Page 93 of The Billionaire Experience

Before he could respond, she gathered the length of her dress with both hands and rushed inside.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

She had no idea where she was going, but she couldn’t listen to Brody for another minute. He’d offered to give her a house?! It wasn’t the same as him paying her for sex, but this wasn’t far off the mark. The Pretty Woman transformation was complete.

For a hot second, she’d expected him to tell her that he’d decided to stay in Merriweather Springs. Or at the very least split his time between there and here. That he’d realized how well they complemented each other and, like her, was ready for more.

Instead, he’d left her questioning her own judgment. What they had was nothing more than great sex. God. She had been blind.

Skirt still bundled in her fists, she blew by Dante, Penelope, and Zach without acknowledging them. She had to get the hell out of here. And go where, she had no idea. She couldn’t continue pretending to fit in with this crowd while wearing a bought-for-her designer gown.

“Reagan.” Brody kept his voice down as he wound around the crowd.

“Leave me alone.” She sent that directive over her shoulder. All that they’d shared had been a mirage. A fantasy. She’d started believing it was reality. Nothing had changed for him.

“Reagan.”

Before they garnered the attention of the entire party, she stepped out of the ballroom. Brody caught her, which wasn’t hard to do since her feet were killing her in these stupid shoes.

“Can you let me explain?” He kept pace with her as she yanked on one locked door after the other in a long corridor. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.” She yanked on a third door and nearly fell on her face when it swung open. The empty boardroom was dark, save the glow of city lights through the windows.

“What the hell is going on?” He shut the door behind them. “I thought you’d be happy to have your house back.”

“Happy to hear that you were giving me the house I grew up in?”

He blinked, appearing genuinely confused. “Yeah. Don’t you want it?”

She put her hand to her forehead. “I do want it, just…not like this.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

His eyes held such earnestness that she had to question her own sanity. What was the problem? He was offering her what she needed most: a place of her own; and what she wanted most: her grandfather’s home.

But there was something missing. Something she would be missing. Brody. Meanwhile, he didn’t believe anything was missing. His life wasn’t mapped out. He wasn’t going from A to B to C. More like A to F and over to Y and then a quick jaunt back to J. He was going to go wherever the wind took him whenever the mood struck. For him, Merriweather Springs was a temporary dalliance. For her, it was where she’d built a life.

“I want a permanent home,” she said.

“I know.” He rubbed her arm, the gesture sweet but also sad. Because she knew another truth: he wasn’t looking for a permanent home. And the reason behind that was the most inconvenient truth: nothing had changed his trajectory.

Not even her.

She’d known better than to involve her heart. But the more time she’d spent with him at the house, the more at home she’d felt. That too was an illusion. She’d mistakenly allowed her heart to become entangled with her panties.

She could confess the truth to him now. Tell him that he’d won her heart and her loyalty. Ask what, if any, compromises he would be willing to make for her. Or…

Or.

She could choose herself. Reagan had always been able to trust herself when almost everyone else had let her down.

“I’ll buy it from you. The house.” It was the cleanest way to end things with him. For her, them being together hadn’t been transactional, so buying Ike’s house back would, in a way, balance the scales.

“Absolutely not.”

“I need to pay for it.”

“You don’t.” His tone was firm. Not a tone she’d often heard from him. “More importantly I won’t let you.”

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