Page 78 of Fighting For Light
He shrugs with one hand on the steering wheel and the other leaned against the armrest. “I don’t…dislike it. I couldn’t say it then, but I certainly can tell you now. You were wearing those flair jeans that looked painted on your ass and that hat with your hair flowing down your back. I was admittedly distracted.”
I laugh again and look at him, reaching for his hand. “I don’t think I can fit in those jeans now.” I’ll probably be in dresses for the foreseeable future because nothing else works.
“Then get you some new ones,” he says.
“No, I can’t. I—“
“Gem, I gave you that black card for a reason. What’s mine is yours. Buy what you want.”
“Oh,” I mutter.
He chuckles and lifts my hand to his lips while his eyes are still on the road. “Let me spoil you.”
“Oh, you spoil me plenty. But it has nothing to do with clothes.”
He smiles. “Well then, let me spoil you in a different way.” He glances at the road sign and pulls to the right, getting offthe highway. “We’re stopping here for the night before we make our way north. Since there’s no Prada around here, we can shop online. It should be at the house by the time we get there. Or I can call whatever stores you want, and they will bring options to the house. That’s typically what Mom does.”
“This is probably a stupid question, but I need to ask. Howrichare we?“ I ask him. My face feels hot because it’s embarrassing to ask this, but it’s probably a good thing for me to know.
He keeps his eyes on the road. “Not everything is liquid. There are a lot of investments. My brothers and I all have off-shore accounts, just in case. We have some things in Switzerland. I was looking into a beach house in Italy on the Amalfi coast I thought you might like, which would have been my wedding present to you, but I put it on hold because I wasn’t sure. We are probably close to the ten-figure mark.”
My jaw drops, and a sound squeaks from my mouth. He glances at me and chuckles. “I told you, you don’t have to worry about anything, Cordi.”
“That’s…a lot of money.”
He shrugs and rolls to a stop at the stoplight in some random town. “Yes, gem, it is. But it’s just money.”
“That’s really easy to say when you’ve always had it.”
He chuckles darkly. “My mom comes from money. The Astor’s roots go deep and wide, but for about six months after Mom got us out, we couldn’t touch the money Mom was able to take back until it was free and clear, and the Costa’s weren’t going to come for us because dad was using the money to pay them to do his bidding. We couldn’t touch the trust funds our grandfather left us because they required that we were married in order to get them. The one caveat was that we could use them to invest, but anything earned goes back into it. We lived in a motel room with two beds, a microwave, and a mini fridge for a while. Mom wouldn’t even let us go to school. She was so worried someonewould find us. We lived on bologna sandwiches and apples because it’s all she could afford at the time. Emerson did some underground fights to get some extra cash. Mom didn’t know about that, though.”
“Wow, Kai. I …I didn’t know.”
He shrugs. “It was brief, but we got a good understanding of what life would look like if Mom didn’t plan ahead. Suffice it to say we all made sure we would never be put in that position again.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Anyway, we have money. More than what we can spend for a couple of generations. I never mentioned this because it’s up to you, but you don’t have to work if you don’t want to.”
“I was thinking about taking some time off when the baby comes, anyway.”
“You should. I was thinking I might, too.”
I smile at the thought of being in one place for more than a few nights.
“How will that work with the season starting up a few months after my due date?”
He shrugs. “Maybe it’s time for me to retire.”
“We’ve been through this, Kai. I’m not asking you to do that if you don’t want to.”
“I know. It’s just a thought. Nothing is set in stone.”
My mind goes back to the competition in Texas. I can’t stop thinking about it, even though I’m trying not to. It makes my chest hurt and tears well in my eyes. “Do you think that man was going to hurt us?” I ask him through a thick throat.
He looks at me with a tight expression and turns into the campground. “I don’t know, I really don’t.”
***
