3. James
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James
Daniel was waiting at the bar with two glasses of whiskey and an expression that told me I was about to have a conversation I didn’t want to have.
“You look awfully chummy with her.” He slid one of the glasses toward me without taking his eyes off my face.
I grabbed the whiskey and took a long swallow. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m a concerned friend who’s trying to figure out if he needs to start planning your funeral.
” Daniel leaned against the bar, grinning.
“Because when Caleb finds out you were slow-dancing with his wife while looking at her like she was the last woman on earth, he’s going to kill you.
And then Megan is going to kill whatever’s left. ”
Daniel Davis was my best friend. But right now, he was a giant pain in my ass.
“Nobody is killing anyone, because nothing happened.” I set down my glass and signaled the bartender for a refill. “We danced. That’s what people do at these events.”
“People dance with their own wives at these events, James.” Daniel shook his head slowly. “They don’t dance with their brother’s wife while their hand is positioned approximately two inches above her ass.”
“My hand was on her back.”
“Her lower back. Her very lower back. The back that’s basically just the top of her ass.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” I drained my second whiskey faster than I should have. “And even if my hand was anywhere, which it wasn’t, Megan doesn’t need to know about it.”
“Megan already knows about it.” Daniel laughed at my expression. “She texted me during the dance. Three eggplant emojis and a question mark. I told her I’d report back with details.”
“Tell her there are no details to report.”
“She’s not going to believe that, and you know it.
” He finished his own drink and set the glass down with a decisive click.
“Anything that goes on between those two women is like classified intelligence. Megan knows things about Haley that the CIA couldn’t torture out of her.
But she also knows when Haley’s not telling her something, and right now?
Haley’s definitely not telling her something. ”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“The way you were looking at her says otherwise. I’m not judging you, James. Haley’s incredible. Anyone with eyes can see that. But she’s also your brother’s wife, and that’s a line you don’t get to uncross once you’ve crossed it.”
“I haven’t crossed anything.” I pushed away from the bar, needing to move. “We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. She needed someone to talk to at a party where everyone treats her like an outsider, and I was there. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Daniel raised an eyebrow. “So the part where you called her a goddess in front of all these peasants was just friendly conversation?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I told you. Megan texted me.” He pulled out his phone and showed me the screen. “She got it from Haley, who apparently mentioned it while trying to convince Megan that nothing was happening. Which, by the way, is exactly what people say when something is definitely happening.”
“Nothing is happening.” I turned away from him and scanned the room, looking for any excuse to end this conversation. “And you can tell Megan that when you get home tonight.”
“She won’t believe me.” Daniel slipped his phone back into his pocket. “She’s been worried about Haley for months. Megan’s convinced Caleb is either cheating or about to start.”
My hands tightened around my empty glass.
“Has she said anything specific?”
Daniel shrugged. “Megan thinks Haley knows something’s wrong but doesn’t want to admit it to herself. You know how she is. Loyal to a fault. She’d defend that marriage until it burned down around her.”
I thought about the anniversary night two weeks ago. About Haley calling me because she couldn’t reach Caleb.
“You remember the first time you met Haley?” Daniel’s voice pulled me back. “At your family’s Christmas party?”
“You mean the night she almost broke your nose for looking at her chest?”
“I wasn’t looking at her chest.” He paused. “Okay, I was looking at her chest. But in my defense, it was a very nice chest, and I didn’t know she was engaged to your brother.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I was twenty-five and drunk on your mother’s eggnog.
Asking questions wasn’t high on my priority list.” He grinned at the memory.
“But she shut me down so fast I actually respected her for it. Told me if I ever looked at her like that again, she’d rearrange my face. And then she introduced me to Megan.”
“And the rest is history.”
“The best kind of history.” Daniel’s expression softened. “Megan is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I have Haley to thank for it. That woman threatened my manhood and then handed me my future wife in the same conversation. That takes a special kind of person.”
I remembered that night with perfect clarity.
Caleb had brought Haley home for the first time, and she’d walked into my mother’s house with Megan at her side, both of them looking like they owned the place.
Haley had been wearing a green dress that made her eyes look like honey, and she’d laughed at something Megan whispered, and the sound had hit me somewhere in the center of my chest.
She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
And then Caleb had walked over, wrapped his arm around her waist, and introduced her as his fiancée.
“You’ve got that look again.” Daniel nudged my shoulder. “The one that says you’re thinking about something you really shouldn’t be thinking about.”
“I’m thinking about how much I hate these events.” I spotted my mother across the room, her silver hair gleaming under the chandeliers. “The whiskey business sponsors a table every year. That’s the only reason I show up.”
“Bullshit.” Daniel followed my gaze. “You show up because Haley shows up. You’ve been doing it for five years. Everyone knows it except apparently you.”
I didn’t answer, because across the room, my mother was doing something that made my blood run cold.
Diane had positioned herself between Haley and a senator’s wife, one hand on Vanessa Ellis’s elbow, physically redirecting the conversation away from my sister-in-law.
The senator’s wife looked confused. Vanessa looked smug.
And Haley looked like she was about three seconds from committing a felony.
“What the hell is your mother doing?” Daniel leaned forward, watching the scene unfold. “Is she seriously blocking Haley from talking to someone?”
