Page 145 of Bitter Rival

Beckett

As soon as I board the flight to New York, I cover my ears with noise-canceling headphones. No music. Just silence. My version of a Do Not Disturb sign.

In the past couple of weeks, I came to a few disturbing realizations:

1. I’m more like my father than I’d ever care to admit.

Like him, I’m selfish. And like him, I’m a real asshole who can hold a grudge for decades.

As a young boy, I often felt neglected, so I became closer with my father, and like Daisy, I basked in his attention.

When he betrayed my mother, I was angry on her behalf, but even angrier that he sent me away when I’d done nothing wrong. So I turned my back on my father and refused to speak to him again.

Do I forgive him? Hell, no. But I don’t hate him as much as I used to.

2. Love is not what ultimately destroyed my mother.

She was sick and, like my father, I too had become frustrated when I couldn’t “fix” her.

My grandmother used to tell me that my mother’s love for me would be enough to “save” her. When that proved incorrect, I got it into my head that loving someone was a one-way street to heartbreak.

Why set yourself up for pain when you can just as easily avoid it by not falling in love?

3. Astrid is a heartless gold digger—that’s not news to me, I’ve always known that—but if I had to do it all over again and choose between getting my revenge and keeping Daisy, I would choose Daisy.

4. Revenge was never my endgame. Daisy was.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Daisy

I see him as soon as he walks into the gallery.

All the breath seizes in my lungs.

Tall and imposing, he seems to dwarf everyone around him. Shrink the space. Suck all the oxygen out of the room.

He’s greedy like that.

He looks like a modern-day Heathcliff in a long black peacoat.

There’s scruff on his jaw and his dark hair is longer. Thick and wavy, curling a little where it reaches the collar of his coat. Cheeks ruddy from the cold.

His arctic blue gaze scans the room and lands on me. F

or a few long moments, everything around me fades away and it’s just us in a long, narrow gallery with white walls and polished concrete floors.

He’s never looked more beautiful to me and I can feel my heart thrashing against my ribcage.

But if he thinks he can just waltz in here after everything he’s put me through and expect me to throw myself into his arms, he’s got another thing coming.

Anger trumps heartache so I grit my teeth and square my shoulders.

Turning my back to him, I weave my way through the throng of people studying my photos.

They might as well be looking straight into my soul and dissecting it, that’s how naked and exposed I feel.

I can feel the heat of his gaze burning right through me but I purposefully keep my eyes straight ahead and don’t even spare a glance over my shoulder.

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