Page 66 of The Billionaire's Second Chance
“I don’t think so,” she said immediately. She disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, coming into the room and closing the door behind her, leaning against it. “Are you–” she started, then corrected herself, “no, that’s a stupid question. You’re not okay. You want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said. My voice came out ragged.
“That’s fine,” Ava said. She pushed away from the door to come sit in one of the chairs opposite my desk. “You don’t have to.”
She sat in silence for a long moment, smiling softly at me. I thought of the easy way Charlie had with his employees. The friendly smiles.
“I won the New York Lit award.”
“Those don’t look like happy tears.”
“No,” I agreed. “They aren’t.”
She hummed.
“And I–” I said. “I guess I broke up with my boyfriend.” Even speaking the words sounded ridiculous. Childish. Her face fell into an expression no one had directed at me for a long time.
Pity.
“He was jealous of your award?” she asked with a cringing half-smile.
Envious, I thought.She meant envious. But it wasn’t envy that was Charlie’s sin, was it?
It was greed.
Or was that mine?
Maybe it wasmewho was being unreasonable,I thought last night, my eyes red and itchy with unshed tears as I lay in bed, a stack of green-eyed, crooked-smiling billionaires abandoned on the bedsheets next to me. I could text Charlie. Apologize. Crawl back into the comfort of his embrace, the mind-numbing pleasure of his body. He was right, after all. It would all be fixed. Sebastian would be happy. Charlie would be happy. I would be happy.
At least for a while.
But there was a reason, I knew, that all these stupid books ended where they did: the ring and the proposal and the wedding and the baby.
How long would it be until Charlie got bored, like my father had? How long would it be until I found myself kissing him on the cheek as he left for a weekend business trip that both of us knew perfectly well wouldn’t be strictly business? How long would it be until I went to a party–cocktails at James’s penthouse, or another friend’s wedding–and had to smile into the face of a woman wearing the same bracelet, the same earrings I was?
It was what these men did. Rich men, powerful men, who thought nothing of trading daughters and sisters between them like stock tips and lawyer jokes. Men like my father, my brother. Will, in the office next to mine, with a desk full of political memoirs and a little black book full of pretty young journalists and White House aides.
Charlie, who’d listened to Sebastian when he was twenty-two, and broken my heart.
Charlie, who’d listened to Sebastian again at thirty-seven, when in exchange for owning Veritech, he’d promised Charlieme.
No, I thought, my chest tightening.It wasn’t me who was greedy. It was him.
“He…” I said. “He wanted too much.”
And he would have everything he wanted. He was handsome, and charming, and rich, the younger Martin brother.
But it wouldn’t be with me.
Tears slipped, hot and unstoppable, down my cheeks.
“Oh, Samantha,” she said. “If it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Of course, you’re right.”
“If he doesn’t appreciate you, that’s his loss. If he doesn’t see you for the smart, strong, sweet woman you are, then he’s not worth your time anyway. There will be other men; there are always other men.” My eyes fixed on the recycling box, overflowing with romances. All these green-eyed billionaires, and the only one I thought knew me like that, saw me for who I was, had broken my heart.
Twice.
