Page 57 of Mr. Blackwood

She shrugged. “In the beginning, it was lonely and a difficult adjustment, especially my first year away. I wanted my family, and I missed my sister badly. Before I was sent away to boarding school, our parents were often away traveling, and we spent more time with our grandparents and the nanny than we did with them. Being away from them wasn’t the most difficult part, but not being in my own home, in my bedroom, or a familiar environment was the difficult part, made worse by not having Courtney with me.

“I cried so much that first year that my grades suffered. In time, I adjusted, but it wasn’t until that second year when Courtney arrived. We had each other, and it made it easier. She struggled, too, but not as much as I had that first year. It was easier for her because she had me, but she still had to get used to a new environment and make new friends. That part wasn’t as hard for her as it was for me, because she’s a social butterfly naturally.”

“Why did your parents send you away?”

“They were always traveling, and they wanted us to have a better education than the local private schools could afford us. They also felt that we were growing wild without constant supervision, and they didn’t believe our nanny or grandparents were giving us the structure that we needed. They thought we would fare better at boarding school.”

I fed her a French macaron, and she rested her head against my shoulder. We were sitting on a blanket on the beach, and I ran my finger down her arm. The wind whipped around us, blowing her hair in her face and mine. She pulled it back and tucked it behind her ears.

“Do you think you all did better at that school than if you’d stayed where you were?”

“We definitely got a better education and more discipline, but we were very angry and bitter about it—not toward life, but toward our parents. In the long run, I think we’ve done better, but it could have made it easier if they had worked with us more.”

“Yeah, I can never see sending my kids away to a school or anywhere else. I wouldn’t want anyone else to raise my kids.”

She looked up at me in surprise with a curious smile. “I’ve never heard you mention wanting kids before.”

“I’ve never had anyone I wanted to have them with before.”

“You never told me about what happened with the girl you were dating when you were in the streets.”

I chuckled and sighed. “She was enamored with the street life. She was what you’d call ghetto fabulous or hood-tastic, and as much as she loved me, she loved the attention that I brought to her by being in the streets more. When I needed time to shut down and deal with my grief, she was constantly hounding me about making sure people didn’t forget my name or the power I held. She wanted me to be out there still exerting authority and power before someone else came along and took it from me. I broke it off with her. If she couldn’t respect that I wanted to do something else and that I needed to grieve, then she didn’t love me as much as I’d thought.”

“Was it hard for you?”

“Not really. Leaving Shenobi behind made it easier for me to grind those next three years.”

“And you only had one other relationship?”

I nodded. “Jessica wanted what I wasn’t ready to give—commitment, marriage, and kids. I was a focused, aggressive thirty-three-year-old who was building his empire when we met. I was still angry and restless. I wanted to settle down with a woman, but I didn’t want a family structure, and I damn sure didn’t want kids.”

“As a wealthy, forty-two-year-old established billionaire, you’re different?”

“I’m different,” I reassured her. “I’ve found the healing that I need, although that was questionable when you and my dad opened old wounds. If that hadn’t happened, though, I’m not sure that I would have been certain of my healing. Your actions and his tested me in ways that I hadn’t expected to be tested.”

“Will you visit him?”

“I have visited him a couple of times. It’ll be a while before he makes a complete change, but he’s putting the work in. He’s remorseful.”

“Is he ready to leave?”

“No. He said that he was good with staying longer because he’s got some work to do.”

“I’m glad that he recognizes that. My family and I have a way to go, but my parents are definitely putting in the work to own where they dropped the ball with Court and me. We’ve agreed to have weekly dinners on Sundays at Court’s place.”

“How about your ex? Any regrets there?”

“None. We weren’t ready to be married. Nick and I were more in lust than anything else. We grew apart too quickly, and we married after only knowing each other three months.”

“You don’t think you can know if a person is right for you in three months?”

“Some people can, but I don’t think we gave each other that chance. It was always about sex, and I was in love with the idea of being in love. We grew bored of each other quickly and started spending more time with our friends than with each other. We immersed ourselves in our careers, and we stopped making each other a priority. We looked up one day, and I asked him what we were doing. He said, ‘I don’t know,’ and at that point, I said we should get a divorce. He looked so relieved and readily agreed, and that was that.”

“Until he showed up, and you learned that you weren’t divorced.”

“Exactly.”

“Any regrets?”