Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I tried living overseas,” I said, “but I was miserable. This last year, before I met you? It was the worst of my life, even worse than Paul.” My body shook from the raw emotion coursing through me. “I can’t do it.”
“You didn’t know a soul and didn’t speak the language. Of course you were miserable.” He stroked a hand over my hair and cupped my face. “It will be different. Jason and L are there. I’m there.” He kissed me, and all I could taste was the subtle drug of his persuasion.
“Please don’t make me.”
He froze. “Make you?”
“We both know you could.”
His face changed to an expression I couldn’t read. “I don’t have any control over you.”
Was he truly unaware of the power he held? “Yeah, right.”
“I don’t. If I did, you never would have had a chance to take L’s place. We would have left that stupid event, and you would have been in my car and on the way to my bed when the bombs went off,” he said. “But I don’t want control. All I want is . . . whatever you want.”
I croaked it out. “I want to stay here.”
He took an enormous breath and the warm eyes turned dark and sad. “Very well. That’s fine.” His shoulders sagged, and it looked like whatever he was thinking about was killing him. “I’ll resign in the morning.”
“W-What?” My knees went so weak, I almost fell over.
“I have plenty of investments. That’s where most of my money comes from. I can retire anytime.”
My heart slammed against my chest so hard, it ached. “You can’t do that.”
“What I can’t do is bring my company here. I would move my family’s whole goddamn empire to this uncultured and rude place for you. But I can’t.”
I choked back the urge to cry. “Shawn—”
“I want to be with you, and you want to be here. It’s simple. You’re the one who’s always had the power between us.”
My eyes fell shut, and for a moment I allowed myself to consider this enormous sacrifice he was willing to make for me. He’d give up everything he loved . . . for me.
No, I yelled against the weak, greedy, and selfish part of me. I’d moved across the country for a man, taken the job he wanted me to take, and let him make decision after decision for me. And I would go to my grave resenting both him and myself for it.
I’d be damned before I’d do that to Shawn.
“I will not allow you to do this, do you understand? You love your job, and you’re too good at it to resign.” He opened his mouth to protest, but there was too much passion filling my soul to contain. “I want to hear you say it.”
“Excuse me?” He was less than thrilled at my tone, and yet I could see it turned him on, ever so slightly. He loved control. But he loved me controlling him even more.
“Tell me that you’re going back tomorrow.”
“Not without—”
“Yes, without me. I love you, and we’ll figure it out, I promise we will. But if you stay, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Again, he took a deep breath with his gaze unwavering.
“Please,” I said.
“I don’t want this.”
“I know you don’t. I’m sorry.”
He said a whole bunch of things to me in German then, things he wanted to say but didn’t want me to know. When he was done, he looked defeated. “Fine.” His voice was quiet and heartbreaking. “I’ll go back tomorrow. Alone.”
45
SHAWN
My jet was over the Atlantic. I had a glass of bourbon in one hand and Kara’s wedding rings in the other, and although there were three other people on the plane with me, I’d never felt so alone in my entire life. It was my third glass of bourbon, and the hope was I’d stay drunk until there wasn’t enough fuel left to turn around.
She’ll change her mind, I kept telling myself. She’d wake tomorrow and call me, and I’d have her on the first flight to Munich I could get.
Once I landed, it got worse. Scheiße, she was everywhere. My plane, my apartment, my office . . . my head. I couldn’t escape. The press interest waned considerably when I returned to my apartment alone, another knife in me when they hounded relentlessly about where I’d been and where she was.
New York was the answer.
Like me, she wanted to lose herself in her job while we were apart. Our first conversation with an ocean between us was a failure. All it did was intensify my misery and remind me that, for once, I did not have what I wanted.
By the sixth day, we’d fallen into a routine. She’d call me on FaceTime and eat lunch in the same spare office she’d had that day I’d come for her in the rain, while I ate a late dinner at home.