Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
It had taken me years to come back to myself. Too many wasted years, leaving me in my mid-twenties with a college degree and a roof over my head but not much else. I was getting my shit together, piece by piece. I had a job. I thought I might have a plan for a career. But I was still pretty much a mess. And then I started dreaming of the Vitellius. I didn’t know what it meant, thought it might be my broken heart dreaming of Forrest the only way it could bear.
But it turned out the dreams weren’t about Forrest at all. They were my brain trying to remind me of the past and those stolen moments behind the heavy velvet curtains. The dreams were the Vitellius whispering the secret of the medallions to me one more time.
A few days ago, I woke in the middle of the night, my eyes flying open to stare at my ceiling, seeing everything at once. The numbers were a code, and I would have bet the little I had that I was the only one who knew the key.
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly, my mind racing. I’d needed to see those laser-engraved numbers and letters to know. And now that I had, I had a decision to make. A part of me wanted to trust Forrest, but… I’d done a lot of foolish things in my short life, far too many to count, but I wasn’t a fool, and I wouldn’t be one now.
Setting the Vitellius on its base, I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “I know how to find the money,” I said, steeling myself to meet his eyes. I expected to see greed or triumph, even disdain.
I wasn’t expecting blank confusion. He looked like he hadn’t even heard me.
“Forrest,” I said, my tone sharp, snapping awareness back into his eyes. “I said I can find the money.”
This time, he heard me. I expected him to laugh. Smarter people than myself had tried to find Alan Buckley’s lost fortune. My own father had spent years trying to figure it out. An annoyingly familiar voice in my head asked, Who am I to think I can do it?
Instead, Forrest said, “I don’t care about the money.”
“Yeah?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. That had been his story when we found out why he was really in Sawyers Bend—he didn’t care about the money, he just wanted me, blah blah blah. I hadn’t bought it then, and I wasn’t buying it now.
He’d already proven he was a liar. Forrest’s father had hundreds of millions of dollars after he sold his first company, and he’d hidden it all. That could be over a billion by now.
I didn’t care who you were—that was too much money to not care about. I’d grown up in a house that was practically a castle. These days, I was mostly broke, but after the way I grew up, I knew better than anyone that money couldn’t buy happiness. Not even close. But it sure as hell didn’t hurt.
Forrest leveled his hazel eyes on me, no trace of humor in his expression. “Chasing the money cost me enough. I don’t care about it anymore.”
“I do,” I snapped.
No change in his expression.
I tried a different tack. “I’ll find it for you. For a cut.”
At that, he straightened, frozen for a second before the side of his mouth curled up, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “How big a cut?”
And there was the CFO my brothers had hired. After his dumb assertion that he didn’t care about the money, I couldn’t resist poking at him. “If you don’t care about the money, how about I get all of it?”
The side of his mouth quirked higher, light sparking in his eyes. “I don’t think so. You can’t get the money without my statue, and technically, it’s my inheritance.”
“Well,” I said, “since I’m pretty sure the inheritance my father left me is a big fat nothing, maybe the finder’s fee on yours will make a nice nest egg. Fifty percent.”
The grin disappeared from Forrest’s face. “Ten.” So much for not caring about the money.
“Forty-five,” I countered.
“Fifteen.”
I looked down at the Vitellius, then steeled myself for the impact and looked Forrest dead in the eye. My chest ached, a raw wound that stole my breath. Deep inside, I silently screamed, Why? Why did you have to fuck everything up by being such an asshole? And beneath that, the question I couldn’t stop asking: Why couldn’t you love me?
Fucking hell, it hurt to look at him. It took everything I had to hide my heart.
Maybe Forrest was right. Maybe the money wasn’t worth what I’d lose chasing it. My self-respect. My sanity. I’d let this man bring me to my knees. I’d crawled out of a bottle after my father died and my oldest brother came home. I’d spent the last year getting my life together. Was I going to risk all that hard work just to fill my bank account?