Page 100 of The Billionaire Experience

“The hell we are.” She thrust her cell phone into Reagan’s hand. “I don’t know where the recording went but read that text thread. I’ll be right back.” She rushed from the cabin, this time in the pilot’s direction.

Reagan scrolled through texts from Dante to Jaylyn.

The first one read: Is Reagan regretting leaving?

Followed by: Idk. Is Brody regretting letting her?

Then from Dante: He’s miserable. Misses her. You can smell it on him.

Idiot.

That’s what I said! :) Keaton’s here. She’s giving him hell.

Good.

Reagan was unsure what to make of the back and forth. Then she scrolled down, and her stomach dropped to her toes. A text from Jaylyn read: SHE LOVES HIM!!!

She scanned for evidence that Dante had told Brody. But the texts from Dante were ambiguous.

Jaylyn’s final text read: We don’t have a pilot. Still on the tarmac.

Reagan went to the curtain separating the cabin from the front of the plane. “Jaylyn?” She was still thumbing through the text conversation to see if she missed anything. “I read them. Please tell me Brody doesn’t know.”

The curtain twitched, but it wasn’t Jaylyn who emerged.

“Brody. Hi.” Reagan swallowed visibly and took a step away from him as he entered the cabin. She offered a shaky smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I came as soon as I heard you were grounded.” Until Dante shared that the flight had been delayed, Brody had assumed Jaylyn and Reagan were halfway home. Finding out otherwise had propelled him here on wings. Now that he was here, he had some explaining to do. “We have to talk.”

She took a step away from him. “Oh.”

“I won’t sell you the house. I can’t. I’m not giving it to you either. I’m keeping it.”

A worry line was carved into her brow.

“I need it. For when…I come to visit. Even if I’m not there full time, uh…” None of this was coming out right.

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I know. I’m not making any goddamn sense.” He pushed a hand through his hair in frustration. “Listen, you know I bought a house once before. I don’t count it because being there with Lindy made me feel like I was suffocating. So, I gave it to her and ran. I never looked back.”

Reagan’s face lost some of its color. “Which is what you were trying to do with me.”

“No! Not at all.”

“Brody!” Jaylyn materialized, her eyebrows a pair of angry slants. “You’re fucking everything up. Just tell her what you told Dante! And what Dante told me via voice memo before it was lost forever to the gods.”

“I apologize for my sister. She has a way of showing up at the most inopportune times.”

“And you have a way of shoving your head so far up your ass that you believe it’s nighttime.” Jaylyn glared at him before poking him in the arm. “I’ll give you one minute. Do better.”

Once she’d gone, he turned to Reagan. “Have you heard of the phrase self-defining moment?”

“Yes.”

“Moving in with Lindy was one of them. I let that moment define my decisions for the future. No more settling down for me. Ever. And then I bought your house and moved you into it. A situation that should have scared me to death.”

Her gaze stayed on him.

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