“Paolo …” I stood abruptly. “You know that you were supposed to be Lex’s solution. She was wrong then … and now. You can’t rewrite history. You bought into Wilshire & Co. thinking you could save her family’s company and bury their hardship. You didn’t. You think I want to be a part of that?”
He glanced around as if flabbergasted and offended. He was down to only a few guarding his king … or his queen in our chess match. “Look, in the grand scheme of things, the company doesn’t matter much.” He waved away my intel, but he was sweating now, trying to weasel his way into another tunnel to feed off me.
“Why bring it up then?”
“Because I thought that you—”
“That I might feel indebted to you for fundingyourlover’sfamily business?” I tapped my fingers on the table and tsked. “I don’t give a fuck what you do with your money, Paolo. This meeting is over.”
“Wait.” Paolo stood too, his frown deepening and his brow now sweating. “Don’t you get that her family will suffer?”
“Just them? Or you too?”
He threw up his hands, looking around like he needed someone to back him up. His brother next to him didn’t say a damn thing. “She might not be the love of your life, but she is mine.”
The man was panicking and showing all the moves he planned to make without making them. “She wasn’t, no.” I said that with finality.
“But she was still the mother of your—”
“Yes, she was. But now, with her gone, that’s over. And so is this meeting.”
“Have you no mercy?” the woman who stood behind Paolo blurted out.
A scoff left my brother’s lips before I could answer her. I glanced at him and saw the look he shot her way, so cold we all felt the temperature drop. He didn’t look away from her for even a second as he said, “We never promised mercy, Jasmina.”
She grumbled something under her breath, and normally Cal would have let that go. He was the diplomat, after all, but he taunted her instead. “I’m sorry, we didn’t hear that, Jasmina. Want to speak up, or are you scared to in a room full of men?”
Whoever that woman was, it was clear they’d brought her because she was trained to kill, and even I was impressed at how fast her knife flew across the table toward him.
My brother was trained in combat though. We all were. And still, he barely dodged the blade. Paolo bellowed her name, standing over her as if he were going to beat the shit out of her.
“Everyone, stop.” Callahan kept his eyes on her while Paolo’smen backed off in surrounding her. “Jasmina has never been to one of our meetings before. I might not have mercy, but I do have grace to give sometimes. She’s fine.”
“We meant no disrespect. Right, Jasmina?”
My brother didn’t even wait for her to answer. “Oh, she meant every ounce of disrespect she could muster in that throw, but I don’t mind a fight.”
And as we walked out, I heard him as he passed her by, “Next time, try not to miss, baby.”
When we got back into the SUV, I laid my head on the seat rest and closed my eyes. “Do I want to know what the fuck is going on between you and Paolo’s niece?”
“Nope.” But the corner of his mouth lifted like he knew it was going to be a whole lot of trouble. “DoIwant to know what the fuckyou’rethinking happened back there with Paolo?”
“Nope,” I said right back. Then I sighed, shaking my head. “Not until I’m sure, brother, not until I’m sure.”
Mia
HE’D BEEN GONE MOSTof the very next day, and when he passed me in the hall later that evening, he only murmured a “good evening, Ms. Darling” that was tight with tension and formality. I went to my room and tried to just listen to the quiet as I tended to my plants.
“Ms. Prim, I’m quite sure that if you die, I’m dying too. So, you better buck the hell up,” I told my cape primrose. Her flowers were wilting rather than blooming, and I hated to see it.
Then, I turned to my azalea bonsai. “Mr. Bos, you could try a little harder too. I told Franny I’d read herThe Nightmare Before Christmasagain for the third time today even though I didn’t want to. She enjoys the page that talks about things hiding under her bed. You think I enjoy that?”
I tsked and poured a cup of water slowly into the fertilizer. I checked that the dampness was perfect and sighed. If Mr. Bos didn’t make it, I would be giving Jameson a freaking mouthful. I’d nursed this plant for months to make sure he was vibrant and green. With the color seeping out of him, I was getting nervous.
Nervous about that and nervous about how attached I’d gotten to this home, to Franny, to Rosy, who’d given me theside-eye and mouthed that we needed to talk earlier that day. She’d become a friend with her figuring out my crush on Jameson, and now I would probably have to try not to ask her about that stupid door.
The beautiful, whimsical door that Jameson didn’t care to share with me.