“That’s exactly what she’s doing.”
But Haley didn’t back down. She stepped around Vanessa, her chin lifted, and walked right back into the conversation.
“I was the one being asked, Diane.” Her voice carried across the room, clear and sharp. “If Mrs. Rollins wants to discuss her daughter’s manuscript, she can discuss it with me. I’m the editor, after all. Not Vanessa.”
My mother’s face went rigid. Vanessa’s smile flickered and died. The senator’s wife looked between them with the expression of someone who had accidentally walked into the middle of a war zone.
“Holy shit.” Daniel let out a low whistle. “Did she just call out your mother in front of half the room?”
“She did.”
“I think I’m in love with her.”
“Get in line.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Daniel’s head whipped toward me, his eyebrows shooting up.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said quickly.
“Yes, you did.” His grin was back, wider than before.
I was already moving.
By the time I reached them, Haley had extracted herself from the conversation and was heading toward the back hallway.
I didn’t follow Haley. I wanted to, but I knew that would only make things worse.
Instead, I headed for the powder room at the end of the corridor, needing a moment to think.
I was passing the door when I heard my mother’s voice through it.
“She’s a phase, Margot.” Diane’s tone was sharp, dismissive. “That’s all she’s ever been. Caleb got infatuated with a pretty face and some working-class charm, but it won’t last. These things never do.”
I stopped walking.
“Vanessa would have been a much better match.” Another voice, older.
“Vanessa understands what it means to be a Sinclair.” I heard the click of a compact opening. “Haley never will. She’ll always be an outsider, playing dress-up at events where she doesn’t belong.”
“Does Caleb know how you feel?”
“Caleb knows exactly how I feel.” My mother’s voice hardened. “And soon enough, he’ll come around. Men always do, when they realize the woman they married isn’t the woman they actually want.”
I pushed the door open.
The other woman went white. She grabbed her clutch and fled past me without a word, her heels clicking rapidly down the hallway until the sound disappeared entirely.
My mother didn’t flinch.
She stood at the mirror, lipstick in hand, watching my reflection with the calm expression of someone who had been expecting this exact interruption.
“Eavesdropping is beneath you, James.” She finished applying the color with steady hands. “I thought I raised you better than that.”
“You raised me to stand by while you scheme against my brother’s wife?”
“I’m protecting this family.” She capped her lipstick and dropped it into her clutch. “Something you clearly don’t understand.”
“What I understand is that Haley has been nothing but loyal to Caleb for five years, and you’ve treated her like garbage the entire time.” My voice rose despite my efforts to control it.
“Vanessa is more suitable.” Diane turned to face me, her expression cold. “She understands our obligations. She doesn’t embarrass herself at dinner parties by talking about romance novels like they’re actual literature.”
“Haley’s work is real work.”
“Haley’s work is typing up fantasies for bored housewives.” My mother’s lip curled. “It’s not a career. It’s a hobby she’s somehow convinced Caleb to subsidize.”
“Caleb doesn’t subsidize anything. Haley makes her own money.”
“And yet she lives in a house Caleb paid for, wears clothes from a closet Caleb funded, and attends events like this on Caleb’s arm.” Diane stepped closer, her voice dropping. “She’s a passenger in his life, James. She always has been. And passengers can be replaced.”
My mother’s eyes met mine. “Don’t get involved in things you don’t understand, James. This family has worked for generations to build what we have. I won’t let one unsuitable marriage bring it all down.”
“Haley isn’t going to bring anything down.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” She moved toward the door, and I blocked her path. She stopped, her expression flickering with something that might have been surprise. “Move.”
“Not until you tell me what you’re planning.”
“I’m not planning anything.”
“Caleb chose Haley.”
“Caleb was young and stupid and thinking with the wrong part of his anatomy.” She smoothed down my lapels with precise movements. “He’ll make the right choice eventually. They always do.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
She smiled, and it was the coldest thing I’d ever seen.
“Then I’ll make it for him.”
She stepped around me and opened the door, pausing at the threshold.
“You’re like your father, James.” Her voice was soft now, almost gentle.
“He never knew when to stop watching, either. Spent years noticing things that weren’t his business.
Caring about things he couldn’t change.” She glanced back at me, her eyes sharp.
“It made him miserable. And then it killed him.”
“Dad died of a heart attack.”
“Did he?” She held my gaze for a long moment. “Or did he die because he spent thirty years watching me do what needed to be done and never had the spine to stop me?”
She walked out before I could answer.
I stood there, staring at my reflection in the mirror, my mother’s words echoing in my skull.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out and looked at the screen.
Daniel: Haley just left.
Daniel: Caleb didn’t even notice. He’s in the corner with Vanessa. Megan says something’s very wrong.
I typed back with shaking hands.
James: Where did Haley go?
Daniel: Parking lot.
I was already moving, pushing through the door and down the hallway, past the guests and the waiters and the string quartet still playing their meaningless songs.
I hit the parking lot just as Haley’s car pulled out of the space.
She didn’t see me.
But I saw her face through the window, and the tears streaming down her cheeks, and I knew with absolute certainty that whatever my mother was planning had already begun.