His Love (The Billionaire Dom Diaries, #4) (3 page)

"I'm not sure what's going on-"

"I'm not too sure myself. You're gaping at me like I'm growing some limb out of my forehead." She bit into her carrot.

Frustration pulled both hands to my head as I gripped tufts of my hair and let out a groan. It was a futile move, a move that fed into exactly what she wanted. If we spent our time going around in circles, then we wouldn't address the real issue here. But every crunch of her goddamn carrot just grated on every last nerve in me. It was nails on the chalkboard; her manipulative way of playing games and poking at me until I'd had enough and just stormed from the house like a petulant child.

I slowly lowered my hands, the truth behind her actions finally sinking in. It was an infusion of truth, a sharp ache followed by a uncomfortable fact snaking its way through my veins. It dimmed the anger and quelled the frustration. I thought the mask was her way of keeping me out; of shutting down any and all attempts at having a real conversation. But that was just one of many tricks in her toolbox. Letting the staff go, drinking at 10 AM, traipsing around the kitchen like that was normal when I could count on one hand the times I'd seen her doing anything domestic—it was all a ploy to make me focus on her odd behavior. She'd continue to act like everything was fine, painting me as the odd ball. The bully who yelled while all she was doing was having a carrot and a little wine. Predictably, I'd blow up, convinced that we couldn't carry on a conversation, and leave her be. It was the ultimate manipulation. And now that I knew her strategy, I could play the game too.

"Actually, I will have some wine."

Surprise lifted one perfectly shaped eyebrow, but she pulled a tight grin across her face. "Coming right up."

I waited until she slid off of the stool to reach for her glass. "I'll just have some of yours." I smiled on the inside as she froze like a deer in headlights, horror rounding her scarlet lips as I brought the rim to my mouth. My mother was a slave to manners; any sign of impropriety was an affront to her upbringing. If it was utterly out of character for her to make her own meals and pour her own wine, it was downright barbaric for me to reach across the bar and drink from her glass.

And I did more than sip. I guzzled half of the glass. I locked my gaze on her as I nonchalantly pushed the glass back to its position beside her fruit and cheese plate. "The wine is absolutely delicious. Thank you for sharing."

She tugged on the sweater knotted around her shoulder like it was a noose. She was so uncomfortable that she looked one breath away from crawling out of her skin. "Let me grab you your own glass. And a plate so we can share this—Jacob, what are you doing?"

I took a satisfied bite of one of her carrots, chewing it like it was a perfectly prepared bite of filet mignon. I let her stew, all those well bred features of hers going sour. Her forehead was creased with worry lines. Her petite nose called to mind images of a bull with red in its sights, nostrils flaring angrily. Her cheeks flushed indignantly, as red as the strawberries that I swiped and bit into while her lips pulled downward into a frown. The disgust on her face was palpable and besides the confession she'd given upstairs, it was the closest thing to an authentic reaction that she'd ever shared with me.

When I reached for her wine glass she practically dove on top of the bar, snapping at me like a dog protecting his food.

"I know it's been awhile, but I taught you better manners than-" She shuddered when I stole a second carrot. "This," she spat out.

"You've taught me a great many things." I poked her a little harder, not waiting until I was finished chewing to finish my sentence. "I." Crunch. "Didn't." Chew. "Come." Crunch—her head looked seconds away from exploding. "Here for a lesson in etiquette." She was still standing beside the bar, watching me eat and drink like I doing something nefarious. It would have been comical if it wasn't so sad. If she could spare the tiniest sliver of the energy she devoted to appearances to being a good mother, to being a good person, I probably wouldn't be sitting on this stool, chomping on a carrot just to get a reaction.

I think she got the point, so I dusted off my hands and I went serious. "When I drove up here and there was no one at the gate, then pulled around the driveway and dashed into an empty, quiet house, I thought that you were dead."

"Dead?" She repeated the word like it was profane. "Why on earth would you think I was dead?"

