Million Dollar Devil (Million Dollar #1)(71)

My heart breaks as I look at the little boy. No, they didn’t have much before. But Charlie was happy, because he had Jimmy. Maybe James really is a monster now. Am I responsible for this?

“Well. Will you tell him I stopped by?” I reach into my purse and pull out the envelope James gave me almost three months ago. I hand it to him. “Your brother gave this to me to keep safe for him, and I’m giving it back. He said it was his most precious possession.”

He opens it and looks at it for a long time. Sniffles again. “I don’t know if that’s true anymore,” he mumbles.

I start to tell him that of course it is, but he isn’t listening. He gruffs out a goodbye and closes the door on me.

And I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse than I already did.

James

I’m about to blow a gasket.

The movers are coming in a week to move us into our new high-rise condo in Midtown. The New York launch is in three days, and I have another big dinner tonight, and a list of things I need to accomplish before I get on the plane tomorrow. And Charlie’s acting like a little asshole.

“I told you that you needed to start packing your shit up before I got home!” I shout, storming into his room. All his LEGOs and action figures are all over the place. He hasn’t done shit. I grab an empty box and start tossing stuff in. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Elsa, the nanny I hired, is Hispanic and doesn’t speak English well yet. She’s giving me a blank look. I say to her, “Did you not understand? He had to pack?”

She’s staring at me, confused.

“Where the fuck is he?”

She shrugs.

Forget it. I don’t have time for this. The house is a fucking shit hole, made even worse by the state of chaos it’s in. I can’t say I ever formed an attachment to this place, since we moved here after my family died, and we’ve been renting it. Charlie’s going to love this condo in Midtown. It’s hot.

Almost as hot as the apartment belonging to another Midtown resident I know.

But I can’t fucking think about her now. Even if she’s going to be right across the street from me. Her father’s orders.

Yeah, it’s been weighing on me. I think about her almost every minute of the day. But like she said, this is for the best. She never tried to get in touch with me after our argument, when she told me we needed to cool it.

I yank open a closet, only to find it full of his clothes. Really, he’s done less than shit. All he had to do was throw everything into the boxes. Easy. I start to grab the hangers and toss them one after another into the box, muttering, “I’m doing this for you, Charlie. So you can have a better life. And this is the fucking thanks I get?”

When I reach down to the bottom of the closet for his shoes, I see something move in the darkness. I squint at it.

“What are you . . . are you fucking hiding in the closet? Really? Get out.”

I start to yank on him, but he pulls himself up into a ball. “No! Go away!”

“Charlie!” I growl.

Then I scrub my hands over my face. I’m not going to catch many flies growling at him like this. I count to ten, force myself to quiet down. I sit on the edge of the bed. “Look, tiger. I’m sorry. But I’m at the end of my rope here, and I really could use the help. I’m trying here. For us.”

“No! You’re not doing any of this for me! It’s for you and your giant ego. Get the fuck out! You’re being an asshole!”

I clench my fists. “Come out, Charlie. I don’t have time for this.”

He doesn’t.

Losing my patience, I lunge into the closet, grab him by the back of the neck, and yank him out. I’m holding him there, and he’s looking up at me, shaking, terrified, when it hits me, right between the eyes.

I am being an asshole. I’ve never put my hands on him before, and now . . . who the fuck do I think I am?

And I thought I was trapped before. Now, maintaining this image . . . I feel like I’ve been stuffed in a fucking straitjacket. At least when I was Jimmy, I knew who the fuck I was. And Charlie liked me.

I let him go. Smooth his hair. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I didn’t mean to . . .”

He starts to sob against me. I pull him to me and hug him, hard. Then I lift his head. “Look at me,” I tell him. “One more week. I’ve got one more week in this contract, and I promise, things will change. Okay? When I get back from New York and we move into our new place, I’ll take a weekend off. We’ll go somewhere, and we’ll do whatever you want.”

He sniffs and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Whatever?”

I nod.

“Can we make more videos? Like we used to?”

I clench my teeth. I promised myself I wouldn’t go back to that. That’s not who I am anymore. But Charlie’s looking at me, his big blue eyes full of tears. “Yeah. If you really want me to. That’s what we’ll do.”

He wraps his arms around me and hugs me tighter.

“So, here’s the deal,” I say to him. “You’re going to love your new room in the condo. It’s, like, ten times the size of this. And there’s a bathtub in the place you can snorkel in. No kidding.”

He smiles.

“So get your ass packed, or else we can’t go.”