“You didn’t have to do that.”
His ‘fiancé’s’ tone was definitely wooden, and who the hell could blame her? He sure as shit couldn’t, not after what he’d just witnessed.
“Of course I did,” Josh said bluntly as they headed into the elevator that would take them to the ground floor. It was a long way down from the penthouse. The Garrett’s building was an eighty-story monolith, but he pushed the button for the floor below.
Within a handful of seconds, the doors opened onto the wrong floor. Samantha turned to look at him, a question in her eyes. He stepped out, answering her question with
a physical response.
“Come on out. You need to calm down. If Erin sees you like this, he’ll know something’s wrong.” He cleared his throat. “For that matter, he’ll pick it up from me too. I’m not feeling all that peaceful right about now either.”
The doors started to close, but they pinged open again as she stepped out.
Nodding, she murmured, “You’re right. I just need a moment.”
“We both do.” The words weren’t supposed to be reassuring, but he knew they acted that way because the tension in her shoulders dissipated, and he was glad he’d eased her some.
Even if he hadn’t eased himself.
Reaching up, he rubbed at his temple as he leaned back against the wall opposite the elevator. Blowing out a deep breath, he tried to figure out what the fuck had just happened, because really, Janice couldn’t have known the truth about her son, could she?
Had Jamie told her?
That was the only thing that made any real sense, dammit.
Because Josh hadn’t known shit about that side of Jamie’s character. So why would his mother? A mother Jamie hadn’t really liked all that much?
Feeling suffocated, he pulled at the knot of his tie and dragged it from his throat. Unbuttoning his shirt too, he sucked in a deep breath but the truth was, it wasn’t deep enough.
Emotions were riding him, and for a man most considered ice cold, it was too much.
It was all just too much.
He squatted down, and knew she jolted in reaction to his move. But he couldn’t think about her—selfish as that sounded considering she was the true victim here. At that moment, Josh was just trying to reconcile the new world order.
A world where his best friend was a cokehead and a wife beater.
What did that say about him that he’d gotten the man’s character so wrong?
In business, he prided himself on reading a situation, on quickly assessing it and making a deal from whatever he judged appropriate.
But all of that was in tatters because the man closest to him, hell, the only person who’d ever been consistently close to him throughout his entire life had managed to pull the wool over his eyes.
Utterly.
Totally.
It was all a lie.
All of it bullshit, and that bullshit had been perpetuated by Janice.
He knew what hatred was. Some days, he hated his mother. He hated her avarice, her greed. He hated that she saw him as some kind of piggy bank, and still believed she had rights over how he lived his life. He despised the men she’d brought into her life throughout his childhood, men that had belittled him for being a bastard, for being unwanted…
But this kind of hatred was soul deep.
He knew, at that moment, he’d destroy the Garrett family if Janice and Frank went ahead with their threats.
He’d annihilate them, and he’d hit them where they hurt the most—their bank balance.