Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
But I need the money.
Badly.
So I’ll stay.
I’ll fucking stay.
And I’ll smile like I’m not suffocating. Flirt like I mean it. Pretend the champagne tastes sweet and that the humidity doesn’t remind me of another night, another lie, another man who thought he could destroy me.
Because one of these billionaires has what I need.
And it’s not his heart.
I’ll wear the dress. Play the game.
Laugh when I want to scream.
I can survive paradise.
Just as I enter the mansion, June grabs me.
“Heather! There you are. I need you.”
“Not in the mood,” I say. She may be great at licking pussy, but she’s hiding something too. If I’m the kettle, she’s the pot.
“Then get in the mood.” She bounces her eyebrows. “I’ve got a great idea!”
EPISODE 232
AGAINST ALL ODDS
Brett
She’s so beautiful. Love for her overwhelms my heart, even with the taste of Jake still on my lips.
“Sienna…please.”
She turns, that familiar sweep of dark hair catching the wind, and starts walking away—toward the path, toward the others, toward anything that isn’t me.
I can’t let her go like this.
Not without saying it.
Not without telling the truth, even if it breaks her more.
I catch up, sand dragging my steps.
“Sienna,” I say again, softer now. “Please.”
She stops.
Barely.
Just enough to show me her profile, her jaw clenched, her shoulders pulled tight like a bowstring. She doesn’t turn around.
“I don’t want to do this right now,” she says, her tone tight.
“I know.” My voice catches. “But I need to.”
I need to. Why the hell did I say that? Why am I making this about me?
Because it is about me. And about her. About us.
She turns then—slowly—and when her eyes meet mine, they’re glassy with…
God, with everything.
Anger. Sadness. Disgust. Maybe worst of all, disappointment.
She crosses her arms. “Go on then. Rip the rest out.”
I swallow hard. She’s so beautiful, and the love I have for her is like an ache in my heart.
This isn’t how I wanted to say it.
But there’s no perfect way to tell someone you’re in love with her…and with someone else.
“It was so long ago,” I begin, voice raw. “I was just a kid. Stupid and young and so fucking scared of what it meant to want Jake the way I did. Then he died. Or I thought he did. I grieved, and I went on.”
She doesn’t blink. She barely breathes.
“I buried it, Sienna. Deep. So deep I didn’t even know how much I missed him until I saw his face again. And then…” I rub the back of my neck. “I had to know. I had to know if he felt something, anything. Whether it would have made a difference if I’d said anything then.”
She tightens her arms across her chest. Her mouth trembles for just a second before she presses her lips together. “I saw the kiss.”
“It wasn’t planned. It was like the past caught fire in the present and we both got burned.”
“But you enjoyed it.”
I can’t lie to her. Hell, she saw us. “I did. So did he.”
“And you still love him,” she says, flat, emotionless.
“I don’t know what I feel,” I say, and the honesty guts me. “Seeing him again opened something I thought I’d sealed off. But Sienna—”
She turns like she’s about to walk away again.
“I love you too.”
She freezes.
I take a step closer, not touching her. Not yet. “I know how it sounds. And I hate that it sounds like I’m asking you to compete with a ghost from my past. But this thing with you—it’s real. It’s not a placeholder. It never was.”
She turns to me slowly, eyes flashing now. “Then why do I feel like I was just holding space? Like the second he came back, everything between us didn’t matter anymore?”
“Oh, baby,” I say. “I didn’t fully understand the whole thing with Jake myself until it was staring me in the face. But what we have matters, Sienna. You matter.”
Her breath shudders. “So what do you want now, Brett? You want us both?”
I don’t hate that idea.
But I can’t ask that of Sienna. Or of Jake, for that matter, if he even wants to be with me.
“No.” My voice drops, serious. “I want clarity. And I want to stop running from things that hurt. I want to figure out what all of this means, and I want you to know where I stand. I’m not going to lie to you. I won’t pretend Jake’s return didn’t shake something loose in me.”
“And what if it shakes you all the way back to him?”
“Then I’ll own that too,” I say quietly. “But I’m standing here now. Not running. Not hiding. I’m trying to be the man you deserve. I love you so much it hurts, Sienna. I never said those words to anyone before. Not until you.”
“But you felt them before.”
“Yes.” I nod, gulping. “Once.”
“For Jake,” she finishes.
I nod again.