AllFreeNovel
Share Us
During his morning shower, it hit him that he had arrived here in a fine suit and talked about flying around the galaxy in a high-end craft.
Add to that the fact that a project at the Center cost what it did, and it was easy to see how Naomi would assume he had wealth beyond her imagination.
Would she really be eager to seal a mate bond with a man who lived in a property cut from another man’s estate? A man who earned a respectable living and no more, and preferred the idea of digging around in his vegetable garden to glamorous intergalactic travel?
Based on the life and career she had already chosen for herself, he suspected the answer was no.
As his heart shivered in agony, Gage realized the only thing he could do was to keep his mouth shut a little while longer. When she was feeling calmer, he would find a way to tell her. If he said too much now, he risked losing her completely.
She already says she has to think about the mate bond. The money I don’t actually have was probably the only thing she liked about me.
“We should turn off privacy mode,” Naomi suggested.
“Exit privacy mode,” Gage said, still feeling shaken.
“Would you like to hear about today’s plans while you eat your breakfast?” Oberon offered, not acknowledging anything he had seen before or after privacy mode.
“Yes, thank you,” Naomi told him, perching on a stool without even looking in Gage’s direction.
12
Naomi
Naomi gazed out over the beach at the frothy waves of the ocean rolling in along the golden sand. The world looked like a painting this morning. It was hard to remember why she couldn’t just relax and let her joy unfurl.
What woman wouldn’t clamor to be claimed by a man like Gage - so gentle, handsome, and skilled at making her feel good?
But Naomi knew better than to let herself believe that the version of him she saw here was the version of him that lived in the real world.
In her experience, men with his kind of money were often spoiled, impudent pigs. And those were usually the nicer ones.
Here at the Center, the world did revolve around Gage and his needs. But out there, she figured she would start seeing another side of him the moment he wasn’t getting what he felt was his due.
And even if he turned out to be the one red supergiant in a galaxy of stars - a wealthy man without a horrible ego - there was her own impossible baggage standing in their way.
It was one thing to have risked her own safety and future happiness, but it was another altogether to put Gage’s assets at risk because of what she had done.
And how in the world was she supposed to tell him? For all she knew, he would turn her in.
I don’t regret what I did, she reminded herself. I did what was right, and I knew there would be consequences.
But by all the stars, she had never thought true love might be on the table, however unlikely.
And she’d traded it away before she’d even known it was a possibility.
“What do you like to do at the beach?” Gage asked gently.
“I don’t get to the beach very often,” she admitted, forcing herself back to the present.
“But you did when you were a child?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “My parents used to take us. We built sandcastles.”
She thought fondly of those times. Her parents had died in a hovercraft accident a few years back. She made it a point to hold her memories close.
“How do you build a sandcastle?” Gage asked. “Would you like to build one now?”
“Well, we’d need shovels and a couple of pails,” she said. “We used to bring a few kitchen tools, too. I mean we can try one without, but it’s much easier with those things.”
