Page 78 of Jameson Fox

“Adeline’s weight gain,” Mom answers him, looking quite happy to involve him in the conversation. The thing about this? She actually thinks she’s helping me.

Jameson comes to stand behind me, snaking his arm firmly around my waist and resting his hand on my stomach. Keeping up the marriage charade for Mom. A good idea because I have no doubt that if she discovered the marriage wasn’t real, it would only be a matter of time before my sister shared that information with someone who would pay for it.

“What weight gain?” he asks, sounding genuinely confused.

Mom motions her hand at me. “The weight she’s gained since you married her. I was just reminding her that getting married doesn’t mean a woman can take her focus off looking good for her husband. There’s no extra security simply because you’re married.”

It’s not often I’m embarrassed, but I am now.

I’m embarrassed to hear my mother say these things. Women have come too fucking far to still believe this kind of garbage.

“Mom,” I start, ready to educate her, but Jameson cuts me off.

“Frances, what Adeline weighs is her business, not mine. And as far as security in a marriage goes, that’s not what marriage is about.”

Mom is the kind of person who hardly hears a word others say. Her conversations are mostly one-sided, so it doesn’t surprise me that she pays little attention to what Jameson says. She looks at me after he finishes speaking and says, “You should come for a walk with me in the morning. It’ll help with this.”

I’m about to tell her what I think of that when her phone rings. Her face lights up when she sees who’s calling. “It’s Peter,” she says to me like that means something. She then answers the call, sounding like a giggly schoolgirl, and brushes past me and Jameson to take the call.

Jameson moves his mouth to my ear and murmurs, “She’s something else,” before letting me go.

He can’t possibly know what those three words mean to me, but when I turn to him, I get the sense that maybe he somehow does. It’s in the way he’s watching me with care, like he understands how I feel after that conversation.

I brush it aside.

I don’t want to talk about how my mother makes me feel. Not with Jameson.

“Which bedroom can she sleep in?” I ask.

“Whichever room you want.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“She can stay as long as you want,” he says as I head toward the hallway.

I look back at him. “You may regret that.”

He doesn’t say anything further; he just watches me silently.

I’m so thrown by him that I almost stumble in my hurry to escape the confusion of it all.

And good God, I can still feel him everywhere.

Inside me.

Outside me.

All around me.

I need a shower and a million hours by myself to figure out this entire situation with him.

Half an hour later, I finally make it into the bathroom. That’s after sorting Mom out with a bedroom, finding out that she’s here so she can have a break from Sabrina who is apparently driving her up the wall, and agreeing to help her find a new dress tomorrow for a date she’s having with Peter when she gets home.

I take a bath instead of a shower. A long, hot, bubble bath in the floating tub in my bathroom that overlooks Manhattan. I’ll give it to Jameson; I love this bathroom and will miss it when my year here is up.

When I leave the bathroom an hour later, the anxious energy my mother always stirs up is still there but lessened. I grab my crossword book and phone, and crawl into bed. I send Natalie a text to check in on her, and when I don’t receive a reply, I find a crossword to do.

I’m deep in thought trying to figure out a clue when Jameson strides into the bedroom. He slows when his eyes land on me. “Your mother has everything she needs?”

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