Page 101 of Mine to Love

She doesn’t hear me, or if she does, she must think I’m a stranger. We’re alone out on the beach, the air too cool for most to stop so close to the ocean. It isn’t until I’m a few feet from her that she looks up.

Those big, beautiful dark eyes are sad and red rimmed with tears. I’ve never seen her cry. Hungover, doubled over in pain from cramps, and exhausted from a night of sex, but never so sad. She blinks away her tears, not bothering to wipe them, then looks back out at the ocean. I lower myself a few feet from her. Not close enough to touch, because I don’t think she wants me to. Now that I have her here in front of me, I have no idea where to start. What to say. What to ask.

“Why?”

A guttural choke comes from her throat. “I should be asking you that.”

“Talk to me, Reese. Tell me where I screwed up and I’ll fix it.”

“That’s what you do, isn’t it?” She wipes her tears with her shoulder. “You use your money to fix things. Well, I’m not someone who can be fixed or bought.”

“You’re mad because I offered you a job? I don’t get it, Reese. What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” She snorts, wipes her nose along the back of her hand and turns to me with fire in her eyes. “I don’t need your pity, Logan Pierce. I don’t need your handouts. You’ve embarrassed, hurt, and insulted me.”

“By offering you a job?” Confusion worms its way into the forefront of my head.

“Out of the thousands of people who applied for a job at LP Financial, why me? Why hire the one with zero experience? I was a pity hire.”

“You were not a pity hire. Melinda and Doug chose you as well, hands down.”

“And how much of a say did you have in the matter?”

“They picked you out of the three and I agreed.”

“And how did I even make the top three?”

Realizing only one hundred percent of the truth will work, I come clean. “Yes. I arranged for you to be one of the final candidates, the rest was all you.”

“Why? I had a job. I loved my job.”

“You loved the job I took from you.”

“So why not give that one back to me?”

I study her sad, angry eyes. “Because you deserved better.”

“You don’t know me well enough to say that. And here I thought you were so set on not mixing business with pleasure.”

“Me getting you the interview had nothing to do with sleeping with you.”

“Oh, that I know.” She sneers and looks away from me, staring out at the ocean. “We fucked. I was a fun, dirty secret that you could keep on the side while keeping your pristine work appearance.”

I reach for her shoulder, and she yanks it away from him. “You don’t seriously think that.”

“Hell, Logan. We’ve never even been out on a date.” She leaps to her feet and leans over me, jabbing her finger in my chest. “I fit your pretty package of convenience.”

She’s right. I’ve never taken her out. It isn’t that I don’t want to be seen with her, it’s because our time together is always limited. I want to spend every free moment I can with my arms wrapped around her.

“You bought me. All I am is an expensive whore to you.”

“Reese—”

“Don’t.” She holds up her hand to stop me.

“I know what kind of money my clients are bringing into the company, and I know my salary. There’s no way you’re making a profit. Not with rent, supplies, and now Autumn. You’re losing money. But you come back to Maine every weekend and get laid, so it’s worth it.”

“That’s not how it is.”

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