overkill. Cal had given me an earful about it twice today, but I didn’t give a fuck.
I was watching her and Franny’s rooms constantly too. It’s how I knew she’d walked down here, and that was after I saw her give the hallway camera a one-finger salute. She was containing the fire and anger behind her composure, her formalities, and her professionalism.
Fuck, I was sick of it. It was starting to fester and infect and rot under my skin how much I was sick of her composure. I’d texted her tonight hoping she’d explode, but she hadn’t. All I got was a secret fuck-you gesture she didn’t think I’d ever see.
It was good enough for me to leave my bedroom, where I was up thinking about my meeting with Paolo anyway. I needed a distraction now. I needed her as my distraction, because she was the only one who could provide it. No one else got my attention the way she did.
When she turned finally, I almost groaned at seeing her low-cut top and soft pajama pants that stretched over her hips perfectly. But she sucked in a gasp and backed up against the counter as her eyes widened. “What are you wearing?”
I crossed my bare arms, shrugging. “What I wear to bed, Darling.”
“But … it’s not a suit. You don’t even have a shirt on.” Her eyes dragged down and then up my body, and I saw how she licked her lips.
She looked positively confused about it, and I held back a smile. “And sometimes I sleep without pants too.”
“You have tattoos everywhere,” she whispered, mostly to herself. Her gaze was hungry across my chest, and I let her look. Fuck, I wanted her to look.
“I like ink.” I leaned against the island, watching how her hands gripped the counter across from me. “Seems like you like it too.”
Finally, her brown eyes met mine quickly and widened. “Sorry. I just don’t normally see so much of it. It’s … good art.” She cleared her throat as I let her stutter around checking me out. But then she pointed behind her to where I’d rearranged the glasses. “Did you do this?”
No point in denying it. “Can’t have you trying to climb on the counter just because you can’t reach.”
She lifted a brow. “That the only reason?”
I should have lied, but we were already in this deep.
“No. I don’t want another man leaning over you to help you reach it either, Mia.” I knew my jaw was ticking.
“That part of protecting me too?” She mirrored my stance, crossing her arms as she leaned against her side of the counter.
“Among other things.”
“Like what? Archer is harmless.”
The trust she had in that man was infuriating. “Well, for one, it might not be Archer in the kitchen with you all the time, and you in those pajamas are—”
“If someone can’t handle my pajamas, that’s on them,” she snapped, her tone full of anger. Fierce. Real.
Fragile. Like she might have been hiding an emotion much more vulnerable under her lashing out.
“It is,” I answered in a measured tone. “And although I shouldn’t admit it, I’m oddly protective enough of you that they’ll pay dearly for their eyes wandering. I figured you’d want to save them from going blind, but in all honesty, it’d be their fault.”
Her mouth dropped open a little, and I got to see that pink tongue before she rolled her eyes and smirked a tiny bit. “Jameson, you wouldn’t—”
“Mia, I would,” I corrected her as I walked over and then caged her in with both hands on the sides of her hips, gripping the counter so I didn’t press my fingers into her waist again. Restraining myself after yesterday was near impossible.
What we had done was supposed to curb my enthusiasm to fuck her, but instead it had amplified it. The way she moaned my name, the way she spread her legs, the way her pussy dripped for me.
Fuck.
“No man is going to look at you like they want to fuck you in my house.”
“You can’t control a look.” She bit her lip. “Plus, I’m fine. I can take care of myself if I want to.”
“Does that mean you might not want to?”
“Depends.” One small shoulder lifted in a shrug, her answer quiet, honest.
My blood quickly turned from a simmer to a boil at thinking she’d let a man take advantage of her. “On what, exactly?”
Her eyes held fire and fight. She was mad about something, but I couldn’t figure out what.
“On if I want the guy looking or not. You don’t get to make all the rules for me just because I’m living here, you know?
Just because you’re my boss doesn’t mean you get to tell me how to dress or act in the middle of the night. ”
“This about my text?”
“No. It’s … You made it clear where the line is, Mr. Knight.
Not me. We relieved our distractions, but I’m still a girl.
Could be a girl who wants a guy looking at her for the summer too.
” She lifted a brow. “A man to look at me more than once when I grab a glass. And if you don’t like it, I’ve been made aware that you have more than one guesthouse on this property for me to stay—”
“You’re staying here.” I swear to God, she was going to kill me with her logical train of thought. “It’s where I have the most security and where I can keep an eye on you so you don’t run off.”
“Yeah, because I’m just going to up and leave Franny behind.” She scoffed. So easily, she dropped my daughter as a reason rather than the salary I promised her.
I closed my eyes at how it affected me. Her blind loyalty to my daughter was dangerous and na?ve, but damn if I didn’t love it.
It wasn’t my cock this time that was attracted to her, but something else.
Something shifted in my mind, in my heart.
Something I couldn’t control. I didn’t want to have to scramble to find a fucking fault in this woman in front of me.
She was supposed to mostly care about the money, and it was supposed to give me a reason to keep her at arm’s length.
“Well, I can’t be too careful after the show you gave me on the way here.” I reminded her and myself that she secretly was lashing out at me.
“The show?” She frowned. She thought I wasn’t watching.
I grasped her wrist and unfolded her middle finger from the fist she made, tracing it with my forefinger and thumb.
“I watch the cameras, Mia. If you wanted to say fuck you, you could have called or texted.”
“That—It—I meant that for Archer.”
“Archer’s harmless,” I mimicked her earlier phrase. “Were you mad I texted so late?”
