AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Deal.” I kissed Sam after I spoke, before he headed toward the door.
“Be right back.”
Once Sam was gone, I casually stripped out of my clothes, setting them aside in a nearby corner. Then went to work getting the sauna to turn on, the room quickly filling with a wet heat. I grabbed for a towel on the rack, wrapping it around my waist in a show of faux modesty. By the time Sam stepped back into the room, it was fully sauna-fied, complete with me sitting on a bench, my legs crossed and waiting.
“Damn. This is seriously incredible.” Sam looked around the room again, a silk robe now draped around his body. It was light blue with a pattern of pink and white flowers on its fabric, looking regal and high-class, something reserved for the uber-wealthy or the very lucky.
“Nice robe,” I started, still checking it out from my spot on the bench. “It looks… expensive.”
“Probably,” Sam replied. “But for me it was a gift, so I’ve never known how much it costs.”
“A gift? From who?”
Sam paused for a moment, like he was thinking through his response.
“Sam?” I grinned. “Who’d you get the robe from? Is this the part where you tell me you’re secretly related to some high-powered family? Is there a billionaire in your contacts list I should know about?”
“It’s nothing like that.” He shook his head. “It’s just… the relationship was so long ago I pretty much forgot about it.”
“The relationship?” I suddenly found myself on edge, annoyance making its way through my veins.
Wait.
Was I seriously jealous of a guy who was clearly no longer in Sam’s life?
“Seriously. It’s ancient history.” Sam waved a hand as he spoke. “It was this guy I went out with in Atlanta eons ago. He was some rich kid. I thought he was super into me, but I could never really tell because he’d always take these jabs at me. Lots of money. Lots of connections. Zero empathy.”
He then did a small spin in his robe, with a bright smile on his face. “This robe was honestly the best thing that came out of the relationship. It was probably the nicest thing he ever did for me.”
“Come here.” My words were low as I motioned for him to come sit beside me. Sam did as he was told, soon taking a seat right next to me, settling into his robe even further. I reached an arm around his waist, moving him even closer to my side, close enough for him to lean his head against my shoulder.
“He didn’t deserve you,” I murmured. “You know that, right? You could do so much better.”
“I mean, I know that now,” Sam replied. “It was just a lesson I had to learn, I think. Sucked but I came through it not so naïve about relationships.”
“Naïve?”
“Naïve, as in, I know that when things are too good to be true, they often are,” he explained with a small shrug. “Especially when it doesn’t even make sense on paper.”
“I think you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking down about yourself. Making it sound like you don’t… deserve the world.”
“I don’t think it’s talking down about myself to be reasonable.” Sam quirked an eyebrow. “Sometimes, people make sense together and sometimes they don’t. There’s nothing wrong with having a good head on your shoulders about it.”
“You’re not getting it,” I said, before forcefully taking his chin into my hand, making him keep eye contact with me. “You deserve everything you want, Sam. You’re a good person. You have a good heart.”
“No offense, but I don’t know if you can make that call,” Sam replied, with a subtle shake of his head. “You’re pretty biased. And you’ve yet to see me at my worst.”
“You’ve yet to see me at my worst, too,” I said back, my voice tinged with something dark. “Is that something you really want to see, Sam? You want to see me at my worst?”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe?”
“Yes,” Sam said, breathless. “I want to see you at your worst, Damon Anderson.”
