AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pulled her back in. “And for making me finally accept the fact that I need to get a hearing aid.” I squeezed her tight. “Thank you.”
At last, our joy-induced laughter subsided and our bodies separated. Grasping both her hands in mine, I pressed my forehead against hers. “Did you really think I was going to reject you because of my father?”
“Kind of,” she admitted. “My mother told me that after college, you and your dad went to counseling and now you were really close. She said that she read that you never make an important decision without him.”
Goddamned public relations team. Fucking tabloids. Between the two of them and their endless lies, they could have cost me my chance with Clara.
“Please,” I said, “don’t believe everything you read about me. That thing about counseling? It’s all bullshit. During my senior year at Tufts, someone published an exposé about how my father was such a prick that even his own son and mother couldn’t stand him. His reputation was already at an all-time low, so as damage control, his public relations team arranged for us to meet with a family therapist. My dad showed up for exactly one appointment. But he paid the therapist for the next three years so that he could honestly tell the world that he had regularly scheduled counseling sessions with his son.”
“But youdidwork things out, didn’t you?” she said. “My mom said that every time you’re together, people see you hug each other and say I love you.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I said. “We learned it in our one and only therapy session. It’s a technique called behavioral modification. Hug and say ‘I love you’ at least once a week, and supposedly one day you’ll wake up and it will be true. We’ve been going through the motions ever since.”
Her expression grew sad, almost pitying. “You don’t love your own father?”
It was a tough question, one I asked myself on a regular basis. And there was no easy answer. “Yeah, I love him,” I said. “And he loves me. We’re a family, we can’t help it. But it’s not like what you have with your mom. The minute I saw you two together, I could tell either one of you would jump in front of a bus for the other. But my dad? Once he made his first ten mill, he turned into a person no one recognized anymore. He’ll never love another person as much as he loves money. And that’s never going to change.”
She still seemed sad. Or worried or something.
“But what about you?” she said. “You’re going to inherit everything one day. Aren’t you worried that the money will change you the way it changed him?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not. Are you?”
She winced. “I mean, you said it yourself. That kind of money eats away at your soul. It’s inevitable.”
“The inheritance isn’t going to change me,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because there’s no inheritance.”
She pulled back, shocked. “Really?”
“Really,” I said. “After Greta, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted what everyone else wants. Genuine friends, a family to take care of, a wife who loves me. I’ll never be able to have any of that if I’m the billionaire’s son. So I traded in my Mercedes for a used Toyota. I sold the condo in the city and moved full time to the house in Connecticut. And about a month ago, I finally bit the bullet and talked to a lawyer about getting out of my father’s will.”
A perplexed look crossed her face. “You have to consult a lawyer about getting out of a will?” she said. “Can’t you just tell your father you don’t want the money?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “There’s an irrevocable trust. There’s irrevocable life insurance. And I’m the president of my mother’s foundation. When I tell my father I don’t want his money, he’s going to take it personally. I don’tthinkhe’ll dissolve the trust out of spite, but I wouldn’t put it past him. So yeah, I need to figure things out with a lawyer before I talk to my father. I need to make it diplomatic.”
She stared up at me, still in utter disbelief. “So that’s it?” she said. “You’re just going to be a normal average-income guy?”
“No,” I said. “I still make three hundred thousand a year on my own and I inherited a few million from my mother. I’ll always be well off. But I’ll never be a billionaire. Not even close.”
I expected her to breathe a sigh of relief, or at least to smile a little. But she did not.
“Can I ask you one last thing?” she said.
“Sure,” I said, beginning to get a little worried myself. Now that she knew I was never going to be a billionaire, was she changing her mind?
She rested her forehead against mine again, keeping her eyes cast down. “So if there’s not going to be an inheritance, does that mean... does that mean you won’t be New York’s most eligible bachelor anymore?”
I closed my eyes as a relieved—and deeply touched—smile crept across my face. She didn’t care about my money. But she did care about having me all to herself.
“I was never New York’s most eligible bachelor,” I assured her, squeezing her hands in mine. “I was a hot ticket for gold diggers. But trust me, once the news that I’ve been disinherited gets out, I’ll never get another naked selfie from a stranger again. I’m all yours, Clara.”
Eyes closed, she smiled as she brought my hands up to her lips. “I’m all yours, Ian.”
I don’t think I’d ever felt so peaceful, so contented, in my entire life. So this was what trust felt like. A beautiful woman holds your hands and tells you she’s all yours, and you believe her. I untangled my fingers from hers and placed them on her cheeks. I wanted her. But more than that, I needed her.