“No.” Her eyes were now watching how I dragged my fingers up and down hers. Why did I need her to tell me so badly?
“Were you mad I inquired about your teaching?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“It was nothing.”
“Distracted on the job isn’t an option. Answer my question.”
Her eyes snapped up and held mine for a moment, ready to fight, but then she looked away as if conceding. I hated the disconnect.
“I’m just tired. It’s not every day your boss admits to being a Diamond, Jameson. And my sister is being … difficult. I do have a life outside of this, even if it appears to be a small, irrelevant one to you.” She chuckled, but it was forced.
I took a calming breath. Then another before I let go of her finger and dragged the back of my knuckles over her cheek.
Maybe it was my touch or that she was so tired, but her emotions brimmed on the edge of her eyes, tears glistening and ready to spill over.
My gut twisted. “Want to fly out to see her over the weekend? We can take the jet. Franny’s at her grandma’s like always. ”
She frowned at me as if I confused her. As if my offer was out of character. It was. She was a fucking employee, not my damn girlfriend or wife.
“No, but thank you. She’d kill me if I showed up unannounced. I just need the weekend to process everything. It will be fine.”
I reached behind her head and grabbed a glass for her. “You’re exactly right. Diamond or not, it changes nothing for you, Darling. You’re still teaching Franny, same as you always were, and I’m handling everything else.”
“But handled in what way?”
“Ask only questions you want answers to.”
She winced and glanced away like she wasn’t sure she liked imagining what that might mean. She hesitated and then sighed before saying, “I guess I’m retracting the question then.”
Her hesitation and the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes in that moment had me reconsidering if I wanted her fear.
If her fear was good like I’d first thought walking into that kitchen.
Of course I wanted her aware of dangers, but did she know she didn’t have to fear me?
I probably should have wanted her to, but did I really?
“Are you scared of me now that you know I’m a Diamond?”
She didn’t want to admit it, but I saw the hesitation, how her eyes danced away from mine as she muttered, “No.”
I slammed the glass down next to her, and she jumped against my body.
My heart fucking stuttered as she did. It gave me the answer to my question.
I should have relished in her fear. I’d been wanting it from the very beginning because I knew exactly what it meant. People listened to fear, and it gave me a power over her.
It was an easy way to control, to manage, and to direct a situation in the way I wanted it.
And yet, for the first time in a long time, I feared the fear I could instill.
“Fuck, baby.” I shook my head. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Right.” She rolled her lips between her teeth as she closed her eyes. “I know. I actually really believe that even though I probably shouldn’t, Jameson. Still, you belong in a world that you can do just that without repercussions, it seems. And I don’t think you’d even feel bad about it.”
“Feel bad about hurting you? I’d be fucking gutted, Mia.” I blurted it out without even thinking, but it was the truth. “Now, hurt someone for them coming after you or my daughter … I’d revel in that.”
“Maybe I’m scared for the others around us that piss you off, then.”
I nodded over and over again, trying not to care and shut off whatever I was feeling for her. “Right. As you should be.”
“Well, then …” She picked up the glass, accepting that wall I kept erecting between us, and turned to fill the cup before taking a long sip, letting me watch her swallow every drop of it.
Then she patted my chest. “Time for us to go to bed, I think. Franny is going to be up bright and early and will probably want to go on an adventure if that’s now allowed. ”
“Come to the country club with me tomorrow,” I blurted out. “We can do tennis and lunch again.”
“Um.” She frowned. Yep. I’d ripped the fucking wall back down myself. I couldn’t make up my damn mind. She frowned but begrudgingly said, “Of course. She likes to have you around if you can fit us into your schedule. She told me you used to go with her all the time.”
Suddenly, the need to explain bubbled out of me. “It’s not good for Franny to have me around much anymore. I’m the only parent she has left, so I have to do what’s right even when it’s hard.”
“Staying away from her is right?” She tilted her head, setting the glass down on the counter carefully, like she was thinking.
“You just reminded me that I can kill men, Mia.”
“And you argued that it was for your daughter.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“Maybe, but a daughter always needs her father to be there for her. You even more so since her mom isn’t.” Her voice almost shook as she said it. “Don’t step back and just blend in with the scenery, Jameson.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do … If something happens to me, I’m creating a space for her to be fine in. She won’t even miss me if—”
“She misses you now!” She shoved both hands into my chest. “She’s practically begging for time with you. The poor girl talked about you all day because she was happy you were finally there. And you’re what? Being a good martyr by keeping your distance in case someone tries to blow your head off?”
She waited for an answer, not at all scared now. Instead, disgust with me was etched in her features as I struggled to find the right answer.
“Oh, get a grip and man up. You’ve got security on every damn side of this house. Are you that weak?”
“Diamonds aren’t weak. Adamantem infractum manet.”
“Great. Exactly.” She rolled her eyes as if the whole society, the most powerful one in the fucking world, was stupid too. “Then teach your daughter that. For as long as you’re here. Whether it’s you dying tomorrow—”
“I won’t.” Did she think I was incompetent?
She threw up her hands. “Or in fifty years. Because a daughter needs her father. And I’ll be damned if while I’m working here, that little girl doesn’t get everything she needs.”
With that, she stomped away from me without a backward glance while I stared at her retreating the whole way.
I had a feeling she wouldn’t be damned, because she was going to get everything for Franny come hell or high water.
As for me, I was damned either way.
Because Mia Darling standing up to me even while scared but for my daughter was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.