Chapter 28 #2
He stared at the guy Trent called Dalton. “I’ll give you five minutes, unless you’d like none like Trent?”
“Mr. Knight, I mean no disrespect like he did.”
“Don’t even look her way. You do, and you’ll be bleeding out like him. Use your five minutes wisely. They’ll determine whether you live or die after last night.” He turned to me. “I’ll be back soon. Darling, eat.”
Should I admit that I could have actually eaten and enjoyed the meal?
That what had happened in front of me was starting to feel normal, acceptable?
That the crawling, gut reaction to that man who had stood before us just seconds ago was completely eliminated by the man I was falling for, and I relished in it rather than feared it?
I sighed as I watched him walk away and took a bite of the food in front of me. Steak and mashed potatoes that melted in your mouth. I wasn’t hungry for food though.
“Well, the night’s about to take a turn.” Callahan sighed as he watched his brother go.
“Should we go talk with them?” Olive stood, like she was a bit concerned, and her husband stood with her.
“No. Because you know as well as I do that it’s not going to end well.”
She threw her napkin down. “Fine. Leave it to us women then.” She glanced at Pink. “You’re coming too.”
“Should I—”
“You stay here,” Callahan cut me off. “Enjoy yourself. You deserve it working for him lately. He’s … unsettled right now.”
I watched my friends hurry after Jameson, but I didn’t follow. Callahan was the brother of the enigma of a man I was falling for, and that meant I was going to pry as much information from him as I could now. I was past professional niceties. “How so?”
“He’s got you on that Ducati, right?” I nodded at his question. “And he only brings that out when he’s feeling reckless.”
“Not what I need to hear when I’m riding on the back of it.” I glared at him.
He chuckled. “You can hitch a ride back in the SUV tonight if you want.”
I hummed, knowing that Jameson would want me with him instead. “He feeling reckless because of what happened at the club and with Franny at the academy?”
Cal shrugged. “Maybe.” He thought about it as we watched people mill about. “But also he likes you. A lot more than he normally likes people.”
“Okay,” I responded slowly, not sure where he was going with this.
“I think you’re different from all this, Mia.
And he always wanted something a little different.
If not for himself, for Franny. His wife …
fuck, she was diabolical, strategic. I think he thought that even though their marriage was arranged, he could make her see that too.
But she definitely didn’t give him different. She belonged among us.”
Hearing his marriage was arranged had my heart twisting for him, for the love he didn’t get, for the way his life must have been planned out.
I sat there wondering for the first time if fitting in amongst the people in Paradise Grove mattered.
I’d found I didn’t fit in once or twice before and knew it was for the better. “And he didn’t want that?”
“No. Because sometimes belonging and fitting right in doesn’t balance out the damn group, right?
Sometimes you need the opposite. Someone sweet.
But also someone who’s real and who’s truthful.
Someone who sees past the Diamond name, if you know what I mean …
but now I think Jameson is probably considering whether or not he deserves that. ”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
He smiled sadly. “He doesn’t believe his hands are clean when it comes to his wife, Lex’s disappearance, or my father’s. Makes him just as bad as any Diamond in his eyes.”
“Why?” I was taking the opportunity to pry. How could I not when I was thinking of the man all day at this point?
“You’ll have to ask him, Mia.” He shrugged. “Now, come on, let’s dance before my brother comes back to act like your shadow again.”
Callahan stood and offered his hand. Chewing my cheek, I hesitated. “He won’t like it. Gave Archer a black eye for it already.”
“Ms. Darling, I can handle my brother.” He leaned closer. “Plus, if you stay here much longer, Valerie is bound to come bother you.”
And that had me up and out of my seat, grabbing his hand.
We moved between the tables and onto an empty dance floor, where the band continued the classical music.
And then he spun me way faster than I anticipated, and I gasped before a burst of laughter flew from my lips as he dipped me low. “Callahan, what the hell?”
“What? I’m here to dance, not sway.”
And we did dance for two or three more minutes, all around the floor, because Cal was so smooth with his lines I could barely keep up.
“You can waltz, teach, and survive a professional hit,” he whispered in my ear. “Should I steal you from him?”
