Erin giggled. “You really are, mommy. I see you smile all the time now.”
‘Now’ being the operative word, she figured, but refused to let that darken her mood. She was contemplating the past too much, and thank God, it was history.
It was down to her to make their future right. To make it wholesome and filled with love.
Yes, that’s what she had to focus on.
“I like to hear that,” Josh said with a smile of his own. “But I want to be with you all more. You don’t mind sharing your mommy, do you?”
Erin’s eyes rounded. “Sharing?”
She bit back a grin as she stared down at her plate. “Sharing’s a dirty word at the moment, isn’t it, Erin?”
He blinked. “Dirty word?”
Josh snorted. “Why is it?”
“I wanted him to go to preschool last autumn. Somebody didn’t approve. But I knew it would start this. Erin has only child syndrome.”
“What’s a syndrome, mommy?”
“It’s what you have, sugarplum. It means that you’re on the way to being a spoiled monkey if I don’t watch it.”
“I’m not a monkey,” Erin said with another giggle. “I’m a little boy.”
“Little boys turn into monkeys if they don’t listen to their mommies, isn’t that right, Josh?” She shot him a look, the cast to the glance stern—she was making a point and being facetious at the same time.
The twitch of his lips was proof that she’d scored the hit. “She’s right, Erin. Mommies usually are though. When little boys don’t do as they’re told, they turn into monkeys. Are there more girls than boys in your group?”
Erin squinted a little then held up his hand and counted on his starfish-like fingers. She loved his hands. They were so little, and his nails were so perfect—in a few years, that would change. Her cousins had broken a few of theirs by the time they’d hit nine! “Yes! There are more girls. They smell and Robbie says they have cooties, but I don’t know what they are.”
She’d hoped cooties were away down the line.
“I thought as much,” Josh said, his tone somber. “When a boy turns into a monkey, there’s fewer left to attend the group. That’s why there are more girls.”
“Aren’t girls ever spoiled?” Erin demanded, his eyes rounder than ever at this turnabout.
She probably shouldn’t let the story go too far, but she was enjoying Josh’s playful side too much to chide him. Truth was, Erin was getting spoiled. She was limiting him in some ways, but sometimes it felt like for every step forward she took, Janice helped drag him back a whole yard on their rare visits where she showered him with gifts and catered to his every whim.
“Girls are spoiled, but they don’t turn into monkeys. That’s how they get cooties.”
Samantha cleared her throat. “Cooties and monkeys really aren’t talk for the dining table. Eat your meals, both of you.”
There was a sparkle in Josh’s eye when their gazes clashed and held that, she’d admit, bewildered her.
She wasn’t sure where it came from, her response to it and his reaction in the first place, but she’d never seen it before. Had never seen this playful side either.
When he’d hung out with Jamie in the past, the two of them hadn’t postured as much as she’d have imagined two guys with their backgrounds doing. But they’d usually messed with each other as guys did. Nothing unusual in it, but they’d always been pretty harsh with each other. There’d never been the opportunity to see this softer, gentler side she guessed.
Erin had been too young to really do much interacting when Josh had hung out with Jamie in the past. He was only now starting to talk more anyway…
She carried on eating her meal, and tried not to think about how right it was for Josh to be there—he was engaging Erin. Teasing him, making her little boy laugh.
God, it was intoxicating. Truly.
If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, then Samantha had just figured out the way to a woman’s…
Through her son.
Chapter 9
Samantha
“I didn’t realize you were coming.”
Janice sneered at her, but because Samantha was growing accustomed to that, she merely tilted her chin in the air and stared the other woman down.
She didn’t like to think poorly of anyone, but she really disliked Janice. Would go so far as to call her a class A bitch.
Frank was too disinterested in anything other than his work or his club to really give a damn about who cared for Erin. Grandson or not, it didn’t make him a person who was suddenly interested in rearing a small child.
No, this entire battle had been instigated by Janice, mostly because Erin’s words were tarnishing Janice’s memory of her horrible son.
“Janice, it’s a pleasure to see you,” was all Samantha said, when she’d have liked to say and do far more.
For a second, she imagined herself telling the woman exactly what she thought of her, but knew she was too chicken to do so.
Not only because of the power Janice held over her, a power that could take Erin from her, but also because the woman had claws and wasn’t afraid to use them.
Samantha had never been that way. She was a people pleaser. A comforter, a nurturer. There was no changing her nature. Not even her marriage had done that.
