The Stopover (The Miles High Club 1)

I stare at her for a moment as a clusterfuck of emotion runs through me. “Because eventually, I’m going to let her down,” I whisper.

Her face softens. “Jameson darling, how? By working too hard? By being too honorable to your family business?”

I close my eyes.

“I’m in love with a man just like you, Jameson. You know him well, your father. He, like you, is a workaholic.”

“How . . . ?” I frown. “I don’t know how to do both, Mom.”

“Then work it out.”

I stare at her.

“Emily loves you, Jameson, not your money . . . or your company. She loves you . . . just you.”

I drop my head.

“Stop being so damn selfless, and do what you want to do.”

“I don’t know what that is anymore,” I whisper.

“Oh, nonsense,” she snaps. “Tell me something. If you were on a deserted island, who would you want by your side?”

“Emily,” I whisper without hesitation.

“Being in love is like being on a deserted island, Jameson. You focus on them and them only, and you make everything else fit around that person.”

I inhale deeply.

“If you don’t want to travel into the future with her, don’t. But don’t you dare p

ull away from your own happiness to protect her.”

I clench my jaw as I listen.

“How one man can be so ruthless in business and so giving to those he loves, I will never understand . . . but, the fact that your father is your carbon copy, I know it’s possible.” She cups my face in her hand. “The man I love and the man that the world knows are two very different men . . . and that’s just how I like it. I like that I’m the only one who gets his softness.”

I smile softly.

“I am your father’s world, Jameson; he made it work around the company. Never once have I felt neglected or unloved. I have always come first to him.”

I stare at her as her words roll around in my head.

“The man that Emily loves and the one that you think you are are two very different men. You need to allow yourself to be who you are with Emily and be the Jameson Miles that the world knows. It’s not one or the other like you think it is. The fact that you have put Emily’s happiness ahead of your own cements that she is the one who has been chosen for you.”

“She won’t speak to me,” I whisper.

She stands. “Then make her listen.” She takes me into her arms. “Go and get your love, and grab her with both hands . . . and never let her go.” She kisses me on the cheek and, without another word, leaves my apartment.

My mother’s words ring home, loud and clear.

You need to allow yourself to be who you are with Emily and be the Jameson Miles that the world knows. It’s not one or the other like you think it is.

It’s five o’clock in the morning, and I lie and stare at the ceiling of my living room from my couch. I’m still fully dressed in the clothes I wore yesterday. I haven’t slept all night.

My mother’s words keep going over and over in my head.

She thinks that I can be both the man that Emily wants and the man that I need to be.