Page 14 of Motion to Dismiss

I have eight hours before I need to head to the airport.

“I will leave,” I mutter to myself softly. “I will leave…”

Jameson returns to me with an ice bucket and a bag full of something I can’t see.

“I’m sorry, Scarlett.” He looks into my eyes. “I would never want to physically hurt you.”

“Only emotionally, right?”

“No…”

I wait for him to take my bait and fire back with something sarcastic, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he sits on the edge of the bed and takes my hand, icing my wrist. Then he softly wraps it in a warmed white towel.

“Thank you…” I let out a breath.

“You’re welcome.” He lifts my wrist to his mouth and kisses it. “What made you leave Manhattan for Los Angeles?”

“I needed a lot of space from everyone.”

“Including me?”

“Especially you.”

“You went through my mail.” His voice is low. “And you accused your own father of being a murderer.”

“Because he is…” I’m still trying to come to terms with it, but the weeks I’ve spent away in California have made my childhood recollections so much clearer.

I’ve had plenty of time to put the puzzle pieces of his shady business practices together, and although I don’t have the entire picture, the corners I do have are ugly and compelling enough.

“I know you want to believe the worst of him because he’s hurt you, but…” Jameson pinches the bridge of his nose. “If I win his case—one that affects your brothers as well—it’ll be my nine hundred sixty-seventh career win.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to throw you a party.”

“I’m hoping you’ll understand.”

“Understand what, Jameson?” I ask. “You haven’t told me anything.”

“I’ve told you I missed you,” he says. “That I clearly fucking want you.”

“So, that erases our last ugly conversation and all this time in between?” I shrug. “It completely deletes all the questions I wanted answers to?”

“It should…”

“So, we can just start over with the exact same issues hanging in the balance?”

“That’s what mature adults would do, yes.”

“Well, feel free to call me an immature teenager forever, then.” I get up, and he grips my waist. Then he pulls me back down.

“The person I go to see twice a week is my father,” he says, answering one of my old questions with ease. “He’s currently serving a life sentence in state prison for murder.”

What? I can feel all the color draining from my face. Every assumption I had about his obsession with defending the guilty slowly shifts out of place.

“He’s been locked away there since I was a kid.” He looks as if the words pain him to say. “But he’s completely innocent. Happy now?”

“No…”