James’ pov
“What? Of course not.” I argued.
“Why then did you still refuse to mention it?” She shut back, looking genuinely hurt.
“It was because… because…”
“You can’t even come up with any actual explanation.” She pointed out and I let out a long sigh, while wishing we aren’t having this right now.
The dinner has been going so damn smoothly between us, only for her to bring up this topic from nowhere. I knew me asking her to put it aside for later would be unfair of me, and so I let out another sigh.
I had actually already been contemplating on how to table it to her, I had just been very unsure of how to go about it.
“I didn’t want to scare you off.” I finally admitted, watching as she narrowed her eyes at me while scoffing.
“You know I’m a grown ass woman, right? What could scare me off more than me figuring out shit like this on my own, huh?” She shot back, and the hurt was stack obvious on her face, it made me wince a little while looking for anything which I could use in saving myself in my head.
“I didn’t know how you were going to react to it, which was why I was unsure of how to go about it.” I ended up admitting once again. She remained silent this time for about a minute before she began to speak once again.
“You could have come to tell me about it. Anything would have been better than me finding out on my own.” Her voice has lost most of its fire, but it didn’t stop it from hitting home any less. The soft voice this time sounded so much like she’s drained, which made me feel so much worse.
“I didn’t want you to leave me, okay? I was scared you want out of this as soon as you figured that out.” I finally admitted in a small voice, and when Blair met my eyes this time, she shook her head a little before starting to speak.
“I’m genuinely disappointed.” She declared.
“I’m so sorry.” I apologized genuinely, wanting to make everything right as fast as possible.
“You know I grew up with men around me being involved in one dirty thing or the other. I promised myself I wasn’t going to involved with someone like that, not knowing you’re just like –”
I swore softly, cutting into her sentence. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it from any other angle apart from mine and I see the problem now.
“Although, you’re way better than the men I grew up around, don’t get me wrong, I’d never compare you with those people, but you get what I meant, right?” She continued and I gave a nod of my head, feeling grateful that she took her time to clarify what it was that she actually meant.
We talked about it some more until she visibly relaxed. She wasn’t all smiles once again, but at least she wasn’t appearing hurt any longer and is even grinning a little.
“How did you find out though? I thought I was disecret enough.” I murmured after a little while, and this time, she let out a disbelieving snort and an eyeroll.
“That part wasn’t all that hard, actually. The hard part was me trying to convince myself against all the clues staring back at me in the face.” She said and I winced a little, just as she continued.
“Sometimes you’d be on the call with your best friend and you guys would talk about mafia related stuff. The first time was when you thought I had fallen asleep in your arms, but I hadn’t. The second time was when you thought you had locked your door, the third time was in the kitchen, and so on.” As she spoke, I found myself mentally fsce slapping myself over being this slippery where I had been thinking I had been nothing but careful throughout.
“And, I’ve seen your guns, a few times. That was what kind of made me come to the conclusion that you’re indeed involved with the mafia. That made me think deeper, and I realized that I recognized your best friend’s name, having heard my father mention it a few times back in the past.” She explained.
I let out a small bashful laugh. “I didn’t know I was being that obvious.”
“It wasn’t all that obvious, don’t worry.” She ressured with a small roll of her eyes.
“Do you have a problem with it though? Now that you know about it and it’s out in the open.” I found myself asking after a few moments.
She appeared to be deep in thoughts for about a minute before slowly shaking her head.
“Not, not really, my only issue was you keeping it away from me.” She pointed out and I apologized once again.
“So, does this mean you’ll protect me each time your enemies attempt to attack me?” She asked and I nodded my head without hesitations.
“I’ll claw their throats out if they so much as breathe in your direction.”
~~~
We were leaving the restaurant when we ran into one of the past women of mine whom I used to have a casual thing with.
She attempted to give Blair shit, because she was clearly older, but before she could actually do anything, Blair had completely eaten her up with only a few words.
As I witnessed the exchange, it made me feel feral that Blair was defending me right now, like I was hers, and even though she ended the back and forth with ‘I won’t be caught arguing over a man, so I’m going to leave you to it’ before walking out of the restaurant, leaving the woman and the few onlookers dumbfounded, it had still made my blood boil really really well.
That when we got into the car, it was charged with so much sexual tension and when we arrived home, I caged her against the first wall I could find after we got into the house, in which I could thoroughly ravish her against.