I didn't have the energy to tell her to cut the crap. I couldn't even wrangle the energy required to curve my brows in disbelief and slight my lips like we both knew she was full of it. My lack of a reaction was a good call because she just sighed and slid back onto the stool.

"You thought I was dead because your brother was finally making good on his promise to destroy all things Whitmore."

Close, but no dice.

I blinked. Waiting.

She squirmed in her seat, waiting for me to cut her loose. To say the words so she didn't have to say them. It wasn't going to work this time.

Her eyes narrowed to slits as she tried to give me the anger that would ignite my own anger and save her from owning up to her role in this whole mess. I didn't give her the satisfaction of my anger. She didn't deserve it—and I deserved the truth. Cole deserved the truth. Brittany deserved the truth.

"Cole must have come to you." She dropped the anger and the defensive set of her shoulders, defeated. "He told you what happened with his sister."

"Oh, he didn't have to tell me." I surprised us both by keeping my voice calm and measured. "I saw what happened to his sister with my own eyes."

I wanted to believe she really cared when her hand snatched to her mouth and she hitched a breath, but it was exactly how I expected her to react. It was how a kind and caring person would react. The sad fact remained that my mother was not kind nor caring. How could she be? I'd gone to The Estate, a fancy name for a nightmare. A brothel where women were bought and sold and treated like nothing but tools for debauchery and cruelty. My mother was many things—stupid was not one of them. Her little plot took research and a great amount of effort to make contact with Eichmann, pass ️whatever test he required to weed out sabotage and cops. A simple Google search flooded the computer screen with story after story of the living hell he put women through. She'd paid the money to pluck Brittany up and root her in a place where unspeakable things were done to her. Despite what she did to Leila, I still had some humanity left. Some ounce of compassion. My mother didn't get to play human now and act appalled. That ship had sailed.

When she realized I didn't buy her reaction, she lowered her hand slowly. Her eyes didn't meet mine. I wondered if she felt any sense of shame over what she'd done, but I was making all sorts of leaps and bounds in regards to understanding my mother. I had a sick feeling that she had something in common with Brittany. She was a sociopath. Sociopaths couldn't feel shame or remorse or empathy.

I had to steady myself, cement my cold expression on my face so she didn't see the pain. It all made sense—why she could never give me the love I needed. How she could treat people like they were little more than robots. How she could, in good conscience, send a girl to the clutches of a monster.

Because
she
was a monster.

She always had been.

I felt sick to my stomach. Everything in me wanted to run. To leave her to her fate. But I was glued to my chair.

"You're my son," she said simply. "There's nothing, and I mean nothing that I don't know about you."

I heard the ‘wink, wink’ behind her words and it just sent another wave of nausea through me. So she knew about my tastes in the bedroom too. Fantastic.

"Your wife may have wanted to forgive and forget after what that little miscreant did to her-" She paused, anger tearing through her face and spilling from her lips. "All the money they stole! What is it about people these days that makes them feel like they are entitled to something? What happened to good old fashioned hard work?"

The snort ripped its way from my mouth. I should have let the comment sail right on past me. At this point, I had a feeling that there was no reaching her. No hope. But I couldn't not call her on it. "All this?" I gestured around us. "You didn't build this. You were born with money. You married money-"

"So you're better than me?" She tossed her napkin over her uneaten food.

'Yes' was the first word that came to mind, but it wasn't the point. We weren't here to talk about her lack of awareness of her privilege. "You sold someone. You're no better than Eichmann."

She waved her hand through the air like she was clearing away smoke or some offensive odor. "If there's one thing I can't stand it's weakness, Jacob. Your father was weak and for too many years, I let him make me weak." She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin like a queen about to make some grand proclamation. "What I did was justice. I righted the scales."

"Justice?" I said hollowly. I felt like I'd just been whipped through a tornado and dropped back down to earth, battered and bloodied. How could I share DNA with someone that thought hurting someone was justice.

My mind jerked me back to that cottage. To my plans for my brother. I thought that was justice.

Monster ran in the family, apparently.

