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He looks at me side-long. I’m not going to hold back, not one bit, and he knows it. “I have four and I won’t apologize for being rich.”
I snort. “Your father is the one who’s rich.”
He slides into the driver’s seat and I take the passengers. “I’m also rich,” he says. “Besides the business we’re set to inherit, my brother and I are worth over a billion each.”
My stomach doesn’t just drop—it fucking plummets. “What? How?”
He shakes his head and backs out of the garage. “Not that it’s any of your business, but our trust funds were well-invested and we inherited them the second we signed our contracts and started working at King.”
I wonder what kind of strings are attached to a contract like that. Do they have to keep working for their dad indefinitely? Is there someone who’s overseeing the trust funds, making decisions for them? Or when he says they inherited them, does he mean they have complete control now?
But I keep my mouth shut because I don’t even know what questions to ask, and also because it’s not my business.
Still––the fact that these men are worth over a billion dollars seems unfathomable to me. A billion is one thousand million. I can’t even wrap my mind around that kind of wealth.
The things you could do with it. Fun things. Good things. Impactful things.
Not harassing a homeless girl who just needs to get herself to college.
“Is your wealth public knowledge?” I ask, swallowing hard.
His grip flexes on the steering wheel. “Not exactly and I’d prefer to keep it that way. I don’t want to have to hire a security detail.”
It wouldn’t be the worst idea.
But I don’t say that, because all I can think is why me? Why tell me this?
“Why am I here?” I ask instead.
He thinks on it for a long moment before he answers. “Because you need help and I’m showing mercy on you.”
That surprises me. “By making me try to live through a hurricane?”
“Don’t be dramatic, we’ll be fine. And what did I say about questions?”
No more questions? Fat chance of that happening. Now that I’m starting to relax and he’s speaking to me with something other than animosity for once, the questions come at me like gunfire, and I want to ask them all.
I’m right, there’s not a lot left at the grocery store, but at least we get there an hour before it closes, and we still manage to pick up a few pounds of chicken, a basket of produce, a bunch of junk food, and two cases of water.
Everyone is supposed to be evacuating, but there’s obviously a lot who are staying on the island from the state of the store. I understand why people wouldn’t want to leave. They might have nowhere safe to go. They might not have the money or the resources to leave. Or they just may be stubborn and want to stay with their homes and business.
But Ethan?
Ethan traveled here on purpose. He left Manhattan, a place that would’ve just had a crappy storm, and came all the way up to an island set to be ravished.
More than that, he came into my bedroom and waited for me to come out of the shower so he could confront me.
Did he know I was here all along?
The answer is both obvious and terrifying.
I study him as we check out, trying not to be affected by the way he smiles openly at the cashier and the way he chats to the man about the upcoming storm as if we’re all going into battle together.
We load everything into the back of the car and he opens my door for me. What? That action alone is bizarre behavior coming from him. I can’t take it anymore. I have to know.
“Did you know I was here?” I blurt out.
I expect him to come back with his nonsense line about not asking questions, but turns on me with a wolfish grin.
