Page 97 of Our Chaotic Love Affair

The words came slowly at first, then faster. I wanted to help young women who felt lost. Who were stuck in jobs that paid the bills but didn’t feed their souls. Who looked around at their lives and wondered, is this it?

I’d been that woman five years ago. Fresh out of college with a business degree I didn’t know how to use, working retail and wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake. Melody had saved me. She had given me a job, given me purpose, and been a friend who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

But not everyone had a Melody. I wanted to be that for someone. For lots of someones.

I wanted to help them connect with their inner child, the one who’d had dreams before the world told them to be practical. I wanted to help them figure out what set them on fire and made them feel alive. My goal was to help them figure out what they’d do if money and fear weren’t factors. I wanted to help them grow into the women they were born to be.

My fingers flew across the keyboard. I outlined programs. Workshops. One-on-one coaching. Content strategy. Social media presence. Revenue models.

I got so absorbed I didn’t notice Cash watching me until I looked up to stretch my neck.

Our eyes met. For a second I saw something flicker in his expression. Something that looked like pride. Or longing. Or both.

Then it was gone.

I lifted my chin. Held his gaze. Refused to look away first. He was the one who looked down. Back to his laptop. Back to whatever wall he’d built between us.

I went back to my business plan. My heart was caught up in him. I knew that. Could feel it every time I looked at him, every time I remembered the way his hands had felt on my skin.

He was a new dream. But he wasn’t my only dream.

If this meant nothing to him, if he could really sit there and pretend Rome never happened, then it was better to end it now. Before I fell completely in love with him.

I focused on the future I was building for myself, with or without Cash Bancroft in it.

CHAPTER 33

CASH

Iwas jetlagged and in a shitty mood when I pulled through the gates of my father’s estate. I hated that I had to come to him. I was tired and just wanted to go back to my apartment and sleep. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to smell Cleo’s perfume or hear her singing off key. I didn’t want to look at that purple streak of hair and those soul-searching eyes.

Liar.

I wanted to go home and close my eyes so I could see all of that stuff in my head.

The butler let me in and silently pointed to the study. I could smell cookies and knew Kathy was baking. She was always baking. She was probably going to be babysitting a gaggle of grandkids and wanted to be prepared. I hoped to get this over with and leave before they showed up. I was not in a kid-friendly mood.

I walked into my father’s office. He was behind the desk, laptop open and readers on.

“I’ve been waiting,” he said.

“I had to fly across the Atlantic. Took me a minute.”

He looked up at me then, clearly not expecting my sarcasm. I was always professional with my father. I didn’t talk back.

I sat down without his invitation.

“What happened?” he asked as he closed his laptop.

“I let Rossi out of the contract. Clean break. No penalties.”

“You did what?”

I shrugged. “It’s done. It’s over.”

“No penalties.” He said it slowly, like maybe he’d misheard. Like maybe his firstborn son, the one who’d spent the last thirty years being his perfect soldier, hadn’t just walked away from a multi-million-dollar deal. “Cash, do you have any idea what you did?”

“I have a very clear idea.” I sat back in the chair across from him, making myself comfortable. “Rossi is hemorrhaging money. Has been for years. His wife has a spending problem, he’s made bad investments, and he’s months behind on payments to creditors. If we’d pushed the deal through, we would have been tied to his mess when it all collapsed. Legal did a deep dive. I didn’t just make a decision because I felt like it.”