Page 69 of Come Here and Kiss Me

If I could go back, before I ended it, I would ask her if even a sliver of it was real for her.

I know it had to be.

It was for me.

I acted out of fear even though I knew what I was doing wasn’t right.

With that in mind, I look at the email I drafted while I waited for my lawyers to get on the call.

I almost don’t do it because I know my head is spinning. I almost resist, but I can’t.

It’s the right thing to do.

I read over the email one more time, and I send it to an advocate, my friend Mr. Michaels.

Along with my resignation and apology.

I tell him everything and attach the zip drive. I don’t give a fuck about the board or my job or my reputation. I have so much fucking money they could fire me and destroy my name, and it won’t make a lick of difference in my life or my finances. I don’t care about anything other than Brook.

When she finds out my father leaked the video first to destroy me and hers did it second to destroy her, I know it’ll wreck her.My poor Brook. She’s not as heartless as I am.

The moment my father mentioned the emails with the contract, I knew something was off. It wasn’t an accident that he received a random email with the contract Brook never even signed. He had me followed and had been searching for something to get on me. Just to control me and get me back in line.

He never could have known Brook would be there. She was a bystander in my father’s game. I told the PI to look into my father’s emails, and first they found the emails to the man he hired to stalk Brooklyn, and then the threads came undone. The calls between my father and her father. The timing was just too perfect.

All for what? Money and greed?

I just wish she’d answer me.

I wish she’d let me be there for her.

I email her again out of pure, utter desperation. She needs to know what happened. I’m hoping the ten million will at least earn me a message. Anything at all. She needs the money, and realistically, it’s what I stole from her father. So in some ways, it rights a wrong. But I’m hoping she will message even to just tell me to fuck off and leave her alone. I will take anything. Even if it’s a slap in the face. Hell, I deserve it.

She’s never deserved any of this.

Ronan:I’m sorry I couldn’t stop any of this or fix any of it, but I need you to know I am sorry… I love you, Brook. Please let me make this right and love you the way I should have from the start.

I’ve saidI love you to her before in front of people. This is the first time I’m saying it on my own.

And I fucking hate it’s through an email and not face-to-face like I want to or like how she deserves. This time, the email bounces, and for the first time in years, I fucking lose it. Tears stream down my face while I shove my weight into the computer and knock it off the desk, screaming out in agony.

My chest heaves as I wreck my office, throwing everything I can and hating my life.

Hating who I am and what I’ve done.

And not knowing where to go from here.

CHAPTER27

Brooklyn

Day number four of going to class even though the dean supposedly expelled me. Fuck him. If I want to go, I’m going. There was no other formal email, and I don’t know if Ro could do anything at all. But security hasn’t escorted me out, so I assume it may have just been my father being an absolute piece of shit.Attempting to twist the knife and take away the one place I have to escape the real world and live in the stars for a moment.

As the professor for calculus drones on about an open notes test, I glance down at my emails. Several are from a lawyer I recognize the name of, I think my father’s. I don’t open them. Maybe I’ll be served in class with some bullshit.They do that. My father especially. Filing lawsuits just to fuck someone over. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t had security come and escort me out yet. He wants to make a splash with his next move.

Funnily enough, I just don’t care.

The bell rings before I’m ready to leave. And I know what’s next.Walking by his class. Having to rush so I don’t see him. Feeling his presence and knowing I can’t be close to him.

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