Tainted Heartbreak (Tainted Knights 3)

“She said she was family. That’s all I got out of her.”

Rolling my eyes, I headed once again for my desk, curious as to who it could be visiting me on what was my official first day in the office. It wasn’t my mother; she didn’t even know I had a job, let alone where I was working. Not that she would care. If it didn’t involve Malcolm, it wasn’t important to her. Riley was at work herself, and she would have texted me before showing up. Jane briefly crossed my mind, but again, she would have texted or called before just dropping by. My place of work was a little out of her way, so it wasn’t like she would make the drive from Oklahoma just to surprise me.

A minute later, I walked into my shared office to find an older woman who was a stranger to me standing over my desk. Dressed in a designer skirt outfit that definitely didn’t come straight off the rack, she stood primly. The tubes that were in her nose and clipped around her ears were attached to an oxygen tank in a stylish Louis Vuitton handbag. But the oxygen mask sat just as regally on her face as the pearls at her neck.

The picture frame of my ultrasound was in her hands, her fingers tracing over the baby’s figure, and some weird instinct told me exactly who this woman really was.

Doris Mathias.

I dropped my bagel in the trash can by the door and dusted off my hands before running my fingers through my hair and clearing my throat to catch her attention. She turned, her face closed and guarded as she inspected me from head to toe, lingering only for a few extra seconds on my small baby bump before moving on. That brief appraisal left me feeling exposed and vulnerable.

Straightening my shoulders, I stared her down as I crossed to my desk and took the picture frame from her fingers. “Can I help you?” I asked coolly.

“So, it is true. You got yourself knocked up.” She placed her LV bag on my desk. “How much to get you out of my grandson’s life?”

“Excuse me?” I demanded as shock began to fade and outrage set in.

She extracted a wallet from the bag that held her oxygen and opened it. Pulling a pen from the side compartment, she flipped through her checkbook and started writing. “Give me a number. Whatever you want to get out of grandson’s life and take—” she waved at my stomach with distaste “—that with you.”

I covered my stomach with protective fingers that shook with rage. “Lady, you don’t have enough money to get me away from Cash. I love him, and he loves me. Whether you like it or not, we’re together.”

She stared at me for a long moment before snapping the wallet shut. As she replaced it in her bag, the barest hint of a smile lifted her lips. “I wasn’t sure, so I had to check.” She held out her hand. “Doris Mathias.”

I glared at her hand for a few seconds, unsure what the hell was going on. I felt pissed and rattled. She had called my baby—her great-grandchild—“that.” It hurt, but I was ready to slap her oxygen right off her face. Screw the fact that she was Cash’s grandmother. Fuck the fact that she was my elder. I had no respect for her.

Her face softened as I continued to glare at her, and she dropped her hand. “I apologize, Amara. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I am sorry for how I just treated you. But I had to make sure you weren’t playing my grandson.”

“Is that why you’re here?” I asked. “To test me?”

She shrugged. “In part. I also wanted to see the woman who finally won Cash’s heart.” Her eyes appraised me again, but this time, they were kinder, perhaps ev

en empathetic. “You’re very beautiful, but beauty is only skin-deep a good percent of the time. My daughter-in-law is a case in point. She got pregnant with Cash and trapped my son. I gave her the same option I just gave you, told her to name her price. It was an astonishingly large number, but I wrote the check. I thought that would be the end of it, but my son still ended up marrying her.”

I walked around my desk and sat down, needing to sit before I fell down. “Cash told me he isn’t close to his parents.” This was more information that I’d ever gotten about his mother, and I realized he probably didn’t know about the check his grandmother wrote the woman who gave birth to him.

“His mother got what she wanted when Harden put his ring on her finger. I got what I wanted the day Cash was born. I raised him. I loved him like a mother should.”

“And then you used him like everyone else,” I cut in, my glare returning. “What exactly were you hoping to accomplish by having him use Lindsey like that? Was it really just for her father’s vote?”

“Partially,” she said with a tilt of her head. “But I was aware of Miss Connors’s background. She comes from a good family, has the pedigree I would have originally wanted for my grandson. And given time, if they had worked out, I knew Cash would return home and start his family and his career as he was supposed to do.”

“His career,” I parroted. “You mean the dirty politics and using people to get what you want career? He would have been under your thumb for the rest of his life. You would have stifled his creativity, drained the life from him, but that’s okay because he was doing what you deem the ‘right thing.’”

She waved her hand dismissively. “His music is simply a hobby. It was always just a thing to pass the time. It won’t lead anywhere.”

“It has already led somewhere,” I snapped at her, making her frown down at me disapprovingly. “He has a talent that most people only dream of having and a career that is only just now making headway. He’s won awards some people work a lifetime for and still don’t accomplish. Music isn’t a hobby to him. It’s his life. It’s part of who he is like it was ingrained in his DNA.”

“My, aren’t you a passionate little thing,” she murmured as she sat down in the chair in front of my desk. “I see why he likes you so much.”

“He doesn’t just like me, Doris. He loves me.” I leaned forward on my desk, staring her down. “Now, tell me what you really want, and then get the hell out of here. I have work to do, and honestly, I really just don’t like you.”

“You may not believe me, but all I want is for Cash to be happy. Is it so wrong that I want him to be happy with his family?”

“Family isn’t always blood. You and his parents? I’m pretty sure he can do without them in his life. But that’s his choice. He’s got me and his bandbrothers.” A sharp kick behind my belly button warmed my heart, and I stroked my hand over the baby’s foot. “And his daughter. We’re the family he deserves.”

She gave me a sad smile as she stood. “I’m very glad you see it that way, Amara. I’ve been scared that Cash would have no one once I’m gone. It has been a recurring nightmare I have been having since my diagnosis. I can rest easier knowing the most important person in my life will have people who love him for himself, who will fight just as fiercely for his happiness.” To my surprise, tears filled her eyes, but she hastily blinked them away. “Thank you for loving him.”

“What…?” I whispered as she walked away. “Wait!”