Page 96 of Discretion at Its Finest

“Why?” I asked in the lingering silence, and she looked over to me. “Why did you stay?”

“Because I have you, because of Eugene, my sons, and everything else.”

“But you loved him.”

“And I still do. But that was my decision to make. And this decision… whatever it is, can only be yours to make.”

I had to make a decision…My hand landed on the growing baby in my stomach before I even realized it.

Jamie noticed instantly. Her eyes dropped quickly, softening before she whispered, “Oh, sweetheart…”

She reached for me just as the sob crawled up my throat. I folded into her frail arms, shaking, humiliating little sounds coming from me as I hid my face in her shoulder.

Across the room, I could still hear my son rolling his cars over the rug, oblivious to his mother collapsing three feet away.

“They’re all I have, Jamie…” I whispered, words strangled and raw. She held me tighter. “And I don’t—” I cried softly, “I don’t want to lose him. Ican’tlose him again.”

“I know.”

And she did. Only a woman who’s lived through the same pain could understand, and she’d lived it. She’d chosen differently, still carrying the memory of the man she loved.

And she saw in me what she once was… and the choice she never got to make.

Chapter thirty-seven

Genevieve

“Have a seat at booth four. He’ll be out shortly.”

The guard held the door open with one hand, the other already reaching for the clipboard behind me that had all the other scheduled visits.

I stepped inside the room and the temperature dropped instantly. Goosebumps crawled up my arms as I wrapped them around myself. My heels clicked against the stone floor, each sound louder than the next.

Rows of glass partitions stretched down the length of the wall. Phones hung from thick cords beside each divider, the metal stools bolted so tightly to the floor, even the furniture was imprisoned.

There was no doorway to the other side. No way to reach him. Just a barrier of reinforced glass and steel stretched to the ceiling. I took a seat at the booth, placing my hands in my lap, but they wouldn’t stay still.

I smoothed my dress, twisted my fingers, rubbed my sweaty palms, but nothing helped. The silence was almost as loud as my impatience.

Soon enough though, a door buzzed somewhere behind the glass. There were heavy footsteps. Two guards appeared.

And then Reid.

He stepped into the room on the other side. Dressed in a grey long-sleeve, sleeves shoved up to his forearms, and grey state-issued cargo pants sitting low on his hips. The slight scruff along his jaw made him look older, more dangerous. Five o’clock shadow, steel in his eyes, and not a single piece of him looked broken.

My breath caught as his eyes locked onto mine.

Weeks without him, and he managed to look exactly the same and completely different at the same time, nothing like the prisoner I had dreams I’d face.

He finally lowered himself onto the metal stool, his eyes never leaving mine. For a full second, neither of us moved.

Then, without looking away, he reached for the phone on his side of the glass. I swallowed, picked up mine, pressed it to my ear with fingers that wouldn’t stop trembling.

His voice hit me instantly, stirring something deep inside me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

My throat tightened. “Reid…”

He didn’t blink. The man on the other side of the glass wasn’t the one from his penthouse in California. Or the one who held me in the kitchen, pulling me into his world again.