Chapter 41
Jameson
The flight to the Winnipeg airport and the almost two-hour drive to Crooks Creek is fucking murder.
As in I spend most of the time talking myself down from murdering Troy Duchamp the moment I meet him.
It was a weirdly hard decision, getting on the plane. Every instinct I had told me to go after Megan, and fast. But I was torn.
What if she didn’t want me to? What if going after her just made it worse?
What if I broke her ex-boyfriend’s face and she hated me for it?
What if, in some small part of her, she was still in love with him?
I’m my panic, I’d called every one of my brothers, even Harlan, and gotten a roundup of the world’s worst advice.
Graysen: Tell her she needs to be back in two days. And stay away from cameras.
Damian: Just let her go, and see if she comes back.
Harlan: If she doesn’t stay put like she’s told, just tie her to the bed.
Yeah, thanks.
But then I called Cole and he nailed it.
Call me the second you know she’s okay, and if he’s not in a coma yet, I’ll come put him in one.
That sounded like a plan to me.
I know Troy has been calling Megan, messaging her, trying to reach her ever since she left him. Trying to guilt her into coming back to him. More so, ever since our love story hit the media.
I know everything there is to know about the piece of shit.
The day I first proposed to Megan, I’d ordered a complete background check on him. And I’d kept tabs on him ever since, because I knew he wasn’t done with her.
Narcissists don’t give up easily if they still think they can suck some more attention out of you.
It’s called narcissistic supply, and Megan was his for a decade.
He won’t give her up, unless he’s found someone else to fulfill his needs as well as she can.
Clearly, he hasn’t yet.
That part is understandable. Megan would be impossible to replace.
But he’ll move on soon enough.
It’s a common practice of narcissists to keep other potential sources of supply in the wings, primed and ready, just in case.
Like whoever he’d cheated on her with.
I know this because I read up on narcissism and even consulted with a top expert in the field after I found out Megan had been manipulated by and emotionally abused by one for years. I also know she was raised by a struggling single mom, abandoned by a narcissistic father who loved only the prospect of his son’s success and invested nothing in his daughter’s life other than the meager support payments he was required to cough up. Cole told me enough to make me despise the man, when I’ve never even met him.
But her ex-boyfriend is worse.
He’d preyed on her goodness, her vulnerability, her need to be loved. He’d taken advantage of the kind, giving person she was, for years.
The fact that he’d somehow gotten his hooks into her today, convinced her with whatever lies that she needed to race home, was unconscionable.
The man was garbage.
He had her so upset that she’d somehow given Rurik, who drove her to Nicole’s and was waiting for her outside, the slip. And hopped on a plane to rush here.
For him.
He probably told her he was dying or something.
The fucking con artist.
She must know this guy is Mr. Wrong. Mr. Fucked-in-the-Head.
She’d never go back to him, would she?
When Locke pulls our rented car up in front of Megan’s mom’s house, I’m out the door so fast, Rurik has to run to follow me.
There’s a truck outside, and I know it’s Troy’s.
“I just want you to leave, Troy! How many times do I have to say it?”
I hear Megan yelling from inside the house, and the rage that crashes through me is blinding as I push my way inside. I barely know how I got there.
What if he put his hands on her?
“Calm,” I hear Locke mutter from somewhere behind me. He and Rurik are both on my heels.
We all pile into the living room to find Megan and her ex-boyfriend facing off. I’m so fucking relieved to see they’re not touching. That they stand several feet apart, and Megan isn’t crying.
She’s just telling him to leave.
They both look at us in shock. The dog sitting at Megan’s feet startles, pops to its feet, and starts barking at Megan’s ex.
Megan gives the dog a hand signal and says calmly, “Quiet,” and the dog stops barking. “Now sit.” The dog sits.
“Megan.” I stand there, panting, and her attention moves from the dog to me. Warmth explodes in my chest when our eyes connect.
“Who the fuck is this?” Troy demands.
“Jameson,” she breathes.
When I force myself to look at her ex, his face is going pale, and I can tell he knows exactly who this is.
I take stock. He’s thinner than me, dressed in a plaid shirt and work jeans, kind of ruggedly handsome in a blue-collar sort of way, and I hate him instantly.
No, I hated him the moment Cole first told me about him. Even before I loved Megan.
“We’re kind of in the middle of something, man.” His voice wavers a little as he takes in the men behind me.
