“And what? You thought I should tell you everything in return because we were sharing a bed?” His tone was cold as ice, pushing me away.
Good. I wanted his fury and his hate.
“Oh no, Jameson. I know you fuck every girl you want to in this house. I’m not special because of that. Quite the contrary, it seems.” I lashed out at him like he did at me. We were both hurt, both swimming in our pain and trying to drag the other person down too.
“So quick to assume that, huh?”
“Well, you know I heard you and Valerie. Thank God I didn’t have to hear you and your wife.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He shut his eyes and growled up to the ceiling like he couldn’t bear any of this. “Darling Mia,” he murmured, looking down at me with tears in his eyes. “I can’t do it … can’t even try to push you away. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t want to fight with you either.”
Of course he didn’t. I wasn’t meant to stay here and work this out with him. He and his wife needed to work things out, not us. I crossed my arms and murmured, “Well, we don’t have to fight. No use fighting anyway.”
He nodded and looked away. “I don’t want this life for you. Didn’t want you to fall for me because I knew what it would bring.” His voice softened like suddenly now he had a conscience.
And it probably would have been better to just walk away, but I had to know, was ready for the closure that would destroy me. “How did you know what it would bring?”
“What are you asking me?”
He knew damn well. “I’m asking if you love her! If you knew you were still in love with her when you made love to me. Because you’ve kept a shrine for your wife in this house the whole time, Jameson.”
“She’s not my—”
“Sheis,” I hissed, slamming my hand down on the dresser. “She’s alive. And you didn’t get a divorce, Jameson. So, she’s yours. And I’m not.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ll always be mine,” he growled back immediately.
I scoffed and then locked eyes with him. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Did you know that you were making me a mistress? Did you know she was alive?”
“Mia—” He was going to console me, but I didn’t want any of it.
“Did. You. Know?” His answer was all that mattered to me now. “Yes or no?”
Jameson
IKNEWI’D LOSTher the second I saw her standing in that doorway, the door open to the part of my life I didn’t want her to see. And then she asked that question, the words slicing through me like a damn blade, lethal and aimed to gut me.
Her shoulders were squared, her jaw tight with emotion, but her honey eyes normally filled with such warmth had already left me. They were hollowed out from something worse than rage. Heartbreak and betrayal filled them now. I’d thought I could push her away by acting like what we had was a damn affair, but seeing her pain was too much.
Her gaze held mine, her arms crossed over her like a shield against me as she waited for an answer.
Yes or no?
We let the silence stretch, let my decision hang in the air.
I wanted to lie, to tell her I’d just figured it out too, to shield her from the woman that Lex was, from the man that I had to be, from the life that came from being a Diamond.
It was filled with power struggles, deception, and vicious strategy.
Mia wasn’t like that.
She put love and joy first, unflinchingly, over power and prestige. She was honest even when it was hard, real even when it was uncomfortable to be.
I loved that about her. That was the damn problem.
