Chapter 31
Jameson
I’D LOST CONTROL WITH her—succumbed to sleeping next to her, having feelings for her, exposing another weakness of mine.
And I didn’t even regret it when she looked over her shoulder at me and murmured, “It’s a good morning with you in my bed, I guess.”
“You guess, Darling? What would make you sure of it?”
She rolled her hips again. “I’m pretty sure that would make it perfect, even though we shouldn’t. It’s Monday. We both need to get ready for the day.”
I smiled at how groggy she still sounded, like waking up was a slow process that I wanted every part of.
She rolled to face me, the haze of sleep from the night before still in her eyes.
When she wiggled her hips, I gripped them immediately.
“Darling, you’re tempting me again. I’m finding I’m not good at restraint with you. ”
She chuckled but moved away and grabbed her pj’s to slide back on. “Were you ever good at restraint, Jameson? I don’t believe it.”
She stood there in her panties and tank, hands on her hips, with the sun streaming in from the window, and I realized with her I’d never be good at control.
With her, I’d probably lose it all the damn time.
And I craved losing it with her, for her, and because of her.
That revelation had me sharing more with her than I ever intended.
“Most of the time I am. I need control as a Diamond. Much more control than I had at our event the other night.”
She sat on the bed right next to me and folded her hands in her lap. “Why?”
“Because it’s better to act with strategy than emotion. To plan and execute rather than lash out or get lost in an emotion you can’t come back from.”
She hummed. “Sometimes embracing what you really feel is the only way to move forward though.”
“Maybe, but I should have more control with you. I enjoy you too much and don’t want to consider that you might run off,” I admitted, dragging a finger over her soft cheek.
She bit her lip and cautiously met my eyes to ask, “Might run off before our contract is up, you mean? Nervous you’ll lose me and Franny’s educational services early all because you aren’t planning ten steps ahead without emotion involved?
” Her question had my body tensing as if it wanted to refuse her words immediately.
We were past the contract. She had to know that by now. “You realize I am nervous to lose you, period, right?”
“Jameson …” She frowned, and I saw how the tension in her shoulders relaxed at my words. Then she reached out to weave our fingers together and whispered, “You won’t lose me or anyone who matters for showing them who you are. And if you do, they weren’t meant to have you in the first place.”
I chuckle. “Mia Darling, how I wish that were true.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Looking toward the ceiling, I wasn’t sure how to tell her, but the need to burned in my chest. “I married a woman who knew exactly who I was in the syndicate—all about me, Mia—and she abandoned us, walked away from her perfect daughter one sunny day when she was supposed to pick her up. My own wife left, and it’s because I didn’t give her what she wanted. ”
Her lips thinned, and then she jumped up to pace with her head down, her curls going back and forth as she shook her head.
“Whatever a couple is going through, Jameson, you don’t leave a child.
That’s on her. Not you.” She froze and then winced like it caused her physical pain. “Did she betray you and the syndicate?”
I waited to see if she would ask the next question. The one I wanted her to ask. Did I kill her? She should have. She should believe that I would have. She needed to see I had that darkness in me, that it festered and grew and didn’t make me a good man. “Don’t you have another question to ask me?”
“No.” She held my gaze. “I don’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know you wouldn’t have done that to your daughter.”
“So much blind faith in me, Darling.”
“It isn’t blind when I see how you love her every single day.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief that this woman had more trust in me than most of the syndicate. My mother had asked about the accident. My brother and father too. Everyone who was close to me considered it, and I didn’t blame them. But Mia’s heart was something different.
Something too good.
Too trusting.
And then she asked a question I didn’t expect. “Did you love her too? Your wife?” She looked away. “Cal told me it was an arranged marriage of sorts.”
Of course Cal had. Rubbing my eyes, I nodded, not even sure where to begin. “We married for the syndicate. She had the right family that strengthened our partnerships on the East Coast. It was mutually beneficial.”
“For you, or for the syndicate?”
“Well, we thought for everyone. She was beautiful, accommodating, and … strategic. I thought I loved her at first. Until I found out she loved power, money, and prestige much more than me. She wanted to save her family’s company over everything, putting all of us at risk.
