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I need to protect my company.
Losing my first company nearly ruined me. I won’t survive losing another one.
I also won’t survive losing my heart.
I swore I’d never give it away again after my first marriage, and here I am doing just that.
Jenna says something about me moving to London, but I can’t focus on it. Not when Jameson is looking at me like he wants to order me to do things I don’t want to do.
“We’ll discuss this when we get home,” he says quietly enough for only me to hear, but with enough dark energy for me to know how he feels about this.
“Yes,” I agree, just as darkly. “We will.”
We make it through the rest of dinner, and I only argue with Jameson over things I really don’t care about twice more. I’m that annoyed with him that I can’t help myself. And he knows it.
By the time we get to the car, we’re grating against each other with the kind of angry friction that doesn’t end up in a good place.
Jameson has to take a call on the drive home.
I sit beside him, staring out the window, berating myself for being so stupid.
This was always a fake marriage.
It wasn’t built on love.
He has a clear goal and is doing everything to protect that goal.
I came into the marriage with a clear goal, too, but I got lost along the way.
Now, I need to move into preservation mode.
We must look after ourselves, Adeline, because a man will never look after us.
My mother invades my thoughts again and I struggle to remove her from my mind.
When Max parks the car in Jameson’s garage, I get out and walk to the elevator without waiting for Jameson. He’s still on his call, so I make it upstairs alone. I go straight to my bathroom and close the door behind me. I need a moment to myself.
I get ten minutes alone before Jameson is on the other side of the bathroom door telling me we need to speak.
I open the door and come face-to-face with him. His face is an intense mask of determination as he orders, “That can never happen again.”
I stand tall against him. “What can never happen again?”
He jabs his finger in the direction of the restaurant we just came from. “That bullshit at dinner. You spent the night arguing with me over everything.”
“You deserved it.”
His brows climb his forehead while his nostrils flare. “Why?”
“Because you won’t let me win the London war. Hell, you won’t even let me have a say in it.”
More flaring of his nostrils. “The London war?”
“Yes! The war we’re in because you refuse to listen to me when I tell you I have to be in London for my business.”
“And you’re refusing to listen to me when I tell you why that can’t happen.”
“No, I’m not! I told you we could discuss how to make it happen. I’m open to compromise, but you’re doing that thing you do where you just take over and make decisions for us.”
