“But I do. You were right about my needing to let go of the past. I can’t do that if I continue to let fear hold me captive. I need you to know what happened with my mother.” He pressed a kiss into her palm and closed his eyes. “I was the reason she died.”
Violet’s body jerked in reaction to his words, but instead of pushing him away, she moved even closer as if she wanted to slide under his skin and share the burden with him.
“That morning, she confronted me about using her credit card without asking and charging five hundred dollars’ worth of video games. She didn’t care that I’d bought the games, but the fact that I’d lied about it when she caught me made her angrier than I’d ever seen her. She’d found the games in my room and while I watched she threw them away. Then she told me I wasn’t allowed to go on a weekend trip with my friends to Universal Studios Orlando. We were supposed to leave from school that afternoon. I don’t remember ever being that mad.”
JT sucked in an unsteady breath as memories of that morning washed over him. They were crystal-clear and razor-sharp as if the fight had happened yesterday, not eighteen years earlier.
“I can see why she grounded you and I understand why you were upset, but I don’t see how it’s your fault that she died. She overdosed. You had nothing to do with that.”
“I upset her. I told her I hated her and that I understood why Dad couldn’t stand to be arou
nd her.”
JT shook his head, but there was no denying what he’d done. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. His throat had tightened past the point of pain. He’d never told anyone the role he’d played in his mother’s death. He needed to claw through years of self-loathing to let it out. It felt as if his insides were shredded.
When he continued, his voice was thick with anguish. “Then I grabbed my backpack and acted like I was leaving for school, but I snuck back to my room and packed what I would need for the weekend.”
“You went anyway?”
“I figured she’d be so out of it by the middle of the afternoon, she’d never realize that I wasn’t home until I was long gone. By five that evening she was dead. No one found her until the next morning when the housekeeper showed up.”
“You were twelve,” Violet said. “Your mother was a troubled woman who retreated into drugs and alcohol to cope with an abusive husband. How can you think you were to blame?”
“I overheard someone talking at her funeral. I realized that if I’d come home after school like I was supposed to, I could have found her still alive and called 911.”
A tear slid down his cheek. Before he could lift his hand to sweep the dampness away, Violet cupped his face in a fierce grip.
“JT, your mother was an addict. She could have overdosed at any time. You were not responsible for her illness.”
He heaved an unsteady breath. Part of him recognized that she was right, and he sensed her love and support would help him forgive himself.
“I love you,” he told her, speaking the words out loud for the first time.
Tears filled her eyes, but her smile was brighter than the sun. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him hard. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve needed to hear you say that.”
“It’s taken me a long time to understand what I was feeling,” he murmured into her hair. “Before you came along, the emotions I was most familiar with were dark ones.”
“All that is behind us now,” she said crisply, her optimism revving up. She leaned back and regarded him, her eyes determined. “Starting today, we have an abundance of new adventures awaiting us. Starting with house-hunting in Miami. I spoke with Grandfather about acquiring some property downtown and building a Fontaine property.”
“About that.” JT hadn’t expected her to be so enthusiastic about leaving Las Vegas for Miami and was worried that his news might not be what she wanted to hear. “We’re not going to Miami.”
“Why not? Now that your father has lost his chairmanship and is probably going to face jail time, the company is yours.”
“Here’s the thing. The night before the annual meeting, Brent and I had a long chat about the future of Stone Properties. We came to the conclusion that it would be better served with him at the helm.”
“But...but...” she sputtered, “it was your grandfather who started Stone Properties.”
“And with Brent running things it goes back into family hands.”
She cocked her head and regarded him. “What are you planning to do?”
“What I told you I was going to do before the shareholders’ meeting. Get out.”
“I see.” But it was obvious she didn’t. “So, where are we going?”
He soothed her worries with a smile and the stroke of his palm along her arm. “Nowhere. Neither one of us is leaving Las Vegas. In fact, I’ve decided to sell my shares of Stone Properties and buy Titanium.”
Her smile was blinding. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. But are you sure you want to settle for one property when you could be in charge of a dozen?”