Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
But when he made it there, she was gone, leaving only a note.
I don’t blame you for this. I should have seen it coming, and so if anyone’s at fault, it’s me, thinking that we could be different.
I know you met with Elsa secretly, and I want you to know that if she’s the one who can make you happy – then I’m happy, too. You don’t have to marry me for our baby’s sake, Sergei.
I promise to keep our baby safe, and I promise – I promise I won’t keep our child away.
I just need time and space. Just please give me this, and I promise when I come back, it will be okay.
And we can be friends again.
The billionaire’s eyes closed.
In his mind, he saw her, pale and broken, her words barely audible.
I get it. I do get it, and I d-don’t blame you.
He saw her lips move, and this time – it was so goddamn clear, what she was saying, he felt like a fucking fool for not realizing what those words were.
You’re too young.
Because he had let his past and fears get the better of him, he had unknowingly destroyed her by making her worst nightmare come true. He had unwittingly become what her father was to her mother.
Someone too young to realize what he had – until it was too late, and he had thrown away what he should have held on to with all his might.
Chapter Nineteen
The day after Fredericka left, Sergei began preparations for the wedding, and invitations were sent out to every acquaintance he had a reason for inviting. No expense was spared, and only the best was hired, with the billionaire personally attending to every detail.
It was to be the biggest event of the year, and it was also to be the most controversial. Because Rockton was a small town, it had taken only a matter of days before locals realized that Fredericka and Sergei weren’t just living apart. They were also estranged, and even with the date of the wedding approaching, stolen photos of Fredericka leaving her rented apartment showed that her finger remained noticeably bare of any engagement ring.
By now, Sergei had been made the butt of people’s jokes and the subject of countless memes, most of them depicting the billionaire as an arrogant playboy who had gotten his just desserts. Bets were also being made on whether the billionaire would be stood up at the altar, with the odds on him being jilted 5:1.
Even with all this, the billionaire made no attempt to visit Fredericka. She had asked him for time and space, and he would give it to her, even if it killed him. The only thing he allowed himself to do was to contact her every day, leaving her voice mails, sending her text messages, and through it he would update her about the wedding preparations.
Did she like white roses? It was what he had chosen for their wedding.
Was white and gold as a motif to her liking? If not, he told her to send word and he would have it replaced to the color scheme she desired.
Had she talked to Anneke and Alyx yet? The billionaire had asked them to be her bridesmaids, but he wasn’t certain if they were attending. Those two weren’t talking to him either.
And after these progress reports, he would apologize and explain to her, even knowing that by now she must be sick and tired of hearing him say the same thing again and again.
Over and over, he would tell her about how he had used Elsa as an excuse so Fyodor wouldn’t know about him meeting his mother in secret. Over and over, he would enumerate the reasons why he had it found so fucking easy to jump to conclusions about Julian Alexeyev.
And with every call, desperation and despair would threaten to choke him, and he would end it with three words.
I love you.
Never in his life had the billionaire imagined he would have to bare his soul by typing words or leaving unanswered voice recordings, but the billionaire did so without a qualm. It was easy to grovel when the ability to keep his heart beating was at stake.
On the eve before their wedding, Sergei was unable to fall asleep. The temptation to drown himself in liquor beckoned to him, but the billionaire resisted the urge, knowing that only the weakest fool would come to his wedding inebriated.
When the silence in his room became too much to bear, he decided to step out to his balcony, and that was when he saw the lone figure coming up the driveway.
Ah.
He recognized who it was easily of course, even though a part of him wished he could pretend he didn’t see her.
Sergei met her by the front door, taking Fredericka by surprise and making her stumble back with a gasp. For a moment, all he could do was gaze at her, his dark eyes roaming over her with hungry need.