"Really, Jacob—I thought you'd be thrilled." She lifted the glass but paused before she brought it to her lips, like she could make out the impression of mine. She put the glass down with a sigh and ruffled her salt and pepper locks nonchalantly. "You wanted me to get along with your wife. To treat her like family." Her voice darkened. "I wanted her to know, everyone to know, that you don't mess with the Whitmore’s."

T
he first time my wife invited my brother to our home and dressed it up as some surprise, some bridge to a fantastical Happily Ever After, I'd been pissed. I felt manipulated, because if I denied her the gift and done what I really wanted to do (kick him out), I would have been the bad guy who didn't want happiness and gum drops and unicorns.

When I slogged from the elevator, hurling my keys into the basket near the door, finally wanting something heavy and alcoholic to drink, hearing my brother's voice didn't bring on anger. Maybe I was too exhausted. Too defeated. I just looked up at the ceiling and mouthed, what's next? Maybe locusts. Or another long lost sibling.

Leila skidded from the dining room, immediately doing damage control as she hurried toward me, her curls bounding around her worried, beautiful face.

"I should have told you he was here, but he just showed up and I could tell he was close to doing something he'd regret-"

I cut off her words by pulling her to me, covering her mouth with my own. I poured all the love in me into the kiss, just wanting to stay with her. I was sick of living in a world with kidnappings and monsters. I wanted a world that was nothing but she and I.

I pushed away everything else but her taste; the sweetness of her tongue, the honey of her moans as I roped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. She smiled against my lips as her arms locked around my neck and she curved into me, our bodies locked in an embrace that swept me towards a bliss that only existed when she was in my arms.

I took a breath, but my eyes were still closed, hands still holding onto her. She was my sanity. She was the only thing keeping me together.

"Wow," she sighed. I opened my eyes and it was like she'd pulled the sun from the sky and the light and warmth streamed from her pores. "Your talk with Alicia must have gone well."

And just like that, the light went out. I let go of her, the urge to drink roaring back with a vengeance. "Depends on how you define ‘well’."

Her footsteps were hollow and apprehensive behind me. "I define ‘well’ as good. Progress."

"Huh." I didn't even turn toward the dining room, steering my way toward the liquor cabinet. "Well, progress was made I suppose. She admitted that she did it."

"Oh my god," Leila whispered. The horror in her voice made my heart ache. It was the horror I'd hoped for in my mother. I wanted to be wrong. To believe she was incapable of what she'd done. Now that I had all the pieces and the puzzle was assembled and indisputable, I felt like a fool for asking the question in the first place.

She did it, and I had no doubt that if faced with another situation that called for her perverted sense of justice, she'd do it again. And then she'd just sit there. With her book and her wine, pretending like it was just something on her checklist.

Terrorize the staff? Check. Doubles at the club? Check. Sell a girl to a crime lord? Check.

"Jacob-" I felt her eyes following me to the cabinet. "I don't think that's a good idea."

I zeroed in on the bourbon, then decided to go with the vodka instead. Vodka was for celebrating. I pulled it out and gave a toast. "The one good thing that's come out of all of this is that she finally considers you a Whitmore. Congratulations! Welcome to a family filled with kidnappers, would be murderers, and sociopaths."

My joke fell flat. Leila moved wordlessly to me, her eyes filled with a concern that humbled me. She eased the bottle from my hand and put it aside. She reached up and gently ran her fingers through my hair, her fingertips kissing my temple as she used love to combat the darkness that was eating me alive.

"I'm here, Jacob. You're not alone. I don't know what happened with your mom-"

I pulled from her touch but I didn't reach for the liquid escape. The alcohol that would burn its way down my throat and give me the confidence to tell my wife that there was no escaping the person my mother was. Boozing it up was weak though. And the Whitmore's weren't weak, right?

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the counter. There was no building up to it. I just had to get it over with.

"I pulled up and immediately, I could tell something was wrong. There was no guard. Once I got onto the estate, there was no staff, no sound, no anything. I go up to the master suite and she's just sitting there."