Page 98 of Tame Me

I glare at her. ‘Can you give me just five minutes before interrupting with your rejection?’

She shoots me a mulish look. ‘I don’t understand what you’re doing. Or why this is even necessary.’

‘So that no matter what happens to me, or what happens between us, you and Lukas will have a home. Always.’

‘I thought we’d agreed on that already,’ she says shortly. ‘I trust you.’

My heart stalls. ‘Right.’ I clear my throat. ‘This is just the documentation to prove it.’ And then some, actually, but I’m a bit thrown.

‘What about this?’ She points to one of the papers.

‘My life insurance policy. It’ll be worth it for you if I die.’

Her flushed cheeks are leeched of colour in a second. ‘You think I’d want Lukas to lose a parent?’

‘Talia...’ I feel terrible. I just hit her with casually cruel words. My parents were so good at it. Knowing where and how to strike to inflict maximum emotional damage. I’m screwing up already. I could hurt her. Hurt Lukas. I don’t ever want to. In part that’s why it’s important to me to get this paperwork squared away. So that if—when—things go south between us, everything is still sorted for Lukas. And her.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter. ‘That was insensitive.’

She looks troubled more than hurt. ‘You realise he needsyou, not your money.’

I stare at her.

‘You’reworth far more than any amount of money,’ she adds as if I haven’t grasped it already.

I feel awkwardness heat my face.

‘AndIdon’t want your money.’

Yeah, I’ve got that message, actually. She’s already given back the money that I put in her account. I understand why she did it. If our positions were reversed I’d have done the same. Even so, it annoys me immensely.

‘You never have to worry about not having a home. Or not having enough ever again. You never have to worry about this being taken away from you or having to just up and leave.’

Her face pales and I know I’ve hurt her by reminding her of the past, but the point is she’s through that now. ‘You know it’s nothing to me.’ And there are no conditions.

‘It’s not nothing. You can’t do things like this for everyone or you won’t be a billionaire for very much longer.’

‘You’re not everyone,’ I mutter through gritted teeth. ‘You’re themotherof mychild.’

She stiffens, and somehow I feel as if I’ve said the wrong thing.

‘I don’t want a massive disparity between his parents’ lives,’ I try to explain, but I’m making it worse. ‘I don’t want him subjected to bitter comparisons—’

‘You mean when we live separately.’

I hesitate. We haven’t talked about the future and it feels like boggy ground to cover now. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to think on it. Not yet. We’re still letting that chemistry run. ‘You let me give Ava money.’

‘Yes, and that benefitted me.Thatwas enough,’ she says passionately. ‘This, forLukas, I understand. That you want to make his future secure no matter what. But this isn’t whatIwant from you.’

There’s suddenly an undercurrent between us that I’m wary of exploring.

What does she want? What does she really want from me?

I don’t want to know. It’s safer to retreat.

‘If you don’t want to touch the money, then don’t,’ I grit. ‘Earn your own and save my unwanted amount for Lukas.’

‘I will,’ she says firmly. ‘I’ll do exactly that.’

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