Page 226 of Five Brothers
She walks back to the island, filling a glass for herself. I don’t take a drink.
“You know, I never really thought about it, because it wasn’t like I had a choice,” I tell her, “but if anyone had ever asked me, Iwould’ve said that I liked you more than Dad. I still do. You know why?”
She fits the pitcher back onto the blender base and lifts her eyes to me.
“Because you eventually win,” I reply. “You always claw your way back to the top. It was the only quality I ever hoped I inherited.”
She takes a long drink, and I step forward, setting my cup down with the island between us.
She drops her eyes. “The affair only lasted—”
“It wasn’t an affair.” I tighten my fists around the back of the wrought iron chair, making my knuckles ache. “You and your friends victimized a young man who’d just lost his parents and was trying to support his five siblings.”
She stares at me, no change in her expression.
I go on. “And you don’t care about it any more than you care that I hate you for it. All you care about is that I fall into line.”
That’s why she wanted him away from me. Oh, I can fuck Macon Jaeger all I want. I can pay him for some fun. Someday.AfterI give Jerome Watson a couple of kids and make his house a home. Then she’ll encourage me to have all the fun I want. Discreetly.
“I’ll meet with Jerome Watson,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows lift.
“And I will get you a settlement from Dad.”
“How—”
“What does it matter?” I blurt out. “You’ll be well taken care of.”
A small smile crosses her lips, happy that I’m taking care of business.
Oh, yes, I am.
But I’m not finished yet. “On two conditions,” I tell her. “You go to the house in the Keys until further notice. And …” I harden my voice. “You sign over the house.”
“What?” she asks.
“To me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding—”
“Or I’ll tell everyone what you did to him,” I say.
“You think that will shock them?” She looks about ready to laugh. “Like your father or anyone else in this town doesn’t have secrets of their own?”
I set my phone down on the island. “Everyone.”
Her face falls, her eyes shifting to the phone.
She breathes in and out for several seconds, her jaw clenching over and over again. “Mars and Paisleigh—”
“Will stay with me for now,” I reply. “We’ll discuss guardianship once I touch base with Dad.”
We stare at each other, and I know everything she’s thinking. Her children are leverage. She doesn’t want to give that up. Relatives will pity her—give her money—if she has children to support.
And deep down, she really does care. Not as much as Mars and Paisleigh deserve, but if something happened to us, she’d cry. Genuinely, I think.
But I also know she doesn’t want this anymore. She married him, never thinking he’d take off with someone else. She would give him a home, kids, and the respectable family image, and he’d give her the life. He’s the one who broke the deal.