“No. You aren’t.” I seethe. “Megan just asked you to leave. So. You back away from my wife and get the fuck out of her mother’s house. I’ll give you thirty seconds to comply. Then I beat your ass.”
I’m already yanking off my tie, and he looks scared. But also outraged.
His ego deplores this.
“You want to make it a fair fight,” I tell him, “I’ll have the other guys step outside while I stomp your head in.”
It still wouldn’t be a fair fight. I have fifty pounds and a few inches on him.
He glares at me like he’d prefer I go flush my head down a toilet, but swallows.
Then he glares at Megan again.
“Don’t look at her. Don’t say another fucking word. Just start walking. Or should I tell her about the other women you slept with behind her back?”
After a long, tense thirteen seconds—I count, mostly to keep my cool—he finally starts walking, stiffly, like he’s on death row and this is the end.
Maybe it’s the way Locke and Rurik are watching him from the doorway.
He passes between them in silence. The dog pops to its feet again, watching Troy go, anxious.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Megan, my adrenaline still pumping.
I vaguely notice her mouth is open, but she doesn’t say anything.
Locke gives me a warning look as I follow Troy outside. In the driveway, I grab him by the back of his shirt and spin him around, pushing him up against his truck.
“Listen, asshole,” I growl in his face, low enough so only he can hear. “You don’t speak to her again. You don’t reach out to her in any way. You’re done with her now, just like she was done with you when she left you. You try to contact her again, I send a lawyer to deal with you next time and you will not like my terms.”
I shove him away from me like the trash he is and take a step back before the urge to hit him becomes too strong to resist.
I won’t risk that. I don’t think Megan would want me to.
“Now, get in the truck you bought with the money you stole from her, you piece of shit, and get the fuck off this property before I have you arrested.”
He tears open the door and climbs in. “Fuck you, man,” he grumbles before he slams the door. Then he backs out of the driveway and tears up the street.
Fucking coward.
Locke squeezes my shoulder.
“How did I do?” I mutter.
Then I fold forward, hands on my knees. It’s strangely exhausting fighting back the urge to strangle someone to death for hours on end.
Who knew.
“Not bad,” Locke says. “I would’ve run him over accidentally with the truck myself. But we all have our methods.”
He’s trying to ease the tension, so I grunt a laugh.
When I finally catch my breath, I realize Megan is standing in the entrance of the house, watching, the dog at her feet. The dog starts barking again, at me this time. Megan turns and disappears into the dark of the living room with the dog, and the dog quiets again.
I follow her inside and catch her arm, turning her to face me. “Are you okay? He didn’t touch you, did he?”
“No. It was never like that. He never hit me or anything. He just… wants something he can’t have.”
I suck in a breath through my teeth. “He won’t be back. He won’t bother you again. He’s not that brave. If he does… He knows I’ll come after him.”
She hesitates. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job. I’m your man.”
She stares at me, tears shining. “I feel terrible.”
“Megan.” I pull her into me, her head to my chest, and hold her tight. “I’m sorry I said that thing about the other women…”
“Is it true?”
I hesitate. I can’t stand to hurt her. But I can’t let him hurt her either.
And I can’t lie to her.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Background check. And surveillance. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I needed to know if he posed a real danger to you.”
She squeezes me tighter. “He doesn’t. Not anymore.”
The relief that floods me is heady. I feel dizzy. There’s so much adrenaline thudding through me, my cock is half-hard.
I take a deep breath and try to calm down. I don’t want my pounding heart to scare her.
I need to be her rock.
Her hero.
She peeks over my shoulder toward the two men who linger on the front porch. “Is Rurik in trouble?”
I sigh. “Baby. Why did you run off? You could’ve asked me for help. You should’ve asked me.”
“It was a mistake. I should never have come. I knew that as soon as I got here.” She sucks in a deep breath. “I knew he was lying over the phone.”
I tip her head up and look into her eyes.
“I’ve been ignoring his calls. I haven’t said a word to him since I left. Because the only way you can get rid of a narcissist is to cut them off. Stop feeding their bottomless need for attention. I know that.” She laughs humorlessly. “My dad taught me that. He was the same way with my mom. She eventually had to just end it cold to make it stop. And eventually… he moved on to someone else.”
“Baby… I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing I can think to say.
She deserves a better father than the one she got.
