Page 14 of Reckless Princess (Knight's Ridge Empire 8)

Mum’s lips part and then close again as she tried to read between the lines.

“I don’t even know what to say to that, Toby.”

“I thought it would make me feel better. I hoped it would rid me of some of the nightmares, knowing that I was able to make him hurt too.”

“Did it help?”

I shake my head. “Now, when I close my eyes, I don’t see him. I see her. I see her with a version of him staring down at her. Because to Jodie, I may as well be him. I am him.”

“No,” she says, sliding across the sofa and dragging my hand from my lap, holding it between hers. “You are nothing like him. I promise you, you’re—“

“I broke her, Mum. I stood there and watched her world crumble around her. I made it happen. I pretended I was the one trying to make it all better, when really, I was the one pulling the strings.”

“Tell me everything,” she urges, thankfully not disgusted enough in me to walk out just like Jodie did.

* * *

“Tobias,to what do we owe this pleasure?” Damien asks as I close his office door behind me.

After Mum left, I took myself to the bathroom and finally scrubbed and shaved the past few days of oblivion from my body.

I hated the look on her face as I explained everything I’d done to trash Jodie’s life just so I could let Jonas watch her fall from grace. She should have hated me for treating another person like that. Deep down, she probably does a little, but she never let it show. Instead, once I’d exhausted my list of crimes—missing out some of the filthier ones that no mother needs to hear about—she squeezed my hand and asked me the million-dollar question.

“How are we going to fix this?”

I shake my head as I walk to one of the chairs in front of Damien’s desk. Charon pushes from his seat on the other side of the room and walks over, standing behind the boss as they wait for me to speak. He doesn’t look any different from when I believed he was my grandfather, but then, he knows and sees everything. He’s probably known all this time that I’m no relation of his.

“I… uh…” I rub the back of my neck, knowing that I’m about to ask the exact opposite of what I did the last time I was standing in this office. “I need to talk about Joanne and Jodie.”

Shock covers Damien’s face for the briefest of moments before his usual mask is slammed back into place.

“And what would you like to discuss? You were more than certain of your decision regarding Jonas’s money and your wishes for them the last time you were sitting in that chair,” he says coolly, as if this is nothing more than a business transaction.

“I’m aware. Things have changed.”

“Care to explain?”

“Not really. I’ve come to realise that I’m punishing the wrong people, and I’d appreciate it if you could ensure both of them get what they deserve. Not that anything he has to his name could ever be enough compensation for having him in their lives,” I mutter, my eyes shooting to Charon.

Silence settles around us for a beat.

“I’ll set things in motion. But there will be no changing your mind this time, Tobias. Once I sign off on it, it will happen no matter what.”

“I won’t be changing my mind again, I can assure you.”

Damien nods once, resting his elbows on his desk and steepling his fingers as if he’s over this conversation already.

I sit forward, more than ready to get out of his lair, but my eyes snag on Charon once again.

“You knew, didn’t you? All this time, you knew.”

His hard eyes hold mine, giving nothing away.

“You even helped cover all this up, didn’t you?”

“You can leave now, soldier,” Damien growls.

Standing, I round the chair, never losing eye contact with the man I believe to be on my side all this time.