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He grabs my hand, stopping me.
Then he tips my chin up and makes me look at him. “I’m not. I told you I was going to take care of the shit with Sloane. I know you doubted me,” he says, his blue eyes twinkling as he leans in to kiss the corner of my mouth. “But you shouldn’t have. I got it done. The arrangement with Sloane is off. Aiden’s gonna take my place—marrying her, and at her dad’s company. So my commitment to the Whitleys… it’s over. I’m not tied to them anymore, and that means I can marry whoever I want to marry. And the only one I want to marry is you.”
I can feel my jaw hanging open, and my eyes feel dry from being wide and unblinking, but I can’t process what he’s saying to me.
“You broke your engagement with Sloane.”
“Correct.”
“And your commitment to her dad.”
“Technically, I didn’t break that, I just facilitated a replacement he deemed acceptable.”
“Aiden.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not a Blue Blood,” I say.
“Well… he wasn’t.”
My eyes widen even more. “You let him in?”
“Had to. It was the only way. I still don’t like the guy, but… someone had to marry Sloane, and it wasn’t going to be me.”
“You willingly gave up a multi-billion-dollar empire just so you could have… me.”
He smirks, leaning in to kiss the corner of my mouth. “We’ll build our own empire.”
I’m too stunned to speak.
When I finally manage words, I still can’t process the facts. “But you… you could have had everything…”
He shakes his head firmly, then sinks his fingers into my hair. And the way he looks at me…
“Nah. You’re everything, Brynn Blakely. None of it was worth anything if it didn’t come with you.”
He’s made my heart crack in half before, but this time the ache is because it’s just so… full.
Emotion wells up as the reality starts hitting me.
He really did this.
He really got out of the opportunity of a lifetime to be with me instead.
He picked me over everything else.
He wasn’t playing to me or lying to me or…
I shake my head. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head disapprovingly. “Nothing to be sorry for.”
“I didn’t believe you,” I say, still astounded. “My own mother wouldn’t pick me over garbage, and you picked me over…”
Everything.
He turned down a life nobody would turn down…
