Page 110 of The Rebel Billionaire

He answered with, "Got the alert, onmyway."

I didn't bother to call Sinclair security. I already knew they'd be racing forCharlie.

She was back a few minutes later, four sets of zip ties draped overonehand.

"I brought extra, just in case." She handed them to me, watching as I secured his hands, then his feet. I dragged Hayward back to the base of the stairs and used the extra zip ties to secure his hands to the thick banister behind him. He wasn't goinganywhere.

I wished I'd had a gag in that drawer. He was still mumbling and whining under his breath. Charlie stood in front of him, looking down, her hands on her hips, and opened her mouth tospeak.

He glared at her. She shookherhead.

"You're notworthit."

She was right. He wasn't. He'd been in deep shit, and with what he'd just pulled, it had gotten immeasurably worse. Every inch of Charlie's house was undersurveillance.

No one was watching the cameras live, but they were recording around-the-clock and every second of his attack on Charlie was now on the record in high-definition.

We only had a few minutes before the Sinclair team and Brennan showed up. Closing my hand around Charlie's upper arm, I tugged her gently downthehall.

"He's not going anywhere," I said. She let me lead her to the kitchen, squinting a little when I flicked on the overhead lights. "It looks goodinhere."

It did, but that's not what I neededtosay.

Facing down a guy with a gun—not remotelyscary.

Coming clean with Charlie—fuckingterrifying.

Time to stop stalling and layitout.

"I fucked up," I said, meeting her blue eyes directly. I wasn't surprised to see suspicion there. I deserved it. "I broke things off because I'm in lovewithyou."

"What?" She took a step back and threw her arms out to the sides. "What?" She said again, her voice rising, bordering onhysterical.

I sucked in a fortifying breath and said again, "I'm in love with you. And I decided I would rather give you up than run the risk of having you regret beingwithme."

Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me, her eyes narrowed on mine. She said nothing for an endlessminute.

I had to force myself tobreathe.

Finally, she tilted her head to the side and said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You're not in love with me. If you were in love with me, you'd trust me to know my own mind. Why would I ever regret beingwithyou?"

Fucking Aiden and Evers wereright.

"I do trust you. I fucked up. It doesn't mean I don't love you. It just means I was anidiot."

"So?"

She wasn't going to make this easyonme.

Not that Ideservedit.

"I'm sorry. We both know if we try to make something out of this, people are going to talk. I was trying to spare youfromthat—"

She opened her mouth to speak and I put my hand up to stop her. Surprised, her mouth snapped shut and she glaredatme.

"I was wrong. You know what we'd be getting into, and you know what you'll have to deal with. If you're willing to put up with it, that's your choice. I shouldn't have taken it away from you, and I'msorry."

"I can't stop people from talking, Lucas. If you're worried about what people are going to say, there's nothing I can do about that," she said, sounding so tired I wanted to ditch this whole fucked up apology and pull her intomyarms.