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“No, this is exactly why I brought you here.” He unlocks the house and pushes the door letting me in ahead of him. I gasp when I see the scarce furnishings. There is no life, barely any personality. There’s a large TV and a recliner in the living room and nothing else. No pictures, nothing that makes the space personal, warm, or inviting.
I turn to him completely floored. “You live here?”
He bites his upper lip and nods.
“What’s upstairs?”
“Just a bed and necessities.”
“That’s all?”
Another nod.
“Lucas…”
He leans against the wall and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“My mom had this legal notepad, and she terrorized me with it.”
“A legal pad?”
“Funny how something so ordinary can become the bane of your existence.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, on that legal pad was this list of monthly bills she had to pay and nightly she’d drink about a fifth of brandy and sit me down to tell me exactly how much money we had, and what we didn’t. She would cry, and it scared the shit out of me. We lost our power once for almost a month in the dead of winter, so her fears weren’t that farfetched. Maddie got it turned back on.”
My eyes are already tearing up.
“My mom did this, for years and years, always instilling in me that there was never enough money. I guess it made me a little sick too.” He swallows, looking around his house. “That Land Rover you dented tonight is leased, and I don’t have to pay for it.”
I wince. “I’m sorry.”
He’s already shaking his head. “That’s not…baby, that’s not why I told you that. I can afford to buy every Land Rover in the state of California and probably several states over. I’ve barely spent any of the money I’ve made off the movies. I’ve been living off the interest, which is plenty.”
Realization has my chest constricting. “Because you’re scared it’s not enough?”
“Shit, I know. It’s crazy. I don’t expect you to fully understand, but I hope you’ll try. This is scary for me. I have tens of millions in the bank, and I know how hard it is to wrap your mind around this, but I’m scared to spend a dime.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Does that make me crazy?” Shaking my head with shimmering eyes, I close the space between us.
“Mila, I don’t want your sympathy, I swear this isn’t what this is about. This is about you understanding me, I don’t know,” he says, scanning his living room, “maybe you can help me let go of it, but…for me, it’s still hard. I was the smelly kid, you know? I was the one that had to steal deodorant from The Family Dollar so I wouldn’t fucking reek after gym. The one with the shredded clothes who took a friend’s hand-me-down sneakers a size too small. I was that kid, and I was okay with that because I never wanted to have to explain myself or my parents. So I was quiet, and I dissolved into whatever color the wall was because it made life easier on me. I’m not upset about it, well not anymore. I use it on the job all the time, and I make a lot of money because I can remember how bad it was, how desperate I felt, how much I just wanted someone to take notice and just once consider me worthy.”
“God, Lucas, you are, you are so worthy.”
“It’s okay, Dame. I know that now, to some degree I do know that. But I haven’t felt the way your mother made me feel in a very long time.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He closes the space between us. “Baby, don’t get upset. She saw it, she sniffed out the side of me I’ve been desperately trying to hide from you, and I have no right to ask you to be with me if you don’t know everything. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought I could ignore this and when we made our life together, this would be history. I know it’s stupid now, it was stupid to think that.”
“We don’t lie to each other.”
“And I’m done. I swear to you, I’m done.”
“I don’t ever want to meet your parents.” I sniff.
“You won’t ever have to. That was a whole different life,” he says, shaking his head, his gaze somewhere in the past. “I’m still in aftershock of how drastically things have changed. Of the places I’ve been. Mila, I’m still not fully comfortable in this life. Even when I got to LA, I lived pretty desperately. Blake and I stayed hungry. The last few years have been unreal. I still don’t believe my bank statements.”
“No one has discovered you live here?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think anyone would believe it. I have Nova rent it in her name so there’s no record of me anywhere, and I just stay here, and I save.” He peers down at me. “I’ve never considered myself lucky. Like you, I’ve had to work for every single thing I’ve ever gotten. It’s been shitty in the way no one has ever been there for me, but I see the other side of it now.” He swallows, his eyes so gentle as his hands cover me in a caress. “You make me want to let go, take more chances, free myself up. So,” he says, pulling the box from his pocket, “I finally spent a little for a very good reason.”
Burying my face in my hands, I cry openly in front of him. When I pull my palms away, he’s kneeling in front of me. “I love fighting with you. I love the way you look at me. I love the way it feels when we’re together. I love the silk of your skin, the velvet of your beautiful voice. I love the way you caress my forehead when you think I’m asleep. I l
