Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires #1) - Lucia Jordan Page 0,46

to get home and crawl under the covers. “Because I only wanted it to be you.”

Tim pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped so that he could look at me fully. “Then, Brooke, why do we keep separating? Why do you keep running away and then not talking to me? Why don’t we just stay together?”

My emotions were out of control after the roller coaster of a night that tonight had been. I practically screamed at him instead of talking. “Because I can’t trust you!” I cried. “Because every time I think you’re actually listening or talking about our relationship seriously, I find some other thing that you’ve been keeping from me. And for some reason, they always have to do with a beautiful woman and your cock. I can’t live like that! I can’t live always wondering if you’re thinking about me because you truly care about me and want to be with me or if you’re thinking about me because you want to have sex. It’s exhausting and upsetting because every time I feel like we’re good, something pulls the rug out from beneath me. And then every time I leave, I feel like I’m going to die without you.”

“Brooke,” he said as he looked at me in quiet bewilderment and confusion. “I don’t know how else to prove to you right now that you’re wrong about me. I care about you so much more than you know, and I want to be with you for every reason, not just one, not just because I love making love to you. If you could just give me one more chance and a little bit of time to prove to you how I feel about you.”

“Funny,” I said. “That’s exactly what Max said.”

“He’s right. I just need you to hold on a little bit longer.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said. Tim grimaced as if he knew that was not the thing that I wanted to here. “But I promise you that you can trust me.”

“You’ve been preoccupied the last couple of weeks. I’ve heard you haven’t even been to the office and that you haven’t been working on the Spokane project. You’ve stopped trying to call or text me for the most part.”

“I want to tell you everything,” he said, and I wanted to believe him. “But you have to wait just a little longer, and then I’ll be able to show you everything. I’ve been thinking about you this whole time and missing you like crazy. When Max told me that you went out on a date with some guy, it killed me. I wanted to find the guy and break both his legs. I’ve been up at night worrying that you’ll find someone else before I can show you what I’ve been doing, but I’ve been making myself stay the course and wait because I feel like I need to prove to you how I feel, instead of just telling you. That’s the only way that you’ll truly believe me. But don’t for a minute, think that I’ve been too preoccupied to think about you because that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve been preoccupied because of you.”

We sat there silently in the dark car together for a while. Then, as Tim got ready to start driving me back home to Kate’s apartment, I decided to do something reckless. I felt like I needed to forget about him and stop being in love with him, but I couldn’t do that as long as I was still trying to believe him. I needed to prove to myself that he really was just a playboy billionaire and was just in this for the sex. I had so much built-up sexual angst right now, and I was betting that he did too.

21

Chapter Fifteen (Tim)

The last thing that I expected Brook to do right now, after just being released from jail and sitting in a parked car on the side of the road in the dark while having an emotionally difficult conversation, was to reach over and grab my pants. If it hadn’t been so dark, I was sure that she would have seen the look of shock in my eyes. She unbuckled her seat belt and crawled over to sit on my lap in the car, and I was simultaneously stunned and enthralled. I felt a little bit like this was a test to see whether or not I would resist her for the higher purpose