Page 56 of Ella Gets the D
“So why aren’t you two together?” A decade and a half apart is wild.
He tilts his head from side to side to weigh his response and takes another sip. “I’m all in, but she has reservations.” His eyes meet mine with a sad smile. “A billionaire partner is good on paper until you start second-guessing if you’re enough.”
“Is she?”
“She’s worth more than everything I have, including my life.”
“How long will you wait for her to come around?”
He shrugs. “However long it takes. I lost her once, and I’m not losing her again. We’re friends now, but she’s it for me. She’s my wife.”
Wife.
I catch the thought and hurl it back where it came from.
It’s not that I’m against marriage. My parents have a good one by society’s standards, no matter how much it might come off as a situation of convenience. Loving one person for the rest of my life isn’t the issue. The expense of my freedom is. I already sacrificed my independence maintaining the Brooke banner in a legacy job that cost me my sense of self. Expectations come with being Langston Brooke’s son, and choosing a life partner based on my desires isn’t one of them.
My fingers itch to grab my cell off the bar. “You should call her,” Preston says.
I shake my head. “It’s getting late back home.”
“Who is she?”
Where the hell do I start?
Preston hits me with a glare that says,Spare me the bullshit. I peer into my glass for the right words. “She’s my sister’s best friend. Duke and her son go to school together. She also has a daughter in preschool.”
“A single mom with two kids. Didn’t see that coming.”
I laugh at that. “Neither did I.”
“Did you two meet at their school?”
“We actually woke up in my townhouse together. Morgan said she could stay there until the end of the year.”
His mouth plunges open, and his eyes bulge. At least Preston has the decency to scoot closer and not shout my business across the West End. Morgan should take note.
“Let me get this straight. You like a woman going through a divorce with two kids who now lives with you? What else?”
“She’s eight years older.”
He brushes off our age gap with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been with older women. Men do that shit all the time, and no one bats an eye.”
“Exactly.”
Ella’s age isn’t an issue for me. I assumedminewould be a problem for her. Maybe it is, but she hasn’t brought it up, which is a good sign.
“If you like her, why are you back in London?”
“We—I…it wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?”
My stare stalls. “She’s still married. A cannonball from one relationship into another is a bad idea. El has kids; she doesn’t need a distraction to add to her plate.”
“Sounds like you got it figured out for her.” He laughs at my middle finger pressed to my glass. “So then who are you fucking?”
The burn from snorting my drink singes my nostrils. “What?”
