Page 60 of My Best Friend's Grump Brother

“Like something you have never told anyone before. Like a secret.”

I opened my eyes and looked down at her on my chest. “Trying to collect my secrets and blackmail me, Abrams?”

Her eyes shined with mischievousness. “Never know when I need to corner the billionaire king into a corner. Could come in handy when I need to win an argument.”

I tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear and kissed the top of her head. “Put your hair up like you did in that kitchen, and I’m a dead man.”

“Really?” She tilted her head to the side, trying to decipher if what I was saying was true. “That is what makes you weak? My hair up?”

I nodded, “What can I say? I’m a simple man.”

But it wasn’t just the hair that did it for me. It was when she also got that fuck me look in her eyes. Her violet eyes would darken just the slightest bit, and that twinkle in them would intensify. Then she would look into my eyes and then down to my lips and then back again.

She had me weak.

“So, is that your true thing? It’s whack if I’m honest. Give me something a little juicer.” She leaned her chin against my chest and looked up at me. “Did you smoke crack as a teen? Did you have to lay some girl off to leave you and your family alone? Do you have a secret love child somewhere?”

I tapped the side of her head softly “The things that go on in this little head of yours scare me sometimes.”

“Come on, tell me a truth.” She pushed, “I will tell you one if you tell me.”

My thumb skimmed the line of her jaw leading up to her cheek. She turned her face and kissed the inside of my palm. The gesture was so small, but it did things to my heart. She was riddled with danger, this one. She was all the things I should not want but yet she had all the things I desired.

“I’m jealous of you.”

Her eyebrows pulled together. “You’re jealous of me? Says the man who is worth what? Five billion dollars?”

It was actually eight, but who was counting?

“I'm jealous of the things that money can’t buy me. I'm jealous of the way you live your life. How free you can be and get to be. You get to be reckless and throw caution to the wind when I have to think about every consequence there is before I even attempt to step.”

She was silent, allowing me to speak.

“My father bred me to be the perfect heir to his empire. My future was decided long before I could even think for myself.”

“That must have been extremely hard for you.” She cupped the side of my face. Her touch eased the tightness that had managed to find its way around my neck.

“As bad as this sounds, I found comfort in the pressure of it all. I love to succeed, and I’m not a person who is just satisfied by the mediocre. I wanted to be the best in everything I did. I wanted to excel, and I wanted to be perfect—at least for that time.”

Perfection had always been the benchmark, but now…I don’t know. The lake house changed me. Something had shifted within me that day.

“I had to always remain in control. My family was falling apart at the seams; my sister was running wild, my mother and father were on the brink of divorce, and my dad was always sick. Too much was riding on me staying poised and at the ready. I had remained perfect, so nothing caught me off guard.”

“But that all came at a cost, didn’t it?” She continued, “Perfection is an illusion, Daniel. There is no such thing as perfection, and you can’t aim for a bar that doesn’t exist. You will run yourself ragged if you keep searching for it.”

I nodded my head, slowly pulling her up so she was straddling me. I placed my hands on her hips, my fingers finding the small gap between her shirt and her sweats.

“I know that now. And when I think back to when I was younger, I wish I had rebelled. I wished I had stepped out of line like my sister and made the mistakes. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a control freak right now.” I smiled without an ounce of humor due to the truth behind my words.

She grabbed the side of my face and drew her lips to mine in a tender kiss. When she pulled away, I felt my chest lift and the air return to my lungs. She was like a lifeline I didn’t know I needed.

“You carried a lot for a very long time in your life, and I am so sorry you had to deal with all of that. But that being said, take a look around, Daniel. Look at all that you have built and all that has come of your life. Your father was wrong for putting so much on you. You never deserved that. But now you need to stop living for perfection and striving for the impossible and just live. Make a few impulsive decisions, learn from the mistakes you don’t mean to make. Be a human being and start loving your life for you and only you. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded my head and pressed my lips to hers. When I pulled away, I could see that look of adoration in her eyes. Everyone always looked at me like I was a cash cow or they could get something out of me, but she looked at me like I had hung the stars in the sky specifically for her—and I would do that if I could.

“I think I can.”

“Good,” she interlaced her fingers behind my neck and pulled me in closer. “Because I would love to start you on your impulsive journey by taking you in my mouth on every surface in this massive, rich-people penthouse.”

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