Chapter 40
Mia
I HEARD THEIR VOICES on the other side of the wall as I pulled my duffel from the closet. He may have told me to stay, but I wasn’t listening to anyone anymore.
Instead, I was just listening to their damn conversation in his office.
He must not have cared at all if I heard. He had to know I could, and yet they argued viciously with a passion that only two people who loved each other could have.
“Did he make you do this, or did you come up with it yourself?” Jameson asked her like he was spitting vitriol.
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Jameson.” Her words slithered through me and sliced at my heart.
“Jealous?” Forget the vent, his bellow could be heard through the walls. “Do you even hear yourself? You think I’m jealous after years of you acting dead?”
“Don’t be dramatic. I did what I had to do, Jameson. You pushed me to it.”
“Pushed you? Had you asked, Lex, you would have known the plan all along was to build ties with the FDA and that import checks were inevitable. Instead, you packed up and left your daughter and your husband for a better partner.”
“My duty tied me to it. Think of my turmoil.”
“You left.”
“Yes, because you wouldn’t help Wilshire, Jameson! God, you sat there like a doormat while I was pregnant, and I had to conjure up the plan myself. I had to leave you and Franny for my parents’ company. I put in years of planning, and it would have worked if you hadn’t—”
“It never would have worked because your family’s business was embedded in a scandal so big they couldn’t get clean. They still aren’t.”
“So, help me. Help us. Paolo is willing to give you a cut. Think of the money you’ll make. Think of how happy we could all be.” My stomach rolled with her logic, with the idea she could get her family back so easily after leaving them for so long.
“You think I sat like a doormat? I fucking restrained myself from putting us in the line of fire by being a parent and dedicating myself to making the Diamonds what they are today.”
“Had I known this was your plan all along—”
“You didn’t, because you never confided in me about your fucking company, Lex. You never wanted a real relationship.”
“Well, I could now. That’s what I want now anyway. If this is what you were aiming for, Paolo and I—”
“Do you think I give a flying fuck about Paolo and you?”
“Fine. Act like you don’t, my love. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m back.
That we’re married. That Franny needs her mother, right?
I’ll be a good wife, and if you want me to stop seeing Paolo, I will.
Just let them have a warehouse or two a month.
It would make the Diamonds stronger and save my family’s company.
It’s really the only way at this point.” She sounded defeated.
“Why did you fake your own death, Lex? You thought if you were gone I’d partner with Paolo?”
Even I could hear that she shouldn’t have answered that question but she did, as if she were proud of it.
“Well, of course. I knew you were mad at me. I knew we’d gained a lot of enemies.
What better way to lose them than to get rid of myself?
It afforded Paolo the perfect opportunity to ask for help from you …
but you wouldn’t even meet with him. Not until the academy incident. ”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“Oh, Jameson. Don’t make me spell it out. I’ll come back to you if that’s what it takes. I could be so good to you and Franny. You understand?”
“I don’t want you fucking back after you ran to Paolo, Lex. I will never want you back.”
I heard her scoff as my stomach rolled. “Oh stop with the jealousy, Jameson.”
His growl of frustration had me leaning in closer to hear what he would respond with. “I don’t care about you and another man, Lex. I’ve said it time and time again.” His visceral anger was loud.
“And yet you’re yelling like you do.” She was right. I thought the same, thought that his anger was much too palpable for a man who didn’t care, who was apathetic.
“Because you can’t understand the concept that this isn’t about you or him.”
“No. It’s about us,” she told him. “I realize now that Paolo shouldn’t have sent those men to the academy to get Franny to prompt a meeting, Jameson, okay? I am sorry about that. We’ll make it up to you.”
My body ran cold at her admission, that the man she loved had actually been the one who’d orchestrated that shootout.
I heard a scuffle and then Jameson growl, “I should fucking kill you.”
“A gun to my head, Jameson?” She laughed. “Really? Go on then … Shoot the woman you know you love.”
And I waited to hear what he’d do, what he’d say, if he’d act.
“I can’t.” I heard his voice break, and something in me broke too.
I didn’t want him to pull the trigger, but she was right.
He still loved her, and that thought made me sick, so sick I couldn’t stay another second.
I ran from my room with my packed bag, even leaving my plants behind.
Yet, I halted in front of Franny’s door.
It crushed me to consider not saying goodbye to her.
How could I when we’d been through so much already?
When it was me and her against her dad, trying to get to the country club or trying to get a bunny?
When it was her and me in a crawlspace hiding, or her and me standing our ground after gluing jewels on her dad’s Rolex?
My hand reached for the knob, trembling.
But I didn’t touch it.
I couldn’t.
Franny came first. Always. And telling her I was leaving would have broken her. I touched the wood of the door and murmured, “I’m so sorry, Fran.”
But her door opened quietly and there she stood. A stoic frown on her face. “Are you leaving, Mia Darling?”
I knelt down beside her and pulled her in for a hug. “I have to for a little, okay? I need to think, but I promise I’ll come back, Fran.”
She sighed and pulled away from me before she pouted. “Somehow I know this is daddy’s fault. So, heart-in-pinkie promise, okay? You have to let him figure it out.”
I tried my best not to start crying then, gulping back the sobs building in my throat. I held out my pinkie and locked it in hers. “Heart-in pinkie-promise, Fran. Now, back to your room until morning, okay?”
She nodded and gave me another hug before she turned on her heel. I closed her door behind her, not wanting her to see my tears fall as I hurried down the hall to Archer’s post. “I need to leave, Archer. And you need to take me. Please. Take me somewhere he won’t find me.”
“Mia—” He was about to object.
“Please.” The sob that ripped through me was guttural, tangible, and so raw that I covered my mouth to try to muffle it. “Just for a few days. I need to get away from here and think.”
He exhaled like it hurt and warned me, “Only a few days.”
I nodded, tears streaming now as I patted Malek, who was whining next to me with his body pressed close. He knew as much as I did that something was very wrong.
That I didn’t belong for another second at the Knight Estate.
Archer had Xavier pull a car around, and then we disappeared into the night without a trace.