“Where’s Erin?” Janice demanded instead, peering around Josh and her as though Erin could pop up at any given moment.
“He’s with one of my guards. He has children,” Josh assured Janice as he reached forward so he could anoint both her cheeks with a kiss. “It’s great to see you, Janice. It’s been too long.”
“Yes, it has.” Janice shot him a strange look. “You’ve lost weight.”
“I’ve been working out more.”
“It doesn’t suit you,” she countered, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re as bad as Jamie was. Always trying to beef up.”
Josh stiffened, but Janice, as usual, was too self-absorbed to notice. “Work pressures haven’t helped. I’m eating enough, Janice. That I can assure you.” His words were as stiff as his posture.
The other woman pursed her lips in disapproval—a disapproval that made no sense considering the woman was close to skeletal and her body was pumped with so much plastic, she was a walking recycling bin—and grumbled, “Why is Erin with one of your guards? I’d have liked to speak with him.” Janice cut Samantha a look that was loaded with dislike. “What’s going on?”
“He’s down in the car.”
“What? He’s here?”
Josh nodded. “I wanted to speak with you first, and I didn’t think it was a conversation that little ears should overhear.”
“What are you talking about?” Janice said on a huff.
“I’m talking about an announcement I—we—have to make.”
“What kind of announcement?” The demand came hand in hand with a narrowing of her eyes as she took in the way Samantha shuffled closer to Josh’s side.
“I proposed to Samantha and she said yes.”
For a second, she thought they’d managed the impossible—had managed to shut the old bitch up. Janice was so quiet and for so long, she thought they’d stunned her!
Then, came a low keening sound. It fled from her lips, and on anyone else, it would have sounded like she was mourning. But this was born of rage and fury.
“I knew it!” The words came out on a screech. “I knew it. I told Frank but he didn’t believe me. How could you, Joshua Lewis? Your best friend’s widow!”
She turned her snarl on Samantha. “And you, you slut. You’ve barely waited for the grass to grow on his grave before you’re turning your wiles on some other rich schmuck.”
Samantha straightened her shoulders. “Josh proposed to me, Janice. Not the other way around. You’ve known him long enough to know that he’s a man who knows what he wants. I can’t, and haven’t, made him do anything.”
Janice’s hair, dyed a new shade of auburn t
oday, whispered around her shoulders as she began throwing her arms about like some kind of insane whirling dervish. “I told him you were a slut. I told him. But he never listened. He thought you walked on water. The idiot. And you can barely wait for him to grow cold before you’re moving on.”
“Janice!”
Josh’s voice was a harsh bark that had Samantha flinching, and Janice jolting to attention. Having seen the other woman space out before, it hadn’t come as a surprise that she’d reacted that way. It told Samantha that they’d picked an unfortunate moment to come calling—midway through a bottle of Scotch on Janice’s behalf.
“You bastard,” the other woman snarled,
Then turning to Samantha once more, she did the unthinkable, she spat at her.
Honest to God shot her a loogie.
For a second, Samantha stared down at the once-clean light blouse she’d been wearing in astonishment.
That hadn’t just happened, had it?
Surely not.
She blinked down at the sloppy liquid anointing the fabric, and whispered, “You’re an animal.”
“I’m the animal? You’re the slut!”
“Janice, one more word and I’ll have you in court for slander.”
Janice’s eyes flared wide. “You dare to threaten me?”
“I’ll do a damn sight more if you can’t calm down.”
“You were sleeping with her before Jamie died, weren’t you? That’s why he started taking more of that horrendous stuff. I knew it. It’s all your fault!”
A stillness overcame Samantha at her mother-in-law’s words.
She’d thought…
Well, Janice had never caught Samantha’s allusions to Jamie’s addictions. She’d never seemed to catch on, and Samantha hadn’t believed it had been willing ignorance, simply a lack of awareness of her child’s true nature.
But now?
Janice had confirmed something she had never even suspected.
“You knew.”
The words were a statement, not a question. But they didn’t come from her lips, they came from Josh.
“I knew he was taking far too much. I warned him to slow down. But he wouldn’t listen, he never listened. And why would he when he was so upset about his best friend and his own wife fucking behind his back.”
She didn’t know where it came from, didn’t know where the urge stemmed because if anyone knew violence wasn’t the answer, it was Samantha. And yet, she watched, almost as though her hand didn’t belong to herself as she whipped it back, and with full force, aimed at Janice’s face.
