Page 225 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

I had to appreciate the candor. She might be Maggie’s opposite, but it was said that best friends sometimes picked up on each other’s traits.

“With this?” Megyn gestured to herself. “Yeah, I’m fine. A bit ago, I started cleaning up the house and kind of stopped. I’m back at it, though. I want to put it on the market.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled. “Your parents left you this house.”

“And I’m deathly embarrassed every time you come here and see it,” Megyn said.

I realized she wasn’t just being blunt. Some of the dirt on her face wasn’t actually dirt, but bruises beneath her eyes. She was exhausted.

“I’m going to try and find an apartment.”

Although an apartment would be easier for her, her reasoning still hurt me. I had already convinced her of this once and now I would have to start all over again.

But, dammit, if that was what I had to do, then I would.

“Megyn, I really don’t care what you have or where you come from. I care about you. It’syouI want.”

Megyn smiled, and it didn’t even come close to reaching her eyes. “I guess you want to come in.”

“I don’t have to, if you’re busy.”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You already do whatever you want.”

With that parting remark, Megyn opened the door wider and let me inside.

CHAPTER24

MEGYN

Despite how exhausted I was, I still felt a bit of my old nerves when letting him inside. I’d been moving a lot of things around, furniture and shelves, to sweep and vacuum and dust, and most areas of the house were in a state of chaos.

And as it that wasn’t bad enough, dust hung thick in the air, drifting around, catching the light coming in through the windows. I always used natural light in lieu of electricity whenever possible, but it sure did make the dust show up vividly.

Carter took off his shoes and set them aside on the rack. He glanced around at the living room, through the archway to my dinky and rusting kitchen. “I can see you’ve been working hard. You’ve done all of this in one day?”

“I started last night,” I told him. “I needed something to do when I got off work. Fiddling around with my sewing stuff wasn’t really doing it for me.”

Carter stood in the middle of the living room. “Can you tell me how you got into sewing, Megyn?”

I blinked at him, a little surprised that he’d care. He had never asked before. Then again, maybe there hadn’t ever been a right time. “Necessity.”

He turned to me. “Can you elaborate?”

“Necessity,” I repeated. I gestured to the house around us. “I’ve lived here my whole life, remember? Clearly, Dad couldn’t afford anything better.”

That sounds rude.

“I mean…”

Carter shook his head. “I understand. Go on, please.”

Did he understand? Maybe. I had to remember he had won his wealth himself, though that didn’t mean he’d grown up poor like me.

“I couldn’t go to camp or anything that cost money. No sports. Couldn’t pay for jerseys, couldn’t spend extra money on lunch or snacks. No extra school activities. No wasting gas by ferrying me around. I had to be happy with cheap activities that could keep me busy for a long time. As it turns out, there’s not many options. Reading is one, except there’s no library on Staten Island. I had to make do with books from school.”

Carter listened quietly, intently. I wondered if he was hearing more than he wanted to and was merely being polite.

“Eventually, Dad figured out just about anyone could stay entertained for days if they had some thread and a needle. And Mom had had both. He gave me her sewing kit. And I guess I just never looking back from that. I enjoyed doing it. I’m lucky, I guess, that I liked what Ihadto do.”

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