Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Kaden’s gaze flicked to mine like he was stunned. He’d asked for it. And honestly, I was getting turned on by what Rhodes was saying, big-time.
“That’s the difference between guys like you and me. If she needed something, you’d give her a hundred dollars from your wallet even if you had more and think that was good enough. I’d give her everything that was in mine.” His voice went hard. “The only person you can blame is yourself, dumbass.”
My heart soared. It might have even gone straight to the moon. Because Rhodes was right.
Kaden would have a roll of bills in his wallet and part with a hundred, easily. And Rhodes would give me five dollars if that was all he had. He would give me everything at any cost. And Kaden . . . It didn’t matter. And it never would again. He had killed anything and everything I’d ever felt for him, and there was nothing there. Not a speck. There never would be again.
And now it was my turn to tell him the same so there was no miscommunication.
Love could be about money. It made things easier, that was for sure. But the best kind of love was about so much more than that. It was about giving the person you loved everything. The easy, effortless things, but also the hardest intangible stuff, the uncomfortable. It was about telling someone that you loved them by giving them everything you had and everything you didn’t because they mattered more to you than anything material ever would or could.
I caught his gaze and told him as seriously as possible, “I told your mom, and now I’m going to tell you too. There is no amount of money in the world that you could ever give me to get me to go back. Even if we could be friends, which isn’t going to happen”—Rhodes grunted beside me—“I wouldn’t work for you or help you again. You need to understand that. I will never change my mind.”
Hurt, clear and bright hurt, flashed across the good-looking face staring at me. “This isn’t about you writing for me, Roro. I love you.”
The arm over my shoulders stiffened, and Rhodes’s voice dropped as he grumbled, “Not enough.”
I focused on this man that I had known so well for so long and made a face so he would know I wasn’t exaggerating, that I meant every word out of my mouth. “Bye, Kaden. I don’t want to see any of you again. I mean it. I’ll make you regret the day you met me.”
I was done.
Rhodes glanced down, and I focused on him, and without looking at my past, we turned and walked away, leaving him behind. To stand there, to stare, to walk away; I didn’t know and I didn’t give a single shit. Not a fraction of one.
And what had to be about a minute of walking later, I suddenly stopped. Rhodes stopped too, and I threw my arms around his neck. He bent down and put his arms around my lower back, pulling me into that body, cuddling me close.
“You’re the best,” I told him seriously.
His hand snuck beneath my jacket and shirt and palmed my lower back as he whispered, “I love you, you know that.”
Pulling him down so that he was ear level with my mouth, with goose bumps on my skin and a warmth that could have started a wildfire, I whispered back, “I know.”
Rhodes’s breath was a puff against my throat, and I felt him let out a deep sigh a moment later. He shifted and his cheek nuzzled mine. After a moment, with my face tingling from the rub of his stubble, he pulled back and aimed that purple-gray gaze at me. “Ready?” he asked.
I grabbed his hand and nodded. “Let’s go save some front row seats to see our star-in-the-making win.”
The man I loved squeezed my hand, and we went inside to do just that.
Epilogue
“You look like a princess, Yuki.”
Yuki bounced her shoulders from her spot in front of the mirror that had been set up in her room by the designer who had loaned her the dress she was wearing tonight, ignoring the squawk of disapproval from the stylist who had arranged everything. My dress. Her dress. The makeup and hair people that had been hired to take her from a “seven to eleven.”
She was ridiculous, but she really did look like an eleven.
The woman the world knew as a pop star, but I knew as my great friend, preened as she turned around. “I’ve got eight layers of makeup on, I’m not going to be able to breathe for the next six hours, and I’m going to need help peeing, but thank you very much, my love.”
I laughed. “You’re very welcome, and it would be my honor to hold up your dress while you go pee. If you have to take a poopy, I’m out of there though.”