AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I half smile at that. “No, you don’t. I’m rich. I don’t need to point that out, but this isn’t about power or money. It’s, for me, legacy. Growing up, the legend, the myth of the Sinclair jewels were instilled in us. People have tried to find them. They’ve been written about. Arguments have been made over the decades whether they’re real or if they aren’t, how much they’re worth… and then I grew up. Made my own money and stopped thinking about them.”
“You don’t need to tell me any of this.”
“I know,” I say, looking at her, “not in that way, but I need to. And you’re different, Scarlett. I don’t get how or why, but you’re unlike anyone I’ve met. This thing is bigger than what you signed on for.”
That feels like better footing. The rest seems to skate close to a nest of emotions I’m not sure I want to visit. I look at the perfect crease in my suit pants, at the shine on my shoes, and for once I’m a little sick of all that. Maybe her rough edges that I like are contagious.
“And because it’s bigger you should know why you’re giving up a longer period of your life to this thing I’m doing.” I blow out a breath. My house is too quiet. It needs life and sound and laughter and the sorts of things someone like Scarlett can breathe into it. I push that thought away with everything else and focus on my words.
“It’s not money or power. It’s about something more important. Family legacy and what it means to me. Having the proof they exist is like having a connection to history, a piece of the family. And…even my father.
“Some say, me included, that the old man was all about money and power and the company and they wouldn’t be wrong. I grew up with the man. Business was always set higher than anything else for him. But if my father did this, it’s a way, proof I guess is one way of putting it…it shows he did really care about me. And that means everything. I want one of those supposedly lost to time jewels because it’s something tangible. A connection.”
For a long moment she doesn’t say a word. And then she speaks.
“Love of family,” she says softly. “I get it. We all go to great lengths for that.”
“It’s just having a piece means the world. I didn’t expect to lose a piece of the flagship company if I fail. And that…” I shrug, “I don’t deal with it day to day or anything, but it’s in private hands—the Sinclair hands—with a small part public, and that’s legacy, too. But if I lose my part if this thing goes under, I…I won’t be happy, but it stays in the family. I just don’t have my shares, but I’m sure I can buy them back.”
I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, or why I’m babbling at her.
But I do know.
“It means everything to me, Scarlett,” I say, finally letting the words out. “Everything.”
“I get that, and you—”
“No, Scarlett.” I get to my feet and start to pace because this is an area I don’t go. “I’ve told you that. But thing is, it means everything to me that you’re doing this.”
“Oh.” Her gaze skittered over me as she smoothed her hands against her thighs once more. Long, slender thighs.
And it comes on me then, what it is I really want to say. This isn’t something I do lightly, or often, or…ever if I’m honest, but…
I stop and look at her. “Scarlett, thing is, I wanted you to know that because I do get what things are worth. I work a lot. I don’t believe in love, but it does mean everything to me. And I know the next part with this interview might be difficult. I think, though, we can do it. Because I really like you.”
She staring at me like I’ve grown two heads and there’s something in her gaze, something complicated that’s like heat and darkness and light and hope and despair. I’m reading into things, I know.
“The attraction is real, the one I have for you. And after this…who knows, maybe we can still see each other.” I’ve commandeered the conversation, I realize. I look at her.
“What was it you wanted to say?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Scarlett
Oh. My. God.
I do not, at all, know what to say.
I’m pretty sure good intentions have packed up and left. I think they did that somewhere between him explaining what this all means to him and that he’s attracted to me and wants to see me.
Anyone else, that’s nothing.
In Hudson land, I get the feeling all his words mean something much bigger.
And here I am, in a luxe and tasteful living room, the one where we had hard and mind blowing sex, a room that suddenly feels more like a rock and a hard place or a fire and frying pan. Or whatever cliché it is I’m suddenly caught in. Because of my little white lie that grew legs.
I have big, out-of-control feelings for him. The big L word. And the more I listened, the more I fell for him. Because I got what he was trying to say.
