"Is everything okay, Max?" I sucked in a deep breath as my mom's voice wafted over to us. I turned and smiled. "Everything's fine, Mom. I’ll be back in a minute."
I strode down toward the conference room that Amelia and I had talked in the day before. "We can talk down here."
James smirked. “Just as I thought. The big, wonderful, perfect Clarke family from New York is far from perfect after all. Are you the black sheep, or are the rest of you full of bullshit too?"
I opened the door and stepped into the room. I returned to the question he asked before. "Your sister drugged me and committed fraud. I could add extortion as well."
Her brother put his hands on his hips and stared at me. "Do you have any proof?"
My jaw tightened.
"You don't. Because if there were proof, my sister would have my father in jail so fast it would make your head spin. While you were here drinking it up and celebrating your brother's wedding, my sister spent her New Year's Eve weeping at my place. My father's going to try and ruin her, and it's all because you were happy to fuck her and knock her up but won't stand by her as her world comes crashing down around her."
I hated how his words seeped into my heart, making me doubt what I’d been so certain was true. Amelia was a con. "I heard them talking."
He didn't seem fazed by that. "And what did you hear, Almighty Max?"
I hated his tone. It reminded me of all the times I'd been taunted as a kid. "They were talking about the plan. About sticking to the plan."
"Who was talking about sticking to the plan?"
I looked away for a moment, getting more annoyed at this discussion. I turned back to him. "Your father and your sister."
"I believe that you heard my father, but you're a liar if you think my sister said anything about sticking to a plan that involved conning you."
I scanned my brain back to the evening outside her door, trying to remember what I heard. He was right. I hadn't heard her say anything, but that didn't make her innocent. "She didn't deny it."
This time, it wasn't just James's tone that suggested I was an idiot. It was his facial expression. "She’d just discovered that her father had drugged her and forced her into marriage. Maybe in your world, that seems normal, but Amelia is still reeling from it. Even knowing the types of things my father is capable of, neither of us ever expected that he would do something like that."
“And yet it happened.” I turned away as anger boiled and the urge to punch him grew again. Finally, I turned back. “What do you want from me?”
“I came here to ask you to take her away. Take her back to New York. Away from my father. I can’t protect her from him as well as you can.”
Was he on drugs? “I don’t want anything to do with her.”
He stepped away, turning and running his fingers through his hair, as if the intensity was getting to him too. Then he whirled back, pointing a finger at me. "My sister was going to tell you about the baby and that she loved you. That night, you were apparently right outside her door, hearing what my father had done, but did you knock on the door to confront them or protect her?" His gaze raked over me with an expression that suggested I was no better than pond scum. "What about the scam you're pulling on her?"
I jerked back, shocked by his accusation. "I'm not the scammer here."
“Oh? The annulment papers could have been filed almost two months ago, but you dragged your feet. Why is that? I'll tell you why. You like to get your rocks off with my sister. The longer you drew that annulment out, the more often you could fuck her, and when you tired of her, then you could file the papers and be done with it."
I felt pushed back on my heels. Did he really think that? Did Amelia? "That's not true."
"Sure it is. You don’t give a shit about her.”
Anger boiled up. "I loved your sister." The minute the words were out of my mouth, I turned away, hating that I’d revealed so much.
"Now who's the liar? If you cared even just a little bit about my sister, you wouldn't be over here pouting and whining because a ruthless businessman used his daughter to grift you. A real man would fight. He'd fight for the woman he said he loved."
Confusion filled my brain until I thought it might explode. I turned away, trying to bring a semblance of order to what was going on.
James patted my shoulder as he walked past me. "No worries there, Little Max. Amelia and her baby have me. I’ll help her get through this and hopefully put a stop to my father. I can't be sure that he won't try to go after you in some way, and knowing Amelia, she’ll try to block him even if it means he hurts her more. My suggestion to you if you don't want my father to fuck with you is to go home and don't look back. Forget my sister and the baby. They don't need you or your money."
"Like hell I'm going to leave my child with you two."
James let out a laugh. "You don’t care about that baby.”
I stared at him, wanting him to stop, wanting to defend myself but unable to find the words.