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)
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alana
I wake the next morning to my alarm and my cheek planted to my pillow. With a groan at how little sleep I’ve had, I grab my phone and turn off the alarm. That’s when I realize my body aches, which is a product of a whole lot of sex with Damion. Oh my God. It’s officially the morning. I suck in a breath and dread turning over and finding out if this is a repeat of last time. Seconds tick by, and I already know my answer. He’s not here. I can feel him when he’s near, as weird as that sounds. It’s an energy. It’s this weird connection I have with him, but he apparently doesn’t have with me.
We are not a couple, I remind myself. And I am a grown adult, and capable of sleeping with Damion and not having it become a big thing. It’s sex. Just sex. And it was really, really good sex, which is how sex should be done.
I breathe out and roll over, sitting up and turning on the light, my gaze scanning the room. I’m right, of course. He’s not here. My bravado slips. I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the heart. My gaze goes to his pillow and there is no Dear Jane letter, but then he has to see me again. Tonight. For the dinner with Mary. There’s a shift in the air and my gaze jerks to the door. Damion’s standing there, fully dressed but holding two coffee cups. “I made coffee. I thought after sleeping so little you could use it.”
The relief that follows is a whole-body experience. He’s not gone. He’s not gone. “I’m dying for coffee,” I approve. “Thank you.”
He rounds the bed and sits down next to me, handing me my cup. Our fingers brush and our eyes meet, and I am warm all over with our connection. “I actually don’t know how you take your coffee,” he says, “but I found creamer in the fridge and Splenda, so I assumed some combination of the two.”
I sip and savor the freshly brewed caffeine. “It’s actually perfect. Thank you.” I set the cup down and eye the clock. “I’m going to have to shower. I have to be on set at my office pretty quickly.”
“Why aren’t your parents on the show?”
“Would you believe my father was unreasonable during negotiations and then forbade my mother from being involved?”
“I don’t remember your father being like this when we were growing up,” he comments, sipping his coffee.
“I don’t either, but we were young. I think my mother did a good job of hiding it, but it’s taken a toll. Things have happened.” I glance at the clock. “I really don’t have much time, but…I need to tell you this before we go public with this fake fiancée thing. I meant to last night, but I never really got the chance.”
He sets his cup down. “What is it?”
“You need to know that the history between my family and yours is a little rougher than you think. Things have happened.”
“What does that mean, Alana?”
I stand up, the black silk negligee I’d changed into last night falling just above my knees. “First, I believe you when you say you weren’t involved and knew nothing about this, and I never actually even thought that. I just thought I was out of sight and out of mind.”
“Alana, just spit it out.”
“You asked about why I dropped out of law school.” I hug myself against this harsh reality, and all my youthful stupidity surrounding it. “This hard to even say out loud.”
He stands up and steps in front of me, his big body tense, his mood darker, edgy now. “What did he do to you and your family? What did he do to you?”
“It isn’t about me directly. My mother. It’s my mother. I got home this particular weekend, and the house was a mess. She and my dad had a fight, and it went bad places. He was gone, and my mother melted down and confessed to me.”
“Confessed what?”
“Turns out, your father had found out about the money I borrowed from you and—”
“You didn’t borrow money from me. I gave it to you.”
“I get that, I do, though I always intended to pay you back. But as you already know, your father knew what you had done for me. He cornered my mother at a party and told her he’d not only make the loan and the gambling public, he’d take our company if she didn’t pay him back. When she told him she didn’t have the money, he made a deal with her. She—I can’t even believe she did this—but she slept with him. She became his mistress.”
“For the love of God,” Damion murmurs, spiking fingers through his hair, his hands settling on his hips. “I can’t believe he did this. I can’t believe you don’t hate me for my connection to him and this.”