Page 47 of Mine to Keep

But she’d made some shitty choices, and he’d paid the price.

“I think this calls for some liquid courage.” Steve stood, turned, and opened a cabinet behind his desk. “Do you like a good tequila?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” While he generally considered himself a standard beer drinker, when he went for the stronger stuff, he preferred tequila over anything else.

“Orlando and Tallahassee love tequila, but my other two kids, not so much.” Steve handed him a glass of clear liquid with a couple of ice cubes but thankfully didn’t ask him to clank glasses because that’s where Jamison would draw the line.

Jamison took a sip, expecting it to burn, but it went down smoothly. It was like nothing he’d ever tasted. He was tempted to ask for the brand name, but he figured it was probably something like a thousand dollars a bottle. He also wanted to know why Steve had named his kids after cities in Florida, but that might be seen as an exercise in getting to know someone, and that wasn’t something he wanted.

Yet.

“I had this entire speech planned out. I’ve been playing it over in my head for years, but now that you’re standing here, and we’re alone, I don’t know where to begin.” Steve sat on the corner of his desk. He set his drink on a coaster and let out a long sigh. “You’ve never once asked why I left.”

“It’s kind of obvious.”

Steve chuckled before lifting his glass, giving it a little twirl, letting the ice rattle, and raising it to his lips. He stared past Jamison and swallowed. “How so?”

“I’m not going to play this game. You brought me here to tell me something, so say it.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on in your head, though. What it is that you think. Because if you believe I left because I didn’t want you, then you’re wrong. I left you behind because I believed it was the right thing to do and—”

“It was right for you.”

“Not just me, but for everyone involved. And it was what your mother wanted,” Steve said.

“Can I ask you something?” If Jamison was going to do this, he would do it his way and get the answers he wanted.

“Of course.”

“Were you involved with your wife at the time you had the affair with my mom?”

“No. I didn’t meet my ex until I moved to Miami,” Steve said. “You have to understand, there was always a chance I wasn’t your biological father. And because your mom and dad wanted to try to work things out, I stepped aside.”

“That’s not entirely true.” One of the things Jamison had learned when Steve came back into town was that Steve and Jamison’s mom had always been in contact. There hadn’t been a time in history where they hadn’t communicated with each other. And that not only broke Dalton Kirby’s heart, it had killed any chance Steve had for having a relationship with Jamison.

It’d also destroyed the bond that Jamison had with his mom. He could no longer trust anything she said or did. It was all suspect.

Cheryl cheating had made it all worse. It was like pouring salt on an open wound, and Jamison had already lost his family.

“What are you talking about?” Steve narrowed his gaze.

“You never took a back seat in my mother’s life. And don’t try to deny it.”

“I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

“You kept in contact with my mother after you left Lighthouse Cove.”

“No. We didn’t speak to each other until you were two years old, and she heard that I’d gotten married. She knew in her heart that you were my son. She reached out to me, but my wife was about to give birth to our first daughter at the time. It was then that I understood why it had been so important for your mom to keep her family together, and I was going to do the same with mine. Your mom and I didn’t begin our friendship again for another ten years.”

Jamison downed the rest of his drink and set the glass on the desk.

Immediately, Steve moved it to a coaster.

“I’m not sure I’d classify what you were asfriends,” Jamison said. “You might not have been sleeping with my mother during those years, but it was still an emotional affair.”

“I won’t deny being in love with your mom for as long as I’ve known her, but she wanted to try to keep her family intact, and I wanted to do the same with mine. It was a complicated situation, and we made a lot of mistakes. As a matter of fact, when she first found out that she was pregnant with you, she didn’t tell me. She actually called off our affair. Told me she could never see me again. That it was over. However, Dalton found out about us when she was seven months pregnant and, for a short time, your mom contemplated leaving him.”

Jamison’s breath caught. It wasn’t that he didn’t know this, but hearing it from Steve seemed highly inappropriate and hurtful.

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