Mr. Mitchell Billionaires' Club Book 2 - Raylin Marks Page 0,46

about you.”

“Then we each helped each other. We each know that even if somehow, in a perfect world, we wanted this to work, it’s like you said at that castle—we aren’t married, and we aren’t on our honeymoon. I think that’s the most confusing part. We pretended too much, don’t you think? We acted like all of this was more than what it was.”

“And what was that?” Jim’s darker voice surfaced. “What was it, Avery?”

“It was a façade that we both played into. It was fun. It was a distraction. That’s all it fucking was.”

“It was more than that.”

“No, Jim,” I said. “It wasn’t. I heard enough of your conversation to know that.”

“You also didn’t hear the entire phone call, Avery.”

“Did I need to? Was there more evidence of reasoning as to why you can’t commit to the chick you met on a plane who has issues to figure out?”

“Fuck me.”

“Already did that,” I said and turned to pack it up, pull it together, and get the fuck out.

Chapter Thirteen

Jim

Oscar Wilde once said, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our own hell.” He was right. I had created my demons a long time ago.

When my father died, I became the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar industry, and I focused on ensuring my father’s legacy never fell. I loved my father, dearly—he was the one who made sure Jacob and I were shielded from our addict mother—but I wanted to do better than he did.

I was old enough to remember my mother’s selfishness and neglect, and from a young age, I promised myself I would never be like my dad, chasing around a woman who inflicted maximum damage everywhere she went. I would never put my family through that.

I often wondered how my father got himself into that position in the first place. Certainly, he didn’t show up at the nearest insane asylum and pluck her out of the bunch. Something had to have happened for him not to realize the woman he loved was the same kind of woman who would cheat on him and lock her sons outside in the cold, just to name a few significant offenses.

I wasn’t going to pretend that my mother wasn’t the reason for my commitment issues. Anyone within a thousand-mile-radius of me could point that out. I hated the woman for it, too. The damage she inflicted on me and my father was immense. Luckily, Jacob couldn’t remember most of it, but she still robbed him of having a mother, whether or not he could remember the bad stuff.

I’d never minded the personal hell that my devils had created for me until now. I saw the look in Avery’s eyes after she’d heard my phone conversation. I hurt her, and I lost her. I’d led her on, trying to hang on to the first authentic woman I’d ever met who could be worth my trust and more than just casual sex. I’d been guarded for so long that I didn’t know if a commitment to Avery would work.

One thing was certain: she had a massive effect on me. She was different. I never once heard her mention my wealth, or pry into my business other than noticing how chained to work I was. Every other woman I’d encountered—inside or outside the office—saw a wealthy CEO and treated me as such. When I thought back to my pursuit of Avery, I realized all it took to win the woman over was food, not money.

It was so much more than that, though. Without even trying, she proved she wasn’t the type of woman I should be afraid of committing to. She wouldn’t be the type to hurt me as my mother had. I knew that because she was fighting the same battle my father had fought when he was trying to keep his sons from his druggie ex. She was living the same life he did.

Even with all of this knowledge, I couldn’t manage to keep my particular demons from ruining it all for me. I destroyed what was probably my only real chance at happiness. Call me crazy, but something about her sang to me from the first time I laid eyes on her, and that was a fact I couldn’t look away from, no matter what the reasons for my subconsciously blowing it all up.

Had she overheard half the conversation between my prying brother and me, and then figured out I was a piece of shit for not wanting