With inches to spare, fingers appeared and banded about her wrist. “Don’t. You’ll regret it later.”
Josh was like ice, no, worse. Stone. He was a harsh blend of both, but his tone as well as his grip on her arm jerked her awake.
Shit, she hadn’t really been about to…?
She licked her lips, shaken that her initial response to Janice’s words were violence.
Fuck, what did that make her? As bad as her bastard husband?
She swallowed, but it was hard. Her throat felt full of tears and rage and all kinds of complicated emotions she wasn’t up to exploring. But she had to. She had to because Janice was here, admitting that she’d known all along what was happening with Jamie’s addictions.
Had she known about the other though?
Had she?
Samantha needed to know.
Needed to with a desperate craving that undoubtedly rivalled Jamie’s need for the drugs that had ultimately killed him.
“He hit me.” The words were staccato, and Janice jolted with each one. “Repeatedly. Day after day, year after year. You knew, didn’t you?”
Though Janice remained silent, Josh bit off, “You did. For fuck’s sake, Janice! Why didn’t you stop him?”
The other woman began to shake, the tremors making it seem like she was vibrating. “Get out of my home.”
“No!” Samantha roared. “No! You bitch. You goddamn bitch. He treated me like I was a punching bag. He punished me for daring to say thank you to a waiter, thought I was sleeping with everyone from our sixty-year-old doorman to the driver! And you mean to tell me you knew?”
“I knew nothing,” Janice spat. “Get out of my house. Both of you have outstayed your welcome.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere until you admit you knew,” Samantha raged. “I loved him at the start. I’d have done anything to help him. And with your support, we could have… I don’t know? Got him into rehab. But you just enabled him. You made it okay that he treated me that way!”
Janice’s mouth flatlined. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
“Not before you hear from mine first, Janice,” Josh inserted, his tone close to silky with threat.
“This fight has nothing to do with you,” she snarled.
“It has everything. You honestly think I’m going to allow my future wife to lose her son? You’re insane. As insane as Jamie was.”
“She’s convinced you, has she? Made you believe all these lies about Jamie?”
“I saw Erin before Jamie died, Janice. I saw him. He was quiet. You’d barely know he was there, he was so damn silent. He stayed close to Samantha. Tucked so close to her like he could turn invisible… That’s what Jamie did to him. I loved Jamie. I thought he was the best man I knew, and I didn’t believe it. Not at first. But seeing Erin now confirmed it. He’s chatty, he smiles and laughs and giggles. It’s a wonder he’s not nervous, but whatever he is, he isn’t sad. He doesn’t mourn his father’s passing and that’s because of Jamie.”
“No!” Janice screamed. “It’s because of her. She’s tarnishing Jamie’s memory. Ruining it with her lies and deceit.”
“It’s the truth! There are no lies here, apart from the ones you’re telling yourself.” Samantha let out a sob. “What do you want? To see my medical records? Do you want to see the ribs he broke? The arm he sprained? Is that proof? Do you want to know that the doctors and nurses of the clinic he took me to didn’t even dare tell me about a nearby women's shelter because women like me don’t escape men like Jamie Garrett.” She gulped. “Your son was a monster, and it will be a cold day in hell that I let my son be raised by the woman who turned Jamie into that.”
Josh murmured softly, “She’ll have all the might of my lawyers, Janice. You might want to consider that before you talk Frank into going to court over a child we both know he isn’t interested in.” He paused. “And, you might warn him from me. He needs to avoid the Sanderson-Montecor group if he wants to have enough money to pay a lawyer’s retainer… never mind anything else.”
Janice’s eyes flashed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means they’re being investigated for insider training. Consider that a friendly olive branch from me, Janice. He’ll have just enough time to pull his stock, and if the SEC think it looks a little unusual, then he can send them my way. I’ll explain it all. You don’t want to make an enemy out of me, Janice. You and I both know who’ll win.”
For a second, Janice stayed quiet, but she jerked her chin up and, with her eyes aimed at the door—for they’d not even left the front vestibule—she whispered, “I’d like you to leave now.”
“Gladly,” Samantha mumbled, and wished she’d never have to darken her in-laws’ doorstep ever again.
Chapter 10
Josh
“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.
Believing Her: An Enemies to Lovers Fake Fiancé Romance Page 7