The Billionaire's Princess - Ava Ryan Page 0,54

or my brothers. We went to bed the night before with a mother who kissed us good night like always, told us she loved us and acted like she gave a fuck about us, then woke in the morning to my heartbroken and vengeful father and the rattle of lonely clothes hangers in her empty closet.

I think about her sometimes.

I wonder if we might have seen her again and reconciled if she hadn’t gotten herself killed in that car accident a few months later, when their custody case was in full swing. I wonder what she’d think about Carly. Whether she’d want grandchildren.

Tonight, I even went so far as to dig the old shot of her on the beach out of my drawer and give it a glance. A mistake, obviously. The sight of her happy and carefree, with her long sandy hair blowing and her hazel eyes sparkling, only ever intensifies that dull ache in my chest. That’s why I’ve never framed the fucking photo and put it out where I can see it.

I don’t want to get upset every time I see her face. And she doesn’t deserve a place of honor in my memories, my apartment or my life, anyway.

This time of year, when the days are short, the streets are slushy and my nerves are edgy, always reminds me of the one formative lesson that she taught me:

You can’t trust anybody. Especially the people you’d most like to trust.

As long as you still love me.

I don’t believe in romantic love. Never have. My parents’ nasty divorce blasted the word and the idea right out of my vocabulary. And if, on the off chance that it does exist, it exists for other people. People who have a heart for a heart rather than a smoking crater where their heart used to be.

Which raises the question: what the fuck do I think I’m doing with Carly? Why have I greedily absorbed every second with her these last months? Why does the smoking crater in the dead center of my chest also ache when I think about her and when she’s not with me?

Why the fuck did I give her a key to my penthouse within a month of our officially getting together?

Why do I feel this insane push-pull when it comes to her? It’s as though there’s an elephant inside me that belongs to her and I spent half my time trying to push it toward her and the other half trying to yank it back.

Here’s the biggie:

Why did I just happen to wander by Harry Winston this afternoon and, worse, just happen to glance at the engagement rings? Because today is also Carly’s birthday? That excuse doesn’t really cut it. Not when I’ve planned her gift—and it’s spectacular, if I say so myself—for weeks and currently have it waiting for her in the bedroom.

I don’t believe in love. I’m never getting married. Those two facts about me will never change.

Even if the ongoing effort of keeping Carly at some sort of emotional arm’s-length feels like swallowing a spoonful of steaming dog shit and trying to keep it down. Impossible.

Drained, I sink onto one end of the sectional and let my unfocused gaze slip to my gauzy curtains, which blur the glinting skyline and river. Like my thoughts, I suppose. God knows I’m not seeing straight right now.

Luckily, my buzzing phone snaps me out of my weird altered state. It’s Ryker.

“Yeah,” I say, the knot in my gut tightening. “What’s happening?”

“No dice. It’s over. I’m on my way to the airport now.”

“Shit,” I say, using my free hand to rub my forehead hard enough to make the flesh fall off. “Seven months of wasted effort.”

“Yeah, well. You win some, you lose some. And tomorrow’s another day, Scarlett O’Hara.”

“Fuck that. I’ve got goals to accomplish.”

“You and me both.”

I sit there as the silence turns brittle, my mood plummeting to subterranean levels. So our deal fell through. Happens sometimes. I won’t get that additional zero to add to my net worth by my thirty-fifth birthday. Big fucking whoop. The goal was always a stretch, not to mention the fact that it was self-imposed. What harm is there in not making this extra cheddar right now? It’s not as though I need it. It’s not as though anyone needs this kind of money. It’s not as though someone is on their way to evict me from the penthouse right now and force me to live in a van down by the