I wouldn’t allow it. She relished the game, and I learned that with her I had to play it. ”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I waited for her to tell me about the history of the scandal within her family’s company.
They’d been doing things wrong since their inception.
She knew it, and all I needed was for her to be real with me.
She wasn’t. Instead, she tried to influence me to double down with her family, to risk the syndicate, to risk our family.
When I wouldn’t, she tried every type of manipulation.
Looking back, I’m not even sure her desire for having Fran was genuine.
” I tried not to wince as I said it out loud, but the betrayal still hit like a steel pipe to the gut.
I sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing the fine sheets to work out the wrinkles, to work out the flaws and the pain.
“Oh, God.” Mia sounded sickened by what I was telling her. “Jameson, I’m sorry.”
“Looking back, I see now how when Fran was born”—I let out a breath, heavy and jagged—“she barely would feed or hold her. She withheld love for my daughter when I withheld my influence for the sake of her family’s company.
And I hated her calculation and manipulation even as Franny loved her mother, because a daughter needs a mom.
She played the game to win … so I did too. ”
“How?” Mia asked, her voice soft now as she sat down on the bed.
I looked at her then, at the way she tucked her knees under her, at how she folded her hands into her lap as if she’d be patient, waiting for me to make her understand.
“I didn’t tell her plans for future partnerships or legislation. I let her go. So it seems I calculate and manipulate as much as her.”
“But, Jameson, that’s not true—”
“It is.” I stood, my voice sharp as I paced a few steps before turning back to her. “Do you know what I wanted to do the second I found out she hadn’t picked Franny up from preschool that day? I wanted to order to have her killed.”
“But you didn’t.” She rose from the bed, eyes trained on me. “That’s not on you.”
My chest was tight as I admitted, “Had that woman come back, I may have tried to kill her.”
I waited for her to recoil and flinch away.
I wanted her to see the truth, wanted her to know there was a monster in me she’d have to accept if she stuck around.
“I didn’t care that she left me, but leaving Franny …
My daughter won’t ever know she left of her own will, and it’s a betrayal I’ll never forgive Lex for. ”
“What happened to her?”
I told her the line I’d been given about my wife for years, not sure I could overwhelm her with the rest. “She got the life she wanted. Ran with Paolo’s cartels on the East Coast. He’d always wanted her, and she gave herself to him easily in hopes he could save her family’s company.
He didn’t, though, and some of his partners lost a lot of money.
Supposedly it was a car accident that killed her. ”
“Or an angry partner?” She’d pieced it together. Then she waved away her summary. “Either way, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not. I won’t ever tell Franny her mom abandoned her. She’ll only know she disappeared, and that will be on me in her eyes probably forever.”
Mia’s hand found my arm like she wanted to ground me, soothe me. “You? Why you?”
“Because I didn’t keep our family together.”
“You are here. You are her father. And a fantastic one at that. You smile when Fran ruins your freaking wingtips, for Christ’s sake.”
That earned the barest of a smile from me, but it was a sad one. “You had to tell me to be present.”
“Just because you needed a reminder as a parent doesn’t make you a bad one, Jameson. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I let the silence grow between us as I wrapped a hand around the back of Mia’s neck and pulled her to me so I could press my forehead to hers. “I don’t deserve you or Franny.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” she whispered. “Not anymore.”
“I didn’t give her mother what she wanted.”
She reeled back. “Oh please. What’s a mother?” She cleared her throat and tried to cover up her disgust. “Not someone who leaves their daughter for the prestige of a company, Jameson. Franny didn’t deserve that. I get that she was your wife and you were in love with her once—”
“I loved her for being the mother to my child. But Lex and I … well, it’s obvious we weren’t healthy.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Well, you’ve moved on to healthier things for you and Franny then …
minus some small incidents from the other night.
” This woman was standing in the middle of my estate in panties and messy hair, discussing my darkest secrets without running.
Without leaving. She was even trying to make light of it to make me feel better.
And the air in the room shifted to something brighter; my heart shifted along with it.
“What was so unhealthy?” I smirked, and she looked ready to stomp her foot.