Page 43 of Hush Money

“Oh.” My heart sinks. So he wants to take it back. That’s the only conclusion I can come to. It’s hard to miss his utter seriousness and the deepening frown lines grooving down his forehead. “Is that why you look so sad about it?”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and glances away, grimacing as his attention drops to his shoes. “You’d be sad about it too if you had my track record.”

I nod because he’s not wrong. Then I stand there for a beat or two, grappling with my desire for it to be true and my bigger desire to not get hurt and to emerge from this whole situation unscathed. The prospect of coming out the other end with some sort of a happily ever after with Lucien is a greater dream than my poor little brain can imagine. But my heart still wants it.

“It’s really soon for you to be saying something like that, Lucien,” I say quietly. “I feel like I should point that out.”

He raises his head, unsmiling. “Indeed.”

“I can pretend I didn’t hear it.” I should give him a graceful way off the playing field. That makes the most sense. If loving me makes him look that miserable, I’m not sure I want it, schoolgirl Cinderella fantasies or not. “You can take it back.”

He gives me an skeptical look that’s somewhere between vague amusement and outright horror. “I can’t take it back,” he says with a sweeping gesture that encompasses this whole big thing we do to each other. “It’s already there. In the middle of me. It’s like the elephant in the room is sitting on my chest. How can I take that back? Why would you want me to?”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Then why ask?”

I shake my head and glance away. There’s way too much intensity in the air right now, and I don’t know where to look. I also don’t know what to think. Worst of all, I don’t know how to believe him. No matter how desperately I want to.

“Tamsyn. Say something.”

The raw huskiness in his tone really does a number on me. I turn back and meet his turbulent gaze head-on, determined to get some answers here. To understand. Because if there’s a chance—hell, I’ll even take half a chance in a million—that we can build something real and lasting here, you’d better believe I’m going to take it and run with it. But only after he knows the truth about me. And the truth is that I know I’m sorta pretty, pretty smart and sorta fun. But that’s it. Oh, sure, I’m a nice person with a good heart, but the kind of woman who inspires premature and fervent declarations of love from a billionaire? Big fat no on that one. Lucien is my first and only lover. His is the first and only heart I’ve ever truly earned. There’s no way I’ve landed him on my first time at bat. That would be like the local little league team subbing in for the Yankees and striking out the Cardinals to win the World Series in game seven.

Things just don’t happen like that. People don’t get that lucky.

“You’re killing me,” he says when my silence goes on for way too long.

“You’re so smart. You’re the smartest man I know,” I say helplessly.

“And…?”

“And you’re also the sexiest man I know. The most fascinating. The richest.”

A strangled sound of impatience from him. “So…?”

“You could have anyone. Anyone.” God, my face feels like it’s on fire at this point. I plow ahead, determined to talk some sense into him. “You want me now because I’m fresh and new. But how long before you look around and notice that I’m not that special or interesting? I keep waiting for you to realize it.”

There. I said it. It’s not much of a speech, but it was hard for me to verbalize, and it really zeroed in on my worst insecurities. The things I’d never want anyone to know, especially him. So I’m totally unprepared for his reaction.

He tips his head back and laughs. Laughs. As though he’s at a Kevin Hart concert. Leaving me to fume and glare impotently, my palms itching to smack his arm and shut him up.

“That. That right there is why you make it impossible for me not to love you.” His amusement fades, leaving only steady intensity with maybe a dollop of wonder thrown in. “You show up in this quiet package and try to melt into the background because you’re humble. But what you don’t get is that you’ve got this smile and those eyes and you’re you.”

“What?” I hate to sound like an idiot, but he’s acting as though I belong in the category of priceless works of art along with the Mona Lisa. “What are you saying?”

“Do you not realize what I was like before you walked into my life? I was a walking void, Tamsyn. I never smiled. I never had fun. It took you to remind me how.”

“Lucien…”

“It’s like you see the parts of me that need you.” Rueful laugh. “Especially when I don’t want you to. You show up with sunshine when I need sunshine. You challenge me. You get me to see things with fresh eyes. No one’s kinder or sweeter than you are. More principled than you are. Stronger than you are. It’s like you’ve got a titanium-infused spine. Do you think anyone else could care for their dying father and settle his estate while finishing up nursing school, passing her boards and landing a full-time job? Do you not get how fucking amazing you are?”

His fervency astonishes me. So does the catalog of my achievements. This is me? Really? Don’t get me wrong. It’s not false modesty that makes me ask. It’s just that I’ve been so busy down in the trenches doing what had to be done because I was the only one available to do it, and the only one that I could count on, that I never took a moment to realize that maybe I was kicking a little ass along the way.

“And then you throw in these delicious extras,” he continues. “Like being the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And being into cars. And believing me tonight. Even though I know how it looks.” His voice breaks at the end, forcing him to pause for a deep breath. “Do you have any idea what that means to me?”

God, he makes my heart ache. “No,” I say, feeling a little teary now.

“What do you want? For me to wait six more months before I tell you that I already know I’m crazy in love with you? I wish I could, but sorry. Can’t.”

---