Chapter Seven #2
Her mother-in-law nodded. "He offered me money once too.
Long before her. Before Harry and I married, Elim decided I wasn't the right kind of Caldwell wife.
He sat me down in that awful study and named a number he thought would make me disappear.
I threw it back at him. I had Harry. He was worth more than any number Elim could name, and I told the old man so. "
It should have been harder to imagine than it was, picturing Elim doing such a thing. He’d always been so courteous to Paige, but then again, she’d met his standards. “How could he do such a thing?”
“He always thought he was right in everything.” Her hands shook.
"I told Harry, and we cut off all contact. We eloped and lived without the money for years.” She paused a second, sounding almost sympathetic.
“I’ve long believed Laila got a similar offer and took it.
I don't blame her for it as much as I used to.
She was young and poor. Elim knew exactly which fear to press.
She took it though. She let Maddox believe for ten years that she'd sacrificed herself out of some tragic love, when the truth is she was bought, and she stayed bought. "
“That would explain why she didn’t come back to fight years sooner, while Elim was still alive, if it’s true. He would have revealed the truth.”
Jayne nodded. “Precisely.”
Paige set down her mug before she could spill it. Her grip wasn't steady, and she didn't try to hide it, because there was no one in this kitchen to perform for. "It’s just speculation though."
Jayne snorted. "Not anymore, dear. I saw a canceled check to Laila when I helped Maddox settle his estate." Jayne's certainty had no edge to it, only long experience. "I didn’t tell him because it seemed long in the past, but he needs to know now that she’s back.”
“It could have been a gift,” Paige said lamely, without believing a word of it.
Jayne, who’d always been even-tempered and cheerful, snorted again.
“He never gave. He bought, and he never once bought outright when he could buy on terms. He trapped her neatly by playing on her fears, getting her to leave, and keeping her gone because he could reveal the truth to Maddox with one canceled check.
It's the same structure he used on every deal of his life. I could draw it on a napkin."
"You’re sure Maddox doesn’t know?"
"I’m sure." Jayne's certainty was absolute. "If he knew, he'd have told me or maybe even you. He didn’t know three months ago, and she has no reason to enlighten him if she’s here to make a play for him.”
“She is,” said Paige firmly.”
His mother nodded her agreement. “My darling, idiot son thinks she left him because Elim forbade the relationship, and she was noble enough to obey. He built his whole understanding of love on that story. It's a lie, and he's been living inside it so long he mistook it for what love is."
Curiosity compelled her to ask, “How did you let him back into your life after what he tried to do to you and Harry?”
Jayne sighed quietly. "Harry got sick when Maddox was eight. It started as a stomach ache that never went away. Stage Four stomach cancer.” She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. “Harry wanted to give his father another chance, and how could I deny his dying request?”
Paige nodded.
“I have to admit, Elim was there for us at a time when we needed him.
Not financially, because we had built up a business of our own, but emotionally.
He was good with Harry and even better with Maddox.
When Harry died, Elim and I made a truce for the boy's sake, because a child needs a grandfather more than his mother needs to be right.”
“That was compassionate.”
Jayne shook her head. “It was foolish, but I didn’t realize just how much until recently.
I let Elim in. I let him teach Maddox how the world worked, how you close, acquire, and win.
I told myself the good in Harry would balance it, and I’d help keep Maddox centered.
Once Harry died, it was just Elim and the boy, with nothing left to soften it, and I watched my son turn into an instrument the old man could use to his benefit. "
Jayne kept the same even tone through all of it, and Paige almost wished she'd break instead. "When I realized what he was teaching my son, I tried to put a stop to it, but Maddox was almost fourteen by then. Maddox looked up to Elim. When it came to Laila, it was the first and only time I thought he might break free of his grandfather’s influence while Elim was still alive.”
“Instead, she disappeared.”
Jayne nodded. “She didn’t even explain to him why for a few years.
Then she saw him somewhere in Portugal six years ago and claimed Elim had forced her to leave.
