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Privacy. Anonymity. Simply being left the fuck alone. All that’s gone now.
Or maybe it was the second I said I do to Georgia Monroe.
Georgia takes in my expression, the way I draw back from the crowd of observers, and turns to the casino manager. “Actually, we’re expected upstairs at a work event, but we’re staying in this hotel,” Georgia tells him.
“Excellent,” he exclaims. “I just need a bit of information, and when everything is sorted out, we’ll be in touch with you. There will be paperwork to fill out and things of that nature.”
Georgia mercifully takes care of handing over my information, and then we manage to escape, heading toward the elevators. Georgia offers people who congratulate us small smiles and soft thank yous and keeps her face averted from people blatantly taking photos or videos. It feels like I don’t take a breath until we step into the elevator, shooting up to whatever space Monroe Securities rented out for their cocktail hour.
“You don’t like crowds.”
I stare straight ahead at the elevator doors. “No.”
“Is that because of Suzie?”
“She loved them, and I was mostly indifferent when we were on tour. Suzie couldn’t play an instrument to save her life but got a thrill out of managing five teenage boys. Most of the time the press never bothered with me—not when we had Greyson as our lead singer—until she died. Until my dad…” I trail off, unable to finish that. I clear my throat. “Then they were relentless. Everywhere. All the time.”
She bobs her head. “I remember that. I remember how you’d have to sneak out to come see me.”
“Yes.” The only place I found peace was in Georgia’s bed, even if all I was doing was watching her sleep or listening to her talk about her classes.
She hums and turns to me, a smile lighting up her face in a way that tells me she’s changing the subject for me. “What do you plan to do with all that money you just won?”
“Is this an interview?”
She snickers, rolling her eyes.
I grin but immediately rub it away with my fingers. “Donate it.”
She likes that answer. “Where?”
I turn to her just as the car slows and take her hand, staring down at her rings. At how they look side by side on our hands. “Where do you want it to go?”
She shakes her head as we step out of the car into the mostly empty hallway that will lead us to the event room holding the cocktail hour.
“No,” she says adamantly. “You won that money. Where do you want it to go?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“I take it you don’t need the money?”
“Georgia, I have more money than the Catholic Church, the Royal Family of England, or pretty much anyone else on this planet combined. Yet no one knows about it because no one knows me or what I do or how I hide it.”
“How is it you have all that? I know you have a lot of family money, but…” She trails off, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
I grunt. “I’ve been playing the stock market since I was a young kid and figured out how it works, then I made a ton with Central Square, and over the years I’ve invested in things that have been very lucrative. So I don’t give a fuck what you do with that ten million. Donate it to a worthy charity, something that speaks to your heart, and we’ll leave it at that.”
“Don’t you have a charity that speaks to your heart?”
“You’re implying I have one.”
“Don’t you?” she questions, and though I think it’s meant to be teasing, it’s not. The serious set of her eyes as they scroll all over me tells me my answer is everything to her, and it shouldn’t be. The more emotionless she thinks I am, the more of an emotional divide I place between us, the better.
There’s no other way we’ll survive this arrangement.
I grin smugly, poisonously. “What do you think? I used your body and left when you tried to give me your heart.”
You need to hate me, Georgia. I can’t handle anything else. Not right now.
