Page 3 of A Constant Love

“Hey beautiful,” he said with a smile, walking over to give me a quick kiss. He took my face in his hands. “You have no idea how good it is to see your beautiful face. You won’t believe how awful my night has been.”

Oh, I might.

“What happened with your dad?’ I asked.

“Hold that thought,” he said before quickly jogging to the kitchen to grab a beer.

When he came back, I took a good look at him. His usually neatly styled dark hair was ruffled like he’d been running his fingers through it, a habit which he only had when he was stressed about something.

His usually bright blue eyes seemed more tired than normal and appeared to have dark circles forming under them.

Twisting the cap off his beer, he said, “Well, dinner with my dad didn’t actually happen.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“My mother took my dad’s phone and texted me, and when I got to the restaurant, there she sat.”

My eyes rolled so hard it hurt.

His mother. Maria Wendell. The woman who made it very clear from the start she didn’t like me. The woman who went out of her way to remind me that because I was poor, I was not a good match for her son. The woman who assumed from day one that I was a gold-digger.

The woman was a stone-cold bitch…not that I would say that to Tyler. I mean she was still his mother after all.

“So, what did she want?” The words came out a bit snarkier than I meant them to.

“In a nutshell, she told me that I either dump you, or she will take away my trust fund and my shares of the company.”

My jaw dropped open. Literally hung open like an overexaggerated scene in a cartoon.

“I’m sorry, what? Can she even do that?”

He nodded. “Right now, all of my shares in the company are probationary until I am done with school. The money I have now comes from those shares, but they aren’t set in stone yet. And I don’t get my trust fund until I graduate either.”

As if the pit in my stomach wasn’t already big enough, now it felt like a hot ball of fire burning straight through to my core.

“What did you tell her?” I stammered, barely able to get the words out and terrified of his answer.

I knew the plain little farm girl from Kansas wasn’t worth giving up a whole fortune for.

Tyler took my hands in his. “Hey, look at me.”

My head had been down, my eyes fixed on my hands in my lap.

“I told her she can fuck off. I’m not leaving you just to ensure I have money.”

Shaking my head, I said, “Ty, you can’t give up all that just for me. I don’t want to be responsible for you having to struggle, and I certainly don’t want to be responsible for the rift I cause between you and your family.”

He scooted closer to me. “Let’s get a couple things straight here. First of all, my family loves you. It’s just my mother who seems to have the issue, and I quite frankly don’t care if she likes it or not. If she wants to have me be part of her life, she needs to understand that you and I are a package deal.

“Second, I plan on making my own way in this world with or without my family’s money. If I have to struggle for awhile, oh well. Look at you and your family. You guys have struggled, and you’re by far, the best and most genuine people I have ever met.”

A pang of guilt hit me hard hearing him call me “genuine” when I was about to lie to him for who knew how long.

He interrupted my thoughts. “Sam, I love you, and I’m not giving you up just because my mom gives me an ultimatum. You are worth more to me than every cent in my bank account.”

The pad of his thumb grazed over my bottom lip as his hand cradled my face. Without waiting another moment, his lips replaced his thumb, softly taking my bottom lip with his.

I immediately opened to him, letting his tongue expertly explore my mouth. God, that tongue was good.

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