Page 75 of Billionaire Ever After

“Of course I need you.” I don’t want him thinking that. I know firsthand what it’s like not to be needed. A certain brunette keeps reminding me of it.

“No. You don’t. Benji and Nate, they seek my counsel often. I’m honored to teach them. But you want to do everything on your own. Like me.” He chuckles. “I’m surprised you let Talia as close as you did. You’ve never dated anyone like her before. Someone worthy of you. Someone you can have a future with.”

Worthy of me. I remember Nate’s similar assessment about my past girlfriends and how they weren’t good enough for me.

“Is she going to be around?” Dad waves a hand. “To help you build some more of these?”

“I don’t know yet.” I shake my head, the weight of the last several days pulling my shoulders.

He hums low in his throat. “If I were you, I’d work on convincing her.”

“Beyond naming the spa after her, you mean.”

“Well”—he laughs, the twinkle in his eye suggesting he might have done his fair share of crazy things to win over Mom—“that’s a good start, son. That’s a good start.”

Talia

Cris finds me in a corner away from the crowd and hands me a glass of champagne. Her gray eyes are wide with a deep sort of understanding I don’t expect. Shouldn’t she be grinning from ear to ear and congratulating me like everyone else has?

“So, Archer really, really likes you.” Her eyebrows bend gently, then she takes me by the arm. She’s strong for being so little. She leads me past the lobby, down an alcove, and straight to the meditation room. Then she shuts us in and slides the dimmer switch to lighten the darkened room.

“This is a better place for you to collect yourself.” She’s genuinely interested when she asks, “How ya doin’?”

And because it’s Cris, as I know how sweet she is, and I desperately need someone to talk to, I tell her the truth.

“I’m kinda freaking out,” I say through a laugh.

“You didn’t know about the name of the spa, did you?”

“No. And there was zero percent chance in my mind Archer would do something like name it after me.” I let out a stuttering laugh and rub my forehead with my fingers. “I am definitely freaking out.”

Cris pulls a meditation pillow out of the corner and drops it in the center of the room, pointing at me to sit. She’s the picture of Zen with her curly blond hair encircling her head like a halo. Obediently, I sit, my knees together, feet splayed to the sides awkwardly thanks to my dress and high heels.

“Remember our girls’ night out at Vivian’s house? How Viv and I joked that we thought we wanted an alpha guy until they became too alpha and bossy and possessive. Then we’re like”—she holds up a palm—“refund, please.”

I smile. I remember.

“The very thing you like about Archer is also what’s driving you crazy.” She smiles gently. “He’s coming for you, Talia, and I’m fairly certain you don’t want to be chased.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to.” I frown. The truth is complicated. “I just have to go home. He knows that. Instead of respecting my decision, he’s trying to talk me into being here with him. He made me like him too much.”

“That jerk,” she gasps, her sarcasm evident. She pulls up another meditation pillow and sits in front of me. “What if he’s trying to show you the version of the future he sees in his head? And, for the record, Archer isn’t all that likable.” A pleat dents her forehead and I have to laugh, remembering her and Vivian’s warning to me at the fundraiser last year. “If he’s likable to you, you must like him.”

“I used to have a very simple goal. I wanted to move up the corporate ladder and have a job I love. Now, look what I’ve done. Uprooted my life to start a business—I barely know what I’m doing, by the way. I left Papa and Lis alone in Florida. I’m overwhelmed. Out of my element. I’ve never had a relationship last longer than two and a half minutes, so what gives me the right to think Archer and I might make it?” I blow out a breath after my mini tirade. I had no idea that was in there.

“There’s no reason to think that you might,” chipper Cris answers. Her smile paired with harsh news is confusing. “None of us really know. Vivian and Nate had their own brush with doubt. Benji and I flat-out broke up.”

“You did?” I had no idea.

“Uh-huh. I was miserable and crying and my brothers threatened to beat him up in my honor.”

“That’s sort of sweet.”

“It sort of was.” Her smile falls. “You have a right to leave.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do about a spa being named after me?” I lift my hands and drop them uselessly, which is similar to how I’m feeling in the moment.

“How about nothing?” She shrugs, like it’s just that easy. “Your time is up soon. You’re going home. Unpack your bags. Settle in. Make a decision about your future you can live with, and without pressure from Archer. You can’t make the wrong decision. There’s no wrong decision to make. Everything just is. So let it be.”

She emulates the Buddha statue behind her, touching her middle fingers to her thumbs and closing her eyes.

“Just be,” I say, feeling weirdly better about everything.

She opens her eyes and takes my hands in hers. Squeezing my fingers, she says, “Sometimes we mess everything up by trying to fix it. It doesn’t sound like you have anything to fix.”

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