Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
“A solution to what?” she managed, her throat thick. What was this?
“Us. A way for . . . us.”
Afraid to hear the explanation, afraid not to hear it, too, she wet her lips. “Tell me.”
Sig wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her closer, both of them sighing over the soft collision of bare muscle and flesh, the new lack of barriers between them. “Feels so good to hold you.”
“I can’t believe we made it so long without this,” she said honestly, nuzzling his jaw.
He kissed her forehead hard. Lingered there. “I haven’t really talked a lot about how I grew up. Haven’t really talked about it with anyone. But, uh, . . .” He shifted against her. “Like I told you before, Harvey left us when I was young. After that, my mom . . . she wanted nothing to do with her family. The way she explained it to me, they didn’t approve of Harvey. Thought he was after my mother’s wealth. Called him a grifter—and they were right. Hell, he did exactly what her family said he would. Took off with my mother’s money and never looked back. After that, my mother’s pride wouldn’t let her take another cent from her parents and we ended up struggling. Bad. My whole childhood.”
This must be what love truly felt like.
Feeling a burning ache in her chest for everything Sig had experienced in the past.
Pain and frustration and sympathy and helplessness.
A fierce desire to go back and take his place.
“But he’s changed since then, right?” Chloe asked. “Is that why you got back in touch with him?”
“That’s the thing, Chloe, I don’t know if he’s changed. He was married to two other women after my mother and he climbed higher on the social ladder with each relationship. That’s how it looks from the outside, I’ve just never been able to . . . be objective. I can’t tell if I’m seeing the real Harvey or if I’m looking through the lens my mother created. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Alarm prickled in her scalp, fingertips. “Should I be worried about my mother?”
He tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. “Your mother knows I’m suspicious of Harvey, Chlo. She knows what those suspicions are, too. I never would have let her fly blind.”
She took that in, let it settle. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His throat worked with a swallow. “I was embarrassed. And that’s a new feeling for me. I taught myself how to overcome shame out of necessity a long time ago, but suddenly . . . there you were and . . .” He traced her jawline with his thumb. “I was suddenly a lot more aware that I didn’t have the kind of background I’d need to marry you. Or the kind of money. I guess I didn’t want to draw attention to that.”
“So . . . the same reason you didn’t tell me about selling the memorabilia?”
“Yeah.” He nodded for a moment, then rolled Chloe over onto her back, burying his face in her neck. Rubbing it there in such a raw and loving way, she could only anchor her fingers in his hair and survive it. “I just wanted to be good for you. I just wanted to give you everything.”
At the cost of everything he wants.
No.
No.
She loved him too much for that.
“Did you tell my mother about Harvey’s past hoping she would call off the wedding?”
“She overheard me making some accusations. They weren’t enough.” His body was fully on top of hers now, her thighs snuggling around his hips, their bodies shifting and conforming, shifting and conforming, two beings enjoying the various ways they could mold together. Luxuriating in what they’d denied themselves for so long. “I hired a private investigator,” he said against her ear, catching her breath in her throat. “He hasn’t had any luck yet. But if there is something my father did that might mean calling off this marriage, I’m going to find it, okay?”
A beat passed.
Two.
Sig seemed to be waiting, bracing for her reaction to the news.
But somehow, the revelation that Sig had hired someone to investigate Harvey didn’t come as a total shock. Did it surprise her? Yes. Of course, it did. But somewhere deep down, she’d known Sig was working on the problem. Trying to find a way for them to be together. She’d known it in her bones. Still, despite her strained and complicated relationship with Sofia . . . did she want to ruin her mother’s happiness? Did Sig want to do that to his father?
No.
Sig wouldn’t be able to go through with hurting Harvey and Sofia. That wasn’t an act of the man she’d fallen madly in love with. And she wouldn’t be able to do it, either. Which only left one option—walk away from his skyrocketing career. Leave her own aspirations behind. In other words, there was no good outcome if they stayed together. Didn’t he see that? Any which way they sliced it, someone lost. “What if the private investigator finds . . . nothing?”