Maddox didn’t talk to him for months, but he finally forgave Elim when he had his first heart attack.
” She scowled again. “He probably grew a heart for the first time in his life and sabotaged it just to manipulate my son.”
That made Paige sputter with a laugh that felt wrong but also cathartic. “After learning how Machiavellian they both are, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Jayne smiled for a moment before it dimmed.
“He pointed my boy at you, the same way he pointed him at every deal of his life, and God help me, it sounds exactly like something Elim would design.
" Her voice stayed level, but the hand on the table had curled.
"Maddox ran the play because it was the only play he was ever taught.
I've spent most of his life trying to decide how much of what he does is his fault and how much belongs to the man who raised him.
I still don't know, but I suspect I was too generous in thinking Elim was behind most of it. I blame myself for letting that man have any influence over my son while I was clouded with grief and coping.”
"Even if he was, that's not an excuse," Paige said gently but firmly. “He’s an adult who made his own decisions.”
“You’re right, and I’m not handing you an excuse.
” Jayne met her gaze. “I’m telling you the truth because you deserve to know everything.
What you do with it is yours. I’d never tell you to go back.
I’d never tell you to stay gone. I’m only telling you what happened, so that whatever you decide, you decide it knowing everything. ”
Paige thought about it. Part of her had wanted a villain she could hate without hesitation, a Maddox who'd chosen cruelty with his eyes open, because a clear villain was easy to leave.
What Jayne had told her was worse, and truer.
Elim had shaped Maddox into a weapon before Maddox was old enough to refuse.
Maddox had hurt her without ever deciding to, and he might not even own the tools to understand what he'd done. She’d been just another equation in the deal to him. If he’d thought about her feelings at all, he’d easily dismissed them as a negative entry on the balance sheet and moved on.
The truth made leaving sadder without making her want him back, and sadness was harder to stand on than anger.
Anger she could have ridden all the way to a divorce, righteous the whole way.
This was going to weigh on her longer and heavier.
"Why now?" Paige asked. "You've had this for years.
You could have taken it to your grave and let him keep his story. "
"His story is finally costing someone I love." Jayne looked directly at her. "I’ve tried to protect Maddox from being hurt again, but he needs to see the pain he’s caused and go through his own if he has any hope of ever changing."
Neither of them spoke for a moment. "Can I ask you something and have you tell me the truth, even if it's not the kind thing?"
Jayne nodded.
"Do you want me to go back to him?"
Jayne took her time considering. "I want my son to become a man worth going back to," she said at last. "That's a different thing, and it's the only version I'd wish on you.
What he is right now, no. What he could be, if he ever does the work of unlearning his grandfather, maybe.
That seems less likely to happen every year, and I'd never ask you to wait on a maybe. You've waited enough."
"Thank you.”
Jayne gave her a real smile. "Whatever happens between the two of you, I still consider you family."
“Likewise.” Paige held her hand for a moment across the table.
She left before the others came home. Paige walked her to the door and watched the car until it turned off the street, then went back into the kitchen alone.
Elim had bought Laila's departure. That didn’t surprise her.
Learning he’d trained his grandson to treat people as pieces in a plan no longer did either, though it still hurt.
The truth explained Maddox without forgiving him, and it certainly didn’t obligate her to try to reach out to him.
She still didn’t believe he had any interest in keeping her as his wife.
It was a pride and ego moment right now.
Soon enough, especially if she kept it low-key and didn’t try to drag their business into the limelight, he’d realize it was for the best. He’d reconcile it on his little balance sheet as the cost of doing business and move on with Laila, never knowing she’d accepted money to leave him.
Paige felt almost bad for him on that point, but it wasn’t her place to set him straight. It wasn’t her place to do anything for him any longer. That shouldn’t hurt as much as it still did, especially when she realized it had never been her place. He’d been playing a role, and she’d fallen for it.
She owed him exactly what he’d given her over two years.
Nothing.