Page 495 of The Sinner: James

“Sure,” I say, motioning to my travel gear.

Smoothly, he picks it up and pulls away before vanishing out the door.

“He’ll come. I’ll take him with me to Monaco. If things go as planned, I might need to go with him to London to close his business. He can no longer fight in that circuit.”

“He won’t like that.”

“He has no choice.”

“You don’t know him. He doesn’t give a damn about what he can or can’t do.”

“Oh. I got that already––trust me––but do you know what he’ll hate even more than not being able to fight anymore? My face.”

She doesn’t say a word.

“So why exactly didn’t you tell him about me? I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around it,” I say, edging closer to the window and lowering my gaze to the street.

She sighs.

“Well… His father had always been jealous of my past. He thought he couldn’t offer me the lifestyle I was used to, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t measure up to your father. Moving away, we hoped for a fresh start, and he was thrilled that we’d have a son, but it was still not enough in his mind, so he decided to keep my past a secret and never talk to Tiago about you.”

“That must be the real reason you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“I tried to do everything I could not to hurt people more than I already had. It didn’t seem like a good idea to mess with everybody’s lives. And after Diego left me, I didn’t know how to tell Tiago about you.”

“You used the same excuse with me.”

“What’s your point, James?” she tosses at me, slightly irritated.

“You don’t seem to learn. Do I need to teach you this? There’s no way you can remove this shit from your life. You have to own it.”

“You’re right. But you’ve asked a question, and I’m trying to relay to you how things were. As I said, I know I’ve made mistakes, and pointing to them won’t make them disappear.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“So, yes. That’s what it was. I barely kept him from running away from home. He was angry with me because he worshiped Diego and thought the dissolution of my marriage was entirely my fault. Revealing my past and making him aware of another failed marriage would’ve only cemented the idea that I was a bad mother and a terrible wife. Later, he hated his father, but his feelings about me never changed. Had they changed, he wouldn’t have behaved like he did.”

“He sounds like a real gem.”

She doesn’t comment.

“By behaving the way he did, you mean… anything involving the police?”

“No. The usual stuff. He got into fights.”

“Go figure.”

“He couldn’t make any friends.”

“That’s a big surprise too.”

“A couple of women threatened to kill themselves after hooking up with him.”

“I didn’t see that coming,” I murmur sarcastically. “About the women...”

“He never had a girlfriend either.”

“There was a woman... His teacher.”

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