Page 152 of Charming Deception

“That must’ve been very hard.”

“It was. Back then, it made life turbulent. We lived in a huge house, bigger than the one I live in now, and most of the time, my mom would be locked up in her room and I couldn’t even go see her if she wasn’t in the mood for it. And I never knew what set her bad moods off. When you’re a kid with a parent that emotionally unstable, you blame yourself. I naturally assumed I was the reason my mom didn’t want to see me.”

I consider that. And I know, of course, that he wasn’t the reason. Any more than I was the reason my dad couldn’t love me.

“What was the reason?”

“I don’t know for sure. But years later…” He hesitates. “Well, I guess I was deemed old enough to be let in on all the family secrets. The family truths.”

I wait, wondering if he’ll let me in on these truths. “Go on,” I prompt, when he pauses too long and I worry he might not tell me. “Please.”

“Are you sure you want to know these things?” He glances at me, his handsome face a myriad of colors from the lights of a bustling café across the street.

“Yes.”

“Well, the truth is, my dad had a lot of affairs. He cheated on my mom repeatedly, throughout their marriage.”

“Oh. That’s… ” I don’t finish the sentence.

Obviously, it was a lot of things, none of them good.

“Yeah. I always wondered, what kind of marriage is that? I mean, she ended up cheating on him, too, apparently. With Jean-Charles. She had five children with my dad, and he wasn’t faithful. She had no job. Her whole life was our family, until it wasn’t. And then she disconnected from us, so easily, when there was a time when we were her whole world. But maybe I reminded her too much of him. Maybe we all did. Who knows.”

“And what about your dad? Was he around at all?”

“He was, but he worked a lot. And he had all those affairs to manage,” he adds dryly. “But he died when I was eleven.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.

Damn, that was young to lose a parent.

“It’s all right.”

“Was he sick?” I probe when Jameson doesn’t offer more.

“No. It was a helicopter accident. Sudden and unexpected. The whole family was devastated by it. Mom never recovered, I don’t think. She remarried quickly and moved to France to live with Jean-Charles and his children from a previous marriage. She brought me, Savannah, and Harlan with her. But at that point, any interest she’d had in mothering us was abandoned in pursuit of doting on her new husband and his kids, maybe in hopes that he wouldn’t cheat. We spent the rest of our teenage years in prestigious boarding schools around Europe.”

“Wow. What was that like?”

“Lonely,” he says, which is not what I expected him to say. “Savi and Harlan and I didn’t even go to the same schools all the time, since there was a three-year age difference. So I was on my own for most of my teens. I hated it here, honestly. Being an outsider. Those were the worst years of my life, when they could’ve been some of the best. I begged Graysen to fly me home, like every time I talked to him.”

“And did he?”

“Eventually. When I was seventeen, as soon as I finished school. He and Damian had become Granddad’s business partners by then, stepping into our dad’s shoes. It was my brothers who told me all about the affairs Dad had and why Mom probably was the way she was.”

“I see.”

“At least it made all the pieces fit together. Suddenly I understood why Mom was so damn eager to start over in a new marriage. And why she was so paranoid and untrusting, and so uncomfortable with being in the public eye. She had a lot to hide. Her husband had all those affairs, and she still stood by him, but she didn’t want the world to know how he’d betrayed her. Or how, in the end, she’d betrayed him, too. I think it was her worst fear, that she might be humiliated like that in public. That everyone might find out her great love story was a lie. I think that’s also why she likes living in France. They have such strict privacy laws here.”

“I suppose that does explain some of her behavior,” I say carefully. “But it still must’ve been hard for you to learn all those things about your parents.”

“It was. I was pretty angry about it. I even had a brief rebellious streak.” Jameson cocks an eyebrow at me. “Which mostly amounted to a few tattoos.”

“Such a rebel,” I tease. “Thank you for telling me all that. I know it can’t be easy.”

“It’s just the truth. My family’s really not as pretty as they want to look.”

“I understand. My family’s not always pretty either.”

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