Page 64 of Worlds Collide

“That’s how my mother and father came up with this plan. They would have a son and convince Jerry to give the trust to them to keep safe until I was twenty-eight. They got pregnant, had me, and then named me Clemson Jerry Sounders all to get that blood money.” He takes a very deep breath and lets it out slowly before he keeps talking. “I found out when I was seven, I think, what that name meant. A nanny told me. Jerry died like six months after I was born, so I don’t have any memories of him that are my own.

“But the nanny told me about the war for oil, and about—” A ragged breath cuts him off. “Well, you can imagine the rest. So Iknew what my name meant, but I didn’t understand why my parents would give me that name. I asked them.” Another pause for a sigh and I can’t help but squeeze him tighter in my arms. “I asked them and that’s when they told me I only exist so they could have that house and go on those trips.”

“Assholes,” I can’t help but spit out. Who tells that to a seven-year-old? I mean doing it is one thing, but to actually tell him?

“They had never been loving parents. I’d always had nannies, and I barely talked to them anyway, but as I got older they wanted me to act like I was their son in front of other people. At certain dinners or events. When I turned sixteen, they took me to a meeting with the lawyer who handled the trust and I learned what I needed to do to take it away from them. They tried to take Adam away from me by shipping me off to some boarding school, but I managed to get them to let me stay by quitting the football team.

“All the years since, they’ve threatened not to pay for my education if I didn’t go to all the galas they told me to. I would’ve never been able to get a scholarship you see. Universities run the family’s bank accounts and they would’ve never given one to me. I did think I could get away with getting loans and just paying them off when I got the trust, but I didn’t want to give my parents even a hint that I was planning to give it all away.

“I did my best to act like I was happy to never see or talk to them and only be their pawn, so that they wouldn’t try to find a way to take the trust away. Until this February, when I told them they could go fuck themselves after they tried to make me go to a charity gala the same day of the Super Bowl. They spent the next six months trying to find a loophole in the trust but I’d made sure there wasn’t a way for them to get the money. I became a doctor just like the trust said I had to and I didn’t have any scandals.

“The fact that I’m bi certainly wasn’t public, and I have a greatreputation with all the damn socialites. I can’t tell you how many creepy old men tried to get me to marry their daughters or how many women wanted to take advantage of the docile Clemson heir.”

Rage boils hotter inside me with every word that comes out of his mouth.

How did I get this so wrong? Why would CJ ever give me the time of day, let alone sleep with me when I’ve been nothing but mean and rude to him since the second we met?

I can’t possibly speak. If I do, then I’ll have no control whatsoever over what comes out of my mouth—and I’d definitely make things worse then.

I accused him of being money hungry when he admitted to not coming out as bi before in order to get his trust fund. Then when the pictures of us came out I said he only did it to get his parents’ attention like he was a whiny, spoiled brat.

All the while, what he’s been trying to accomplish is to separate himself from his parents and help people. Help the world in the same way the Clemsons have historically made it worse.

I’m a worthless piece of shit.

Fuck,what is he doing with me? What’s his end goal here? There’s no way in hell any man or woman alive is good enough for him and I consider myself to be lower mid-level on a good day.

If I take into account the way I’ve treated CJ then I’m the lowest scum imaginable. As bad as his parents really. I’ve only been thinking about how he’s affected me and the way I’m inconvenienced by the way he makes me feel—that’s all I’ve cared about.

I stay stock still, with my arms still around him, until I’m sure he’s deep in sleep, and then I untangle myself from him and go downstairs.

I need to move, to get away for a bit, so I think to go out to the garden and look at the Italian night, enjoy the wind on my face orsome shit, honestly anything to get out of my head for at least a few minutes.

The pressure of ... everything is too much. I need to distract myself. I need?—

The cart full of booze.

I did fine by only taking a sip of champagne at my brother’s wedding, and if there’s ever a time to make myself a drink, it’s now. So I walk over, get a glass, pour three fingers of whiskey into it and go out to the patio table where we’ve eaten almost every meal at this place.

I stare out at the lake and the huge mountains, but unlike every other time I’ve stared at them, the smallness it brings only makes me feel panic. Not peace.

NINETEEN

CJ

I wakeup in complete darkness and I know immediately that Wolf isn’t with me in bed.

I’ve gotten so used to feeling him close by and hearing his breaths—and his snores—that the complete stillness around me is disturbing.

Where is he? I fell asleep in his arms?—

My parents’ visit comes flooding back like the worst nightmare ever. God, the way I unloaded all my “poor neglected rich boy” story on him is fucking mortifying. Did he run away again?

I’m going to be damn pissed if he did, although... Well, who would want to deal with this type of mess? Knowing where I come from and what type of people my parents are would for sure put some people off.

I don’t know if Icanblame Wolf.

With foolish hope tightening my chest, I slip on my house shoes and go looking for him. The kitchen is the first place I look and it’sempty, so is the sitting room, but the paneled door to the garden is open.

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