Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“I’m taking it things didn’t end happily ever after.”
“No. She laughed and said she never expected me to actually follow her.” I haven’t told anyone this for years. In fact, I think only Bennett knows the whole story even now. But there’s something about Jules that makes me want to be my whole self with her. I don’t need to water things down. I have no doubt she’s on my team. Whatever I tell her won’t change what she thinks of me.
“But you told her you were coming to California.”
I shrug. “I guess she was seeing how far she could push me.”
“So she was—what, taunting you? Testing you?”
“She was trying to aggravate her father. I was caught in the crossfire. I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long to see it. Looking back with twenty-twenty hindsight, it was obvious.”
“There were signs?”
“My family saw it. Everyone but me apparently. We rarely spent any time with her friends. And she never wanted to hang out with mine. But I was in love. I just wanted to be with her. I happily dropped my friends like a burning log. She didn’t, which was fine. But there were evenings when she went out with her girlfriends, except the group that appeared on social media involved plenty of guys. And I was making a lot of the effort. But what did I know? I was eighteen and she was a total princess. I assumed that was how things were supposed to be. And I was happy to do it, you know. I just wanted her to be happy.”
She nods. “Because you were in love.”
“Right.” I pause, wondering if I thought I was in love with Nadia this summer, but no, I hadn’t even been close. She’d just been around. I think I’d gone along with what she wanted because the sex was good.
“So when you turned up in California, she broke off the engagement?”
“If you mean laughed in my face, then yes, she broke off the engagement.”
“What do you mean, laughed?”
“She said, ‘Oh, you really would do anything for me, wouldn’t you?’ Then she told me she’d just been trying to piss off her dad the entire time we were together. I think the last thing she said to me was, ‘You didn’t think I was actually going to marry you, did you?’ Then she reminded me of her last name.” Thoughts of her, of that day, churn in my gut, and I get the urge to run. To bail out of this restaurant, to tell Property International I’m not going to accept the award. I don’t want to see Caroline Hammond again. Not ever.
“Sounds like a keeper,” Jules says, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Right.”
“And she’s going to be at the awards.”
I freeze. I hadn’t said anything about the awards. “How did you guess?”
She pulls in a breath. “I never understood the whole ‘I need a fiancée for business reasons’ thing. But if she’s going to be there, it all makes sense.”
“Her father is the Hammond at the head of Hammonds. Caroline’s husband is taking over, and they’re sponsoring the awards to show how strong the company still is, I guess.”
“Urgh,” Jules says. “That’s so pathetic. So she’s not even taking over. Her husband is. Does she do anything beyond have her nails done and go to the spa?”
“The family has a lot of money. She doesn’t need to work.”
“You have a lot of money. You don’t have to work, but you work harder than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“You always beat me to the office.”
She winces.
“What?”
“I used to go in early to work on my plans for The Mayfair.”
“So? You were still working.”
“Yeah, I work hard,” she admits. “But I bet Caroline Hammond doesn’t. And so you want a fiancée on your arm when you meet her because, why? You’re a self-made billionaire, you’re handsome as all holy fuck. Any woman in American would want to marry you. What could you possibly have to prove to her?”
I push my hand back into my hair. “Yeah. I just…”
She looks at me, her gaze dipping to my mouth and then back up to my eyes. “What?”
“We never had much money growing up,” I say. “We had a roof over our heads and food on the table, but we never had anything spare. I was happy, don’t get me wrong. I never felt like… I never felt small in the way Caroline managed to make me feel. And you’re right, I have the money, but I want her to know that I share a life with someone who made the right choice.”
“No,” Jules says. “You want to prove to her that she didn’t crush your soul. That she didn’t break you.” She pauses. “And in order to be able to prove that, you need to lie, because there’s still a part of you that’s a little bit broken.”