Page 37 of Hired For the Billionaire's Secret Son

‘You can’t have it all, Ollie,’ he said, halting her progress off the deck.

He watched as she turned round and walked back to him, her back ramrod-straight and her eyes narrowed.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You can’t be a wife and a mother and a lover. Not with me, at least.’

He knew that his words would be a death blow, killing whatever they’d had. He also knew that Ollie would never stand for the ultimatum he was laying down, but wasn’t killing this quickly better than death by degrees? In the long run, wouldn’t this hurt less?

‘What are you trying to say, Bo?’ she asked, genuinely confused.

‘You’ve been imagining us being together, that we could commit to each other and raise Mat together,’ he said, pushing the words out. Man, this was more painful than he’d thought it would be. When she didn’t issue a denial, he sighed and pushed on. ‘If you stayed, you would have to choose between me and having a business, and we’d have to be your only priority.’

She looked at him for a long time before speaking again. ‘So, you are asking me to stay here with you as your lover? And nanny to Mat?’

Ollie blinked, waiting for him to say something else. He frowned, wondering what was going on in her sharp brain and behind her now cool eyes.

‘For interest’s sake, what do I get if I agree to that, Bo?’

Because he’d never imagined that this conversation would get this far, he had to think quickly. He shrugged and gestured to his house. ‘You’d get to live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, in one of the most exciting capitals on the planet and stay in spectacular houses. You and Mat would travel with me, five star all the way. I’d give you a generous allowance and...’

Her instruction to stop talking wasn’t loud but he heard it. He searched her face for what she was feeling but, for the first time, he couldn’t read her and knew he’d gone too far. She was a blank canvas, remote and impenetrable. ‘No.’

Right, well, there it was—finally. Although he’d expected her to refuse his offer, he still felt wildly disappointed.

She looked past his shoulder to the sea beyond him and he watched her shoulders rise and fall. When she looked back at him, he saw the disappointment in her eyes. ‘You made that offer knowing that I would never agree to it and it was beneath you.’

Maybe.

‘The sad thing is, you have no idea what I want and need from you—even less than my ex-fiancé, and that’s saying something. Or any man.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Your unquestionable support. I’d need you to hand me a set of wings and tell me to fly, to tell me that’ll you’ll catch me if I fall. I’d need you to love me enough to allow me to reach my full potential as a person.

‘I’m worth that, Bo. And, if you can’t see that, if you can’t give that to me, then it’s right that I walk away...just as you intended me to.’

Anger, pain and disappointment chased each other across her face and a cold hand squeezed his heart. He’d hurt her and he hadn’t wanted to do that. But he knew that, if someone tried to be everything, they ended up failing somewhere down the line and people got hurt.

Ollie tipped her head and narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Here’s a counter-offer for you: why don’t you stay at home full-time and look after Mat? You have lots of money and I doubt you’d need to work again if you didn’t have to. Why don’t you give up work and look after Mat full-time? Then I’ll run my business.’

Give up designing? Walk away from Sørenson Yachts? Was she mad? Before he could tell her how ludicrous her suggestion was, she lifted her eyebrows. ‘I can see the “no” all over your face. So, tell me, why is there a set of rules for you but they don’t apply to me? Why is your professional fulfilment so much more important than mine?’

Bo rubbed the back of his neck. Of course it wasn’t and he had no defence. So he dug his hole a little deeper when he spoke again. ‘I design yachts and you look after kids for a living—it’s not the same!’

‘Of course it is!’ Ollie whipped back. ‘That is such a weak argument, Sørenson!’

Ollie held up her hand. ‘Look, we’re going around in circles. I want it all, Bo, and you can’t give me that. You know it and I know it. So I am going to make this easy on both of us and walk away from you and Mat as you very obviously want me to do. I survived Becca’s death, and I’ll survive losing you and Mat too. It’ll hurt, but I will be okay.’

She pushed her curls off her face and tried to smile. ‘Was I an idiot for becoming attached to you? Sure. I knew that it would end like this. But I’d rather be an idiot who had two wonderful months with you than be careful and miss out. I’d rather be an idiot who’s prepared to take a chance on love and being hurt than living in the past and being too scared to step outside his comfort zone.’

Right, it was obvious he was the idiot.

Ollie looked down at the papers lying at their feet before allowing her eyes to connect with his. ‘Hire Helen, Bo. You won’t regret it, I promise you.’

‘Love.’

It was such a small word, just four letters, but it had the power to make or break a person’s spirit, to buoy them up or to make them plummet down into the depths of hell.

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