Page 66 of Billion-Dollar Dating Game

Because this brilliant, strong, kind man didn’t think he was worthy of someone—his father had left him, his mother had struggled to cope with him alone, he’d been rejected by the most powerful man in town, and he’d been crushed—literally. So he’d suppressed so much. His pain. His needs. He’d rebuilt himself—but there was still that little bit broken inside.

‘You matter,’ he said softly. ‘Always have. I watched you...you came back from that school and you were different.’

A smile escaped. ‘You mean I’d been through puberty?’

He chuckled softly. ‘Not just that, you were so...serene and focused and I wanted to talk to you. I should have talked to you. But I got near and...’ He lifted his shoulders.

They were on that runaway train together.

‘And you don’t thinkyou’rethe best thing ever to walk back into my life?’

His pale blue eyes widened.

He’d been a handful of a boy. He was a handful of a man. And she loved him for it. Because he was gold—through and through.

‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I know I’m a pleaser. I want people to like me—to need me—that’s true. But I could be me around you. Free. Maybe at the start I thought it didn’t matter because it was only a game, but now it matters more than anything.Youmatter more than anything,’ she whispered. ‘And I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Why?’ He paled. ‘For what? What are—’

‘I should have said something that day Dad caught us. I just stood there and let him berate you, let him chase you off, let him think you were pushy when I should have spoken up and stopped him.’

‘Oh.’ He released a massive sigh. ‘No.’ He shook his head gently. ‘We both did what we had to, to be safe. In here.’ He pressed his hand to his chest. ‘I don’t blame you for that.’

‘But I hurt you.’ She realised it now.

So had her dad. He’d made him feel unworthy. It had been another blow in that pile-on he’d felt.

His shoulders lifted. ‘You were hurt too. And, sweetheart, we were kids.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Far too young to be able to handle something this big.’

Skylar trembled. This was that big for him too? Overwhelming and all-encompassing and wonderful...and terrifying. But now he was here. He’d come after her.

‘You came to see him?’ Zane gestured towards her father’s grave.

‘To tell him I’ve left Helberg.’ She nodded and gazed at her father’s small headstone. ‘You know he never dated anyone or anything after my mother left. He was so self-contained and he encouraged me to be the same—that just the two of us was all we needed. I guess he thought it was safe.’ She looked back up at Zane and saw the intensity in his eyes.

‘He didn’t think I was good enough for you,’ he muttered.

‘In his view,no onewould have been good enough for me,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t his choice.’

She drank in Zane’s stance—he was so focused on her. He listened. He cared. He loved her. And she needed to make him understand that she loved him right back. So much.

Emboldened, she stepped closer to him. ‘This ismylife and my choice. And I don’t want to be alone.’

Zane’s eyes flashed.

‘I want a relationship, not a fling.’ Her voice both rose and shook. ‘I want one love for a lifetime. I want a home. And I want a family. Children. And a dog. Two, actually.’

‘What else?’ he muttered huskily.

‘I want to travel and see all the things I’ve not seen yet.’ She blinked but through the tears she saw he’d stepped closer still.

‘Sounds amazing. Is there more? What else do you want?’

Blinking again, she saw the vitality just bursting from him—his expression both light and hard and so very focused. Her courage overflowed, because his feelings were undeniable and so very obvious.

‘You,’she said simply. ‘With me. I want us to do it all together.’

‘I would love to. I would love to do all that with you, Skylar.’ He opened his arms and she just toppled into them.

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