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“Of course you’re not. You’re the opposite. That’s not why I did it.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I want to make your life as easy and happy and stress-free as I possibly can. I don’t want you to have to worry anymore. About anything. I want you to be able to live your life as the very best version of yourself. Which means I’m going to make sure, from now on, that all the things that have dragged you down in the past don’t drag you down anymore.”
My eyes suddenly pool with tears. I don’t want them to but he’s hit some kind of reservoir inside me. That is without a doubt the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Ever.
He wipes a tear with his thumb, even though I don’t want him to do that either. More tears well and fall until I’m sobbing against his chest as he strokes my hair.
I don’t want him to feel so comforting and warm. I don’t want him to smell so damn good.
I have no idea where this gush of emotion is coming from but it wants out. It’s the relief, maybe, that’s indescribable.
“That’s my girl. I’ve got you.”
I cry out what feels like years’ worth of angst, worry and fear until Ace’s white shirt is wet with my tears.
When I finally regain at least some of my composure, my common sense breaks through the rest of this wild torrent of emotion.
“Honestly, though. I can’t accept any of this, obviously,” I tell him. “You’ll have to take it all back. All of it. I mean it. I appreciate the thought. Really, I do. But it doesn’t make any sense for you to do all that.”
“It’s just money, baby. I have shitloads of it. And I mean shitloads.”
“You don’t need to…buy me, Ace.”
He laughs. “I’m not buying you, Texas. I’m freeing you. Because you’ve freed me. It’s only fair. No strings attached, just the way you like it. I just felt like I owed you one.”
“But…what do you mean? Why do you owe me one? How have I freed you?”
Ace sighs, sort of soulfully. “I’m twenty-seven years old, Tex. And you know what? I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy for a single fucking day of it. Sure, there have been plenty of times with my brothers, when we’ve had fun and felt close. But all the rest of it—” He waves a hand at the space around us, or the universe itself, maybe. “None of it. Not the silver spoon upbringing. Not the huge hole my mother left in the middle of our family when she died. Definitely not the strict father or the boarding schools. Not the family legacy or the money. Not even the building of my company—which is now in some deep shit and I can’t even bring myself to care, because I’m too fucking obsessed with you. Not the apartment. The houses. The cars. The fucking portfolio. None of it, Tex, actually made me happy.”
I don’t even know where he’s going with this. “It…didn’t?”
“No. It didn’t.”
“Well…that’s sad.”
He throws up his hand, in a right? gesture. “It is sad. And I’m not even sure I fully realized how sad it was until you showed up. Because you know what does make me happy?”
“What?”
He gets a sort of dreamy, nostalgic look. “That sweet memory of seeing you walking along the beach that day in your little leopard print bikini with your sassy little attitude. Fuck, you looked beautiful. Catching that wave. Falling off but climbing back onto your surfboard with the biggest smile on your face. Feeling like I could wring that little surfer punk’s neck if he so much as laid a finger on you. That surge—for the very first time in my life—of jealousy. Of pure, uncut happiness. It was fucking intense, Tex. And you know what was even more intense?”
“What?” I’m sure I look like a hot mess but I don’t even mind.
“Thinking you’d left the next morning and wondering why the fuck I didn’t run after you that very first night. I was sitting there getting ready to change my flight, to leave the next morning. But I changed my mind. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I was hoping to run into you again. And then, there you were, sitting at the beach bar in your little green dress that basically made all my dreams come true while also giving me an instant fucking hard-on that hasn’t gone down since. And I don’t have dreams like that, Tex. I’m not a fucking dreamer. Never have been. I’m an investor. I’m a hard-ass numbers guy without a romantic bone in my body—until that moment. You turned me into someone who wanted to fall in love. Like, hard. Deep. For real. As soon as I saw you, I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted—needed—anyone or anything in my goddamn life.” He’s staring into my eyes with a blazing intensity. “You want to know what was even more intense than that?”
I’m so riveted and sort of deeply, raptly in love with this man and the way he looks and the things he’s saying, I can’t move. “What?”
“Tasting you for the first time. Fucking hell, baby, you’re heaven on earth. You fucking slayed me. I was instantly, totally addicted. And it only got worse—exponentially worse, Texas. Tasting you, holding you, being inside you as you came around my spilling cock. I couldn’t believe how fucking beautiful you were and how good you felt. Nothing in my life compared to that. And you want to know what’s even more intense than that?”
My breath hitches as I continue to recover from my crying jag while at the same time try to deal with all the things he’s telling me. “What?”
“Thinking I’d lost you. Discovering it was your first time after you walked out on me. Chasing after you but it was like you disappeared into thin fucking air. Do you know how crazy that made me?”