I couldn’t help but smirk, but the joke between us died as I heard his voice behind me, cold, measured, and full of an edge. “You could try to steal her, brother, but I’d kill you for that.”
Callahan didn’t flinch or even look over my shoulder at his brother. He winked at me, his light-blue eyes dancing with mischief as he replied, “A death I might take chances on if she’d have me.”
“She won’t.” Jameson stepped between us as Callahan let my hand fall. “Go dance with someone else. I’m cutting in.”
“Jameson,” I chastised.
Callahan conceded to his brother easily as he backed away and said, “Come find me if he pisses you off too much.”
The low growl from Jameson’s chest and his arm locking firmly around my waist signaled I wouldn’t get much of a chance to do that.
Not that I wanted to. I would have had to ignore the shift in my body, the tingle against my skin as his hand brushed over the small of my back, the tightening of every muscle in anticipation for being against him again.
“You’re being rude to your brother.”
“Am I? Wasn’t he rude to me first?”
“How? He was a perfect gentleman. He sat with me, told me he’d even let me go back home in the SUV with him rather than on the bike. I’m starting to think I came here with the wrong brother—”
“Don’t make me kill another man this weekend, Darling. Especially not my brother.”
“Stop it, Jameson.” How bad was it that I believed he might actually commit that crime for me, and it sent shivers down my spine? “He asked me to dance so I didn’t have to sit there and be gawked at because I don’t belong.”
“You belong anywhere Franny and I are. He knows that. And he knows better than to touch what isn’t his.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.” The scruff of his five-o’clock shadow brushed against my cheek as he leaned close. “You’re mine, Mia Darling. And I’ll kill anyone who doesn’t respect that.”
“Your what, exactly?” I asked him. He hadn’t clarified, hadn’t told me this was exclusive, that he’d fuck only me, that he wanted only me. And from Valerie’s display, I wondered if he even considered it. “Your daughter’s teacher?”
“Among other things.”
I looked down, trying to hide how that made me feel, the flutters in my chest, the blush that was rising to my face, and that’s when I saw the blood on his shoes.
Still wet. Still fresh. My eyes whipped up to meet his and explain.
“It was just a dance with your brother. That’s all.
I’m sure you’ll dance with other women too, and that’s fine.
We’re not … Just because we had a moment of passion on the roof doesn’t mean you owe me more than that.
” But I wanted him to owe me more. I wanted to dive into whatever this was with him and explore it.
The thrill, the danger, the passion, all of it. I didn’t want to hesitate.
Not when I was ready.
“Is that all it was? A moment of passion?”
I answered truthfully. “I’m not sure.”
“And is it just moments of idle conversation you have with me through your day? At night? At the country club while you take care of Franny?”
“The country club is for your daughter. I’m on the job. That’s time you spend with her.”
“And the other moments?”
“It could be more if that’s what we want, or it could be just employee-and-boss discussions.”
“Well as your boss, and maybe more, darling devil, I don’t want you dancing with anyone else. I thought I made that clear with Archer.”
I sighed. “It’s only dancing.”
“And yet I’m dancing against you now and this feels like more than a dance.
It feels like I feel your nipples against my chest, the heat of your pussy wanting my cock.
” My breath caught at his words, and I swallowed down the desire that was starting to overtake my rationale.
“And now you’re licking your lips like you want me to kiss you and claim you in front of everyone here. ”
I did. But he couldn’t. We couldn’t. We weren’t official. We didn’t know where it was going. We needed to think logically. At least, I needed to. For the sake of my family, for the sake of Franny, for the sake of myself.
But then Jameson’s hand slid from the small of my back up to my neck, and he pulled me close. “Stop me if you aren’t ready, Mia. But I am.”
He gave me one moment. That’s all. And I murmured, “I’m ready.”
And then his lips were on mine, searing, possessive, ruthless in their claiming. He was unrestrained there in the middle of the dance floor, in front of the syndicate.
The line was drawn.
I was his for everyone to see, and every powerful person in Paradise Grove now knew it.
The question was whether or not he was mine and mine alone.