Billionaire's Second Chance (Billionaires #16) - Jennifer Hartley Page 0,17

me that you have to go again,” he said with a look of urgency in his eyes. “Don’t push me away and walk away again.”

I was sad when I looked at him now—sad because I wanted things that I couldn’t have, and so did he. “I’m not the one who has to go now,” I said. “But you are.”

His eyes filled with confusion, and he lowered his hand down to his side.

“Please, DeShawn,” I said. “I have work that I still need to do, and Scott will be out to look for me soon. You need to leave. Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

I thought I would have felt better if he would have gotten angry with me. At least then, I could have felt like I was the one trying to do the right thing and he was the one making it hard. But instead, he just looked at me with a hurt expression filling his face. He lowered his eyes toward his feet and obliged my request with a simple “okay” before walking away.

It took all that I had not to watch him go back to the house. I knew that if I did, and he happened to turn back to look at me, too, that he would turn around and come back—and I would let him. I also knew that it would break my heart to see him go if I watched him walk away.

I didn’t know when he was leaving town, but I had thought I heard him say something to Scott about being “done here tomorrow,” which meant that tonight might very well be the last time that I saw DeShawn for another month, or maybe even several months. A man as gorgeous and successful as him wouldn’t stay single much longer in the city. It left a burning pit in my stomach to think about the fact that I might never feel his touch again. I pressed my eyes shut and leaned against the stable wall with my palm on my chest as I tried to relive the last few moments in my mind and seal them into my memory forever.

I smiled a little when I thought about all the years that I had wondered what it might be like to make love to DeShawn, and now I knew. I knew it very well, and as tortured as I thought it used to be, not knowing what his touch felt like, it seemed to torture me even more now.

I picked up the tools in the stable and gave the horses a pat on the nose before locking up and heading back toward the farmhouse. DeShawn was right about Sprite and Ebony; I needed to let those two be together and run free on the farm more. Maybe tomorrow, I would take them both out for a ride.

When I got back to the house, I saw that DeShawn’s car was already gone. Scott was sitting on the couch, watching the last few minutes of a football game.

“So did he annoy you?” he asked once the game was done, and he got up to turn off the television.

“Who?” I asked.

“DeShawn, obviously,” Scott said as he rolled his eyes. “You really haven’t been paying much attention to him during this visit. Did he do something to piss you off or something?”

“No, not at all,” I said. “I was just busy patching the wall in the stable.”

“Did he come to talk to you?”

“Yeah, for a little while. Why?”

“I was just wondering if he cracked whatever it was that’s been wrong with you lately,” Scott said. His tone wasn’t trying to be mean. I could tell that he was just worried about me.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” I said with a forced smile as I went over and gave my brother a hug. “I’m just tired.

“Okay,” he shrugged and hugged me back.

“Did he happen to say when he was coming back?” I asked as I headed toward the stairs and tried to sound as casual as possible.

“Not sure. I know he’s leaving tomorrow, but no idea when he’ll be back in town,” he answered. “I think he said something about having finished up all his loose ends here in Amarillo for the time being.”

My heart sank. DeShawn was leaving tomorrow, and I was the one who had told him to leave tonight. I had no idea when I was going to see him again. It could be months, maybe even a year, if he got