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Rob nods, telling me he now understands why.
“I was broke when I got back to California. Then, listen to this—Mama hacked one of Aidan’s company’s accounts, intercepting the funds as they were transferred to the liquidators. She stole two hundred thousand Euros from him. The plastic surgeries, and my shop, were pretty much funded by that money.”
His jaw drops. “Your Mama is more badass than I thought!”
“She’s from Palermo. We used to say she was an accountant for the mafioso there.”
The tension in us eases as we laugh, thinking about Mama.
“Clara Cloutier never told me anything about you either,” I say. “How I’ve wanted to thank you all this time.”
“I guess you’ll just have to tell me now.” He looks at me with exaggerated pride.
I reach for his lips. “Thank you, Rob Hartley.”
His cheeks lift as he releases a grin. “Saving you was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. The Hartleys wouldn’t be smiling like we are now. The world would’ve been a very dark place without our heart mender.”
“It’s just meant to be.” Yes, him and me, we’re meant to be.
“We’ll stop Aidan.” His resolute voice returns.
Then he grabs the back of my neck, and he kisses me just like he did in his showroom full of guests wearing fancy clothes and holding crystal flutes. Physically it’s the same, but inside, instead of getting lost in the heated contact of our lips, his energy comes out as if opening the book of Rob Hartley, urging me to read him.
“Rob… tell me.” I set one hand free from his grasp to palm his cheek, pleading for him to open up.
“There is something I need to get off my chest,” he says. “Even though I want to make us work, I’m still haunted by how my previous relationship ended.”
I’ve seen the hill of emotions inside him—right when I lay with him on one of his living room couches. He had admitted his anger toward his father, but his trouble with Karolina is obviously part of those emotions too.
Rob looks at me. “I bet you’ve read a few things about me and her?” He’s merely stating a no-brainer, not accusing in any way.
I nod.
“There’s a little bit of my heart that’s still afraid of getting broken. It’s just ingrained in me that women who want me, want my money. I know you’re not one of them, but that feeling is something that still wakes me up at night.”
“I have no intention of betraying you, Rob. Your wealth has nothing to do with my feelings for you. With all my heart, I swear.”
“I know. I just need to say it. It’s been a part of me that either makes me cold, or tortures me like an invisible whip.”
“You were with her the night you found me?”
“We were on our first date.”
“I ruined it, then?”
“I wish you had! I was a damn fool. She was everything I dreamed of—smart, funny, beautiful, attentive—and I wanted us to be right, so badly. But she was smart, alright. To the point that she outsmarted me.” A bitter look flashes across Rob’s face. I hold his hand, shaking it softly. “Clay warned me. Dad, too. I don’t know how I didn’t see through her bullshit. One night I returned from a cancelled trip, and I found her and one of my best friends naked in our bed.”
I bow my head.
“That wasn’t the thing that hurt the most. We broke up, naturally. But three months later, she came back to me saying she was pregnant, and that it was mine. One hundred percent. I mean—I was excited.” Sparkles embellish his eyes, and he’s clearly remembering how he felt when he found out he was going to be a father. “We always used protection because we agreed we wouldn’t have kids until we got married. But I truly welcomed the news, and I believed her blindly. You know, protection can fail. It happens all the time. I was on my knees, giving her everything she asked for. I couldn’t abandon her and the baby.”
No, Rob would never abandon anyone.
“She asked for separate residences, saying that she needed time for herself. And I gave her that, too. I even opened a checking account for her. But every time I visited her apartment, she wasn’t there. She never wanted me to go to the doctor with her. But she looked pregnant, kept producing ultrasounds of the baby, and I kept believing her. Until one night, I found her in bed with the same man—belly as flat as the bikini model that she was.” He pauses and grinds his jaw. “She’d been wearing a prosthetic to fool me.”
I gape. How could she? Rob wasn’t blind for believing her—she was just downright evil! “So… in the media, those photos, her belly was fake?”
He nods. “Now, that…thathurt,” he says, followed by a deep breath as if his lungs had emptied all the air inside.
