She lights a cigarette and takes a long drag, her narrowed pale green eyes scrutinizing my face. Blowing out a long stream of blue smoke, she crosses her legs. “Melanie wasn’t involved.”
“With any of it?”
She flicks the end of her cigarette into an ornately jeweled ashtray. “He told her about the honey trap idea before you two were married, but she wasn’t aware of how far Bryce was willing to go.”
The memory of that night in the hotel has rage simmering beneath my skin. “She didn’t know he was planning to have me drugged?”
Miranda shakes her head.
I snarl. “Did you?”
She rolls her eyes. Of course she fucking did.
“Did she know something was going to happen in Chicago?” My heart stops beating while I wait for what feels like eternity. I believe Mel knew nothing about the drugs, but did she come to my office that afternoon knowing that her brother was setting me up?
She takes another long drag of her cigarette, her eyes boring into mine. “No.”
I sink back into the chair, running a hand through my hair. Relief and regret roll in my stomach. Mel has been telling me the truth. In my heart I knew that, but I guess a part of me needed to hear it.
“A few weeks after you were married, Melanie told Bryce that there was no need to go ahead with his idea, and when he refused to back down, she begged him. He promised her he wouldn’t go through with it to get her out of his hair.”
“Did she tell him why she had a change of heart?”
Miranda scoffs. “My daughter always was a dreamer, Mr. James.”
I clench and unclench my fists, barely able to contain my rage. “What did she say?”
She purses her lips, the fine lines around them becoming more pronounced on her otherwise taut, surgically enhanced complexion. “It wasn’t so much what she said as the ridiculous notion that she had about the two of you.”
I bare my teeth. “Which was?”
She rolls her eyes. “That it was love.”
Love? I frown, and she laughs. “Silly girl thought the two of you were falling in love.” She snorts. “Tried to convince us you’d loan us any money we needed if she simply asked you nicely.”
I suck in a deep breath, so many feelings racing through my head, but there’s one thing that I’m more sure of than I’ve ever been of anything, and Miranda should know it.
I stand and straighten my jacket. “It’s a shame you don’t have as much faith in your daughter as you do in your useless prick of a son, Miranda, because Mel was right.” She tips her head, her lips set in a thin grimace as she glares at me. “I would do anything for your daughter. I would have even financed you and your bottom-feeding son. Looks like you backed the wrong fucking horse.”
Chapter
Sixty-Six
NATHAN
She’s sitting on the sofa reading when I get home, looking lost and lonely. Fuck, I want to wrap her up and protect her from every goddamn thing in this world that could hurt her. And I want to spend the rest of my life doing it. I can’t let her go.
“Hey.” I perch on the coffee table in front of her.
“Hey. Did you have a good day?”
“I did actually.”
“That’s good,” she says, offering a feeble attempt at a smile.
“How do you feel about going out for dinner?” I check my watch. “I could get us a table at your favorite steakhouse.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t really feel like peopling.”
I drop to my knees in front of her. “Then I’ll book out the whole place.”
That at least gets me a flicker of a genuine smile. “That’s such a Nathan James thing to do.”
“I just want to see a smile on your face, corazón. Tell me what I can do to make that happen.”
She presses her lips together like she’s deep in thought. “Food is always a good start. But takeout would be more my speed, I think.”
“Takeout will make you smile?”
“Not just any takeout. A pepperoni pizza from Jersey’s, and also …” She sinks her teeth into her plush lower lip.
“Also?”
“An old movie on the sofa? With you actually watching rather than working?” She winces like she’s asking too much, when it’s not nearly enough. An image of us curled up on the couch with her nestled against me, both of us snuggled beneath a blanket, makes my cock twitch in my pants. “That’s what you want to do tonight?”
She catches her bottom lip between her teeth. “More than anything.”
Why the hell is that true for me too? Cuddling on the couch and eating greasy pizza isn’t exactly me, but the thought of doing that with her sounds like heaven. “I have to send a few emails and take a shower. Can you order?”
