Grace stared. He hadn’t loved his ex-wife? ‘Her family?’ she echoed.
‘Sounds pathetic, right?’
‘No.’ Jamie was a lot of things, but pathetic wasn’t one of them. He’d married this Dana for her family?
‘It has to be said, though, that her family are great—fun, loving, kind. I’d always dreamed of being part of a family like that.’
He stared at the river and she swallowed at the bleakness she glimpsed in his eyes. Fifteen years ago, Jamie’s parents had shipped him off to Kings Reach to get him out of the way while they’d thrashed out their divorce. They’d packed him up and sent him away as if he were a parcel, as if he were of no consequence at all. She’d never met them, but that didn’t stop her from loathing them.
‘Me and my parents, we’d never been much of a family. I’ve no idea why they married, or why they had a kid.’
Her heart burned for the lonely teenager he’d been. When she’d clapped eyes on him fifteen years ago, she’d silently sworn to make him smile at least once during his stay. She’d wanted him to feel as if he belonged. She’d achieved that. Until she’d panicked.
‘But while everyone was distant from each other, at least it was peaceful.’
Which was the antithesis of her family—warm, rowdy, lovely.
‘But the divorce turned acrimonious, and they used me as a weapon against each other.’
She swallowed. ‘How?’
‘In endless ways. For example, my father pulled me from the school that my mother had chosen and enrolled me in a rival school. My mother forged my signature on a university application to study medicine and then waved the acceptance under my father’s nose. I was supposed to follow him into business.’
‘Didn’t anyone ask what you wanted?’
He glanced across with what looked like genuine affection and shook his head.
‘What did you do, career-wise?’
‘To everyone’s displeasure, I did a technology degree and started up JC Robotics, my company.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘You’re JC Robotics? But…the company is huge!’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve been lucky.’ And he hadn’t been interested in self-promotion, funnelling all of his energies into building the business instead.
She narrowed her eyes at that. ‘You mean you worked hard.’
He hesitated and then his jaw firmed. ‘That last morning here, I came down to breakfast and Fraser announced I’d be leaving—said my mother insisted on it. My bags were packed while I ate breakfast. I was supervised the entire time—as if they were worried I’d run away. I didn’t get a chance to come find you to say goodbye.’
Her heart pounded loud in her ears.
‘When I got home, my mother took me out of the state and basically held my father to ransom. If he wanted to see me then he had to acquiesce to her demands. He didn’t care about seeing me, but he had no intention of letting her win the war.’
For a moment she thought she might be sick. How could they have done that to him? ‘You tried to tell me this on the phone, but I wouldn’t listen.’
‘The timing was terrible. I didn’t blame you for thinking what you did.’
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