“But you’ll have a fresh manicure for your funeral,” she explained.
“You believe me, right?” His voice hard, he spoke directly to Chloe, needing her to know. “I would never walk out on my kid. She told me you had an abortion.”
Chloe looked at Genevieve, and something silent transpired between them.
“Be honest,” she said to her. “I’m still disowning you, but if you lie to me now, I’ll smear your name to every person, place, and thing within a hundred miles of The Hamptons.”
Because Genevieve’s influential friends were more important to her than family.
“You don’t have a precious grandson because of your heavy-handedness, and now you no longer have a daughter. Keep it up and you won’t have a single friend, either.”
Genevieve’s lips thinned. “I had to do your dirty work, yes. It wasn’t pleasant, but it’s what a mother does. If you ever become one, you’ll know the sacrifice required.”
Chloe charged the woman from ten feet away.
Acting quickly, Jameson restrained her.
“Don’t,” he whispered, holding her even as she fought him. “She’s caused enough destruction. Don’t lower yourself to her level.”
Shaking off his grip, Chloe stepped back and smoothed her clothes, but her damp gaze never left Genevieve’s.
“You ruined my life. You stole my happiness. You stole my son from me, and Jameson’s son from him. And why? So I could go to college?”
“So you wouldn’t end up a worn-out mother of a half-dozen rug rats, living in a tacky duplex on a desolate military base in Middle America with a cheating husband who rarely came home.”
Jameson looked at Chloe, the situation so fucking awful he almost laughed.
“The duplex might have happened. The cheating would not have.”
And with his son’s face foremost in his mind, his anger was dissipating. Straight up sadness was settling in.
Chloe didn’t feel the same. Her outrage was rising. “You ripped my child from me, right out of the womb. My heart. My future.”
“I did what was best for my teenage daughter. In return, he took a twenty-five-thousand-dollar payout to stay away.” Her chin lifted when she looked at him. “You owe me money.”
“Is that true?” Chloe’s eyes pinned him. “Because I don’t know who or what to believe anymore.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“I don’t know. You said you loved me.”
“I did, Chloe, with all my heart.” I still love you. “Now, answer me. Have I ever lied to you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I haven’t, and I never will. I didn’t take that money.” He glanced at Genevieve but quickly dismissed her. “That’s the price tag she put on our baby. Twenty-five large.”
“A price you accepted,” Genevieve interjected.
“I told you this once already, lady. I didn’t take your fucking money.” But he suddenly realized who did.
The first deposit into the trust fund for John J. Hennessey was twenty-five-thousand dollars. Made the month after he left for BUD/S, and the only deposit not tied to a personal check from Jameson himself.
Jonah took it. Put it in an account earmarked for Jameson’s only child.
The missed clue in the file. Until now.
Taking a step toward Genevieve, his smile was feral.
“I’d sleep with one eye open from now on. Your alarm system doesn’t stand a chance against me, but feel free to enjoy that false sense of security.” He got tingles when her face paled. “I’ll make you pay for what you did using torture techniques the goddamn CIA hasn’t even invented yet.”
He was halfway to his truck when he heard Chloe say, “What he said.”
“Chloe, wait. Don’t leave,” Genevieve rushed on. “Let me explain.”
“Mom.” It was the first time he ever heard Chloe call her that.
It was always Mother. Or Genevieve.
“I loved him,” she continued, her voice pained. “I wanted to marry him. I was carrying his child. A child you convinced me to give away, based on lies. What did I ever do to deserve that?”
Jameson didn’t wait for the answer. It didn’t matter.
It wouldn’t give him back his chance to live that dream.
I’m pregnant.
He got in his truck and drove away, those two words echoing in his head like normal. Words he insanely, desperately wanted to hear again.
From Chloe.
Have you ever made a mistake?
One you couldn’t take back for love or money?
One that, because of love gone wrong and money equaling power, haunted your days and nights?
Chloe Morgan did.
A hard lesson to learn at seventeen.
An even harder lesson? Learning that your own mother betrayed you. Manipulated you. And then proceeded to lie about it for the next decade.
She changed the course of Chloe’s life, stealing any chance at the forever kind of love most people searched their whole lives for. Never found. The kind of love Chloe found at age seventeen with the boy next door.
“You just couldn’t let me be happy, could you?” Chloe asked, surprised Genevieve hadn’t scurried inside after Jameson’s final, frightening threat. “Let me live the life I wanted, instead of the one you wanted?”
Her mother’s attention was on Jameson as he got into his truck, leaving with a killer’s look in his eyes. A look preferable to what she saw in Riverhead. Shock, of course. But then, a hurt so intense it gutted her.
The hurt of a father, seeing the son he never knew he had.
Wanting the son she always thought he didn’t.
“Do what now, darling?” Her voice was casual, uncaring she was just exposed for telling the biggest lie in the history of lies.
“Allow me to make my own choices. Make my own mistakes and learn from them. Allow me to be happy.”
“Aren’t you happy now? You have your little business and . . .” her voice trailed off, and then she lamely added, “Et cetera.”
It was hard to stay on top of your daughter’s life when you were so absorbed in your own.
“I’m not happy, Mother. I haven’t been since the day he left. Certainly not since the day I gave my newborn to strangers. You’ve either not been paying attention, or I’m an Oscar-worthy actress. Which do you think it is?”
“Don’t be overdramatic,” she said. “Go be with him if that’s who you want, but honestly, darling, you could do better. How’s it going with Wyatt? He’s a catch.”
“He’s also my baby’s uncle.” Chloe smiled sarcastically. “By adoption, of course.”
Genevieve didn’t know she watched Johnny.
Genevieve didn’t even know he was still named Johnny.
“You had no right to interfere in my life like that. To tell Jameson such a horrible, awful lie.”
“Of course, I did, Chloe. You were underage. Irresponsible enough to get yourself knocked up. You didn’t have the skills or the resources to care for an infant. You’d yet to graduate high school.”
“I would’ve figured it out.” She and Jameson, together.