She breathes a soft, sad sound of surrender. “I got a call today from an unknown number, and I shouldn’t have answered it. Ever since our relationship went public, I get a lot of random calls. But this one was from a Manitoba area code and I just thought, what if it’s someone I know? And once he got me on the phone… He started laying into me about how wrong it was, what I did to him. That I had to come back. That I’d never find anyone like him. He actually tried to convince me that he was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I can’t help it. I snarl in disgust.
She peers up at me. “Did you just snarl?”
“I think I did.”
“Well, don’t worry. I didn’t fall for it. I knew he was just trying to manipulate me, to get what he wants, which is more of my attention. So… I snuck out the back of Nicole’s building so Rurik wouldn’t know I left and went to the airport and waited for a flight on standby. I kept thinking what I was doing was ridiculous. That I wasn’t even going to get a flight. That I should just call you and tell you what was going on. But… I had this killer urge to come back here and face him. I feel like I ran out on him like a coward. And I had to tell him, to his face, that it’s over.”
“But that didn’t really work.”
“No. Because all that did was give him me to argue with. He’ll never stop believing he can convince me. Best thing I can do is just walk away, and never give him any part of me, ever again.”
I want to kiss her so badly right now. But I don’t know if she wants me to. She seems so sad.
“Come home with me, Megan,” I say instead, my voice husky with relief and affection.
“I can’t. Not tonight. The least I can do is spend the night with Mom. I came all this way, and she hasn’t even met my fiancé.” Her lips quirk.
“Shit. You’re right.” I’d met her mom, Donna, over video call twice now, but that was it. “Where is she?”
“At work. She’ll be home any minute, though.” She puts her hands on my waist and tugs my hips against her. “Stay here? With me? We can have dinner with Mom.”
“You want me to?” My pulse thuds, slow and hot, as I absorb that.
She sighs. “I want you. But not the way things are. Basically, what you told me this morning is that there’s a limit on our relationship, you’ve set it, and I just have to accept it, no questions asked. But I’ve been there before. With Troy. And it wasn’t good.”
I cup her face and tell her devoutly, “There are no limits on what I would do for you, Megan.”
She softens. “Me, too.”
Oh, fuck.
My heart.
I’m just about to kiss her, when a few feet behind her, the dog stands up and whines softly. Watching me, alert and uncertain. I pause. “And who’s this?”
Megan looks over at the dog. “This is Daisy. It’s okay, girl. Sit.”
The dog sits, still staring at me.
“And Daisy would be…?”
“My dog.”
When I raise an eyebrow at her, Megan looks a bit sheepish.
“She’s one of the reasons I felt so guilty about leaving. Mom’s been taking care of her for me while I get settled. She’s a three-year-old Lappie. A Finnish Lapphund. They’re herding dogs. You can say hi. She’s not aggressive. She just hates Troy right now.”
That makes two of us.
I’m already crouching down and holding out my hand so the dog can smell me, which she does. She kind of has the coloring of a husky, but she’s much smaller and fluffier, with a puffy tail that curls up over her back. “She’s adorable.”
“You like dogs?”
“I love dogs. I used to have one.”
“Really?”
“She died, a few years ago.” Daisy noses into my hand and lets me pat her head, then moves in cautiously so I can pet the rest of her. I give her a gentle rub-down and tell her how pretty she is.
While I’m shamelessly kissing up to her dog, I gaze up at Megan. “Please don’t be mad at me. We’ll work it out. I promise.”
She glances at my bodyguards just outside, flanking the door. “You rushed in with the cavalry to save me. How can I be mad?”
“You can’t,” I agree.
She watches me snuggling her dog in my shirt and tie, and the corner of her mouth tips up. “Do you ever just want to be normal, Jameson Vance? I mean like not wealthy?”
Huh? “Why would I want that?”
She can’t even hold back her smile at my total confusion. “Go put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I’m taking you out on the town tonight.”
“This town?”
“Yes. Your best friend’s hometown. My hometown.”
“I didn’t bring any jeans.”
“Well, what do you have that’s casual?”
“Uh, I threw some sweats in my bag in case I had a chance to work out. You know… after I rushed in with the cavalry and saved you.”
“Why am I not surprised?” She laughs softly. “So wear those.”
I get to my feet, eying her cotton eyelet dress. It’s cute, white and summery. “Won’t I be underdressed?”
She pats my chest. “Oh, Jameson. You have no idea where you are.”