Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
But that strategy had blown up in his face.
Dammit, he shouldn’t have said he loved her. He’d known that would push her too hard. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself.
Her eyes wide, she said, “I can’t jump in that fast. I’ve only known you a month.”
“Twenty-eight days,” he said.
“What?” Her eyes were suddenly dazed and confused.
“It’s been twenty-eight days since I first walked into your office.”
“You’ve been counting?”
“I’ve been relishing every one.”
She stared at him. As if he were a crazy man.
But he’d already declared himself, so there was no point in backpedaling now. “Twenty-eight days is more than enough for me.” Maybe he’d known that very first day, even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself. “Maybe you’re not in love with me now. But I believe love can grow between us.”
She shook her head so severely her hair started to fall out of that elegant knot she so loved when she was at her most businesslike.
She slashed her hand through the air. “It’s not just about love. It’s about our lifestyles. You’re a freaking billionaire,” she said as if that were a terrible thing. “I don’t fit in. And relationships based on an unequal footing can’t last.”
He eyed her for a long moment, taking in her beautiful face, even marred as it was by fear and confusion. The anxiety riddling her body had her clutching the chair, her knuckles white. That didn’t speak to a mere difference in their lifestyles, or even about the amount of money they each had. The flare of her nostrils and the starkness of her pupils spoke of far more.
It spoke of fear.
“Money doesn’t matter,” he said, hearing the pleading leaching into his voice.
She snapped, “Of course it does. I’m from Modesto. You come from jet-setting, ski-vacation parents.”
He went to battle against this injustice. “My parents might’ve looked like they had money, but they were in debt up to their eyeballs.” And probably even higher than that. “Ava and Dane had to quit university when they died. We had nothing. She became an aide at a convalescent home, and Dane got a job working at a resort.”
That wasn’t good enough for her. “But you have everything now. You own a multibillion-dollar company. I’m small fry. I can’t compete with all that.”
It wasn’t just the money. It was how she thought he’d been raised, with nannies and a big house and status. Especially now. As if being a billionaire put him rungs above her on some metaphorical ladder of who’s who.
He’d had the thought when she’d talked about her mother, but he’d breezed over it. But he couldn’t do that now. She didn’t think she was good enough for a billionaire. For him. Which was crazy. She’d worked as hard at getting where she was as he had at becoming an Olympian. That put them on the equal footing she seemed to desperately need. Their bank balances didn’t matter. The lifestyle, which she so overestimated, didn’t matter. What mattered was how far they’d both come and how hard they’d worked to get here.
“You got a scholarship to Stanford,” he said. “You did that on your own. Without any help. While I had my family bolstering me. But you still don’t think you’re good enough. You don’t believe in yourself even after you were instrumental in getting FoodFast off the ground. Even after you’ve matched tons of people and businesses.”
She straightened her shoulders. “Of course I believe in myself.”
But he wouldn’t let up. “And yet you don’t believe you’re good enough for a billionaire.”
“It has nothing to do with being good enough.”
“It has everything to do with it,” he said gently. “You think that my being a billionaire makes me better than you.”
She shook her head, her hair flying. “It’s about our lifestyles.”
He told her exactly what his lifestyle entailed. “I get up. I work out. I take a swim. I go to the office. I do my job. I come home. I work out and swim again. I might even watch a little TV. What’s your lifestyle?”
Instead of answering, she countered with, “What about all the galas and the shows and the gallery openings and the billionaire cocktail parties?”
He had his own counter. “What about feeling like I’d rather talk with a youth group than go to a gala? Or that I go to gallery openings only to support my friends?”
Her eyes shuttered then, as if she realized she was being churlish. As if she had no other barbs to throw, she said, “The reality is that you’ll get tired of me because I don’t fit in.”
His mind chopped off the last part of her sentence, leaving only her belief that he’d tire of her. That slammed into him more than anything else she’d said. It was like making a misstep on the diving board and belly flopping into the water. It stole his breath, made him ache in his gut and even his very bones. Because that said it all.