Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
“I’d say you know that’s not how it is, but I knew you’d react this way to all of this. And I knew you wouldn’t take the money. I had to leave you no choice. That’s why I did this like I did. Because you always have a thing about money and you and me.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do,” he states. “You might not see it, but I always did. You always felt less than me.”
“So the way to solve that is to pay off a five-hundred-thousand-dollar debt we can’t afford to pay off? I’m paying you back,” I say, giving him no time to reply. My throat tightens and I whisper, “I feel like a whore you just paid off right now.” I swallow and find my voice again. “Have the contract drawn up. I’ll be in the lobby waiting.” I march toward the door.
Before I ever get it open, he’s there, behind me, holding it shut. “Stop,” he orders tightly, anger barely contained in his voice.
I rotate to face him, and he’s close. So ridiculously close, I can smell him. I can practically taste him. I wish I didn’t know how good he tastes or how good he feels. I wish I didn’t love him. I wish I didn’t hate him. “Why are you stopping me?”
“If you want to pay me back, do it when I get back to the States.”
“I’m waiting in the lobby for an agreement. I want it to be official.”
He stares down at me, the tic in his jaw intensifying. “For the record, Alana, I know everything that is between us. I knew you’d be hurt by that note. I knew you’d be angry. I knew you’d think I was paying you for sex. I know what that three years of silence means to you.” His lashes lower and then lift, his bluer than blue gaze colliding with mine as he adds, “But believe me, better you hate me for that than other things.”
When I’d ask him what that means, he pushes off the door. “Should you choose to try and wait this out in the lobby, it won’t be a long wait. I’m leaving for the airport in fifteen minutes.” He offers me his back and walks toward his desk.
I stand there in shock over his words, and by the time I even start to pull myself together enough to ask questions, he’s behind his desk, fingers pressed to the top and staring at me with steely eyes. He says he knows me. I know him, too. He’s done.
I’m done too.
Almost.
I push off the door, but before I turn to leave, I say, “I both love you and hate you for saving us all from my father’s sins. I know you saved us. I do. And I owe you everything. I know that, too. But after the way you handled all of it and the way you treated me this morning, I still hate you a little more than I love you.”
“I know,” he says. “And I knew you would.”
Those words say everything. He knew and he still did it.
Because he had an endgame, and I can only assume it was to say goodbye to me forever. So I give him what he wants. I leave without making him suffer another word he never wanted spoken between us.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alana
Present day
“Do not walk away from me, Alana.”
I rotate to face him, shocked to find him closer than he was moments before, close enough to lean in and cage me against the door, even if he has not yet. It’s déjà vu from the last time we met. Only he’s a man now. Correction—a devastatingly handsome man, and a powerful one, at that. Which I know, because as ashamed of it as I am, I’ve kept up with him. I’ve Googled him far too many times to feel good about myself.
But that didn’t mean I wanted to see him again.
“What is this, Damion?” I ask, my voice rasping from my throat. I still can’t believe this is happening.
“You look beautiful, Alana.”
I laugh without humor. “Do you know how many times you’ve told me that in my life?”
“I meant it every time.”
“Of course, you did,” I say shortly.
“I mean it even more now. You look good, Alana.” He motions to the sitting area to his right. “Come sit with me.”
Not a chance, I think and I dig in my proverbial heels. “I want to know what this is. Why did the studio send me here?”
“West Enterprises is the studio,” he says. “We’re now the majority stockholder, and I sit on the board.”
I feel as if I’ve been slapped. Obviously, Google has failed me. “You got me the TV show,” I say, and it’s not even a question. Maybe that’s why I haven’t embraced the show. It just always felt off. I knew it all seemed too good to be true.