Page 95 of Discretion at Its Finest

“…Have you heard from him?” she asked gently, and I shook my head.

“Not since the FBI raid. I spoke to Alexander today… He told me he’d pull some strings, get me a visit. But—” My throat tightened. “He said Reid doesn’t want to see me.”

Jamie didn’t react right away. Her eyes drifted toward Eugene, watching him “vroom” his cars along the carpet, unaware of the chaos that was his family.

“You know that isn’t true,” she said quietly.

The air punched out of me, another tear slipping before I could blink it back. “I don’t know anything anymore, Jamie.”

She reached for my trembling clenched hand and wrapped her cool fingers around it. I had no choice but to relax it, afraid I’d squeeze her too hard.

“Sweetheart… talk to me.”

I didn’t want to start, because if I did, everything would spill out. But something inside me had broken open. It was exhausted and terrified. “It’s all falling apart,” I whispered. “Everything. Newman Trust. Our little family. Me and—” My voice faltered, my heart skipping a beat as Jamie rubbed the back of my hand, silent and reassuring.

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. Don’t even know my place, where I stand. The man I was supposed to marry has another woman in the house I tried so hard to make a home… The man I love is in prison and I—” My voice snapped in half. “I know I shouldn’t feel anything for him anymore. I know that. I know.”

It spilled out before I could stop it. Before I could take it back and pretend I meant anything else.

Jamie went utterly still. For one long second, she didn’t breathe.

Then she shook her head, eyes softening with the kind of ache only a woman who’s lived a lifetime can carry.

“Sweetheart…” Her thumb brushed my cheek, catching a tear. “You can’t help who you love.”

A helpless sound escaped me. “I tried.”

“I know you did.”

“I chose Gregory. I chose this family.” My chest tightened painfully. “I ignored everything else. I buried my feelings.I buried him. I told myself being with him was a mistake, a forgotten memory, something I didn’t need. I convinced myself it didn’t matter, pretending every single day that I was happy, that our family was whole, playing the part I thought was the safest.”

Jamie’s eyes glistened as she looked at me like she was seeing the truth for the first time, seeing herself at my age along with every choice she ever regretted staring back at her through me.

“And yet,” she whispered, “he still found you.”

My breath trembled. Shame and relief, all of it tangled together inside me.

“And you found him,” she added. “Over and over again, despite everything trying to pull you apart.” Her voice softened to something reverent. “That has to mean something.”

“Even if it does, nothing can come of it.” I shook my head. “He’s in prison. I’m engaged. What do I look like dragging the Newman name through more filth? Raymond even said it’s already tarnished enough as it is. We don’t need another scandal.”

Jamie’s eyes darkened, her gaze now angry but knowing. My words were echoes of a life she’d already lived.

She squeezed my hand gently. “Raymond has wounds older than you,” she said quietly, bitterness of the words lingering on her tongue. “Old wounds he let bleed into our lives now.”

I frowned. “Wounds?”

Her gaze drifted toward the hallway, and she went on, voice thin but steady: “We built this, this family, the Newman name… and I was convinced choosing what’s safe and easy was what was best.”

Her thumb brushed my knuckles. “But love,” she whispered, “love doesn’t disappear just because you’re convinced ofsomething else. It festers. It grows. It returns… especially when you try to bury it alive.”

My heart stumbled. Jamie’s expression softened, but there was something hollow beneath it, something bruised she’d lived with for decades.

“When I married Raymond,” she murmured, “I was in love with someone else. And instead of him, I chose the safe route. The Newman name. The legacy. I chose what was expected of me.”

My breath froze, her gaze growing distant.

“I chose a family…my familyover the man I fell in love with,” she began, tears welling in her eyes. “And you know what?” She shrugged. “My family still ended up broken, still ended up fractured, because pieces of that relationship followed me back. And still… I would choose this again, a thousand times over. But for the rest of my life… I have to deal with the burden of not knowing what would’ve happened if I didn’t.”