Page 613 of Summer Heat
He looks…livid. “Where is she now?” he asks tightly.
Damn it, I know I should’ve told him all this sooner. With him being a billionaire, I know as well as he does that every detail of his personal life, and the personal lives of those he chooses to associate with, doesn’t just become hot gossip, it sometimes becomes news.
He backs up a step from me, and I feel my heart start to break. But I give him the answer he absolutely deserves. “When she got out of jail shortly after, she didn’t even bother to try and regain custody of me, not that Granddad would’ve given it to her if she’d tried. He told me that she simply took off without a word and ended up in Reno. Found a rich guy to shack up with. So in a way, her getting arrested got her everything she’d been wanting—no daughter annoying her every day, and a successful man taking care of her so she never had to work.”
“Do you still talk to her?”
“She started calling me after Granddad died since the lawyers had contacted her about his estate. He was a good man; despite everything, he made sure to put some money aside for her in a trust that I currently manage. It wasn’t much, so she didn’t go overboard on trying to talk to me, but there was enough to make her interested in getting in touch. After all the legal paperwork for the money—mine and hers—was done though, her calls stopped, and I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Good. Lose her number.” The throbbing anger in his voice is deceptively quiet, almost unde
tectable, but I hear it.
I shoot my gaze back up to meet his.
“We can have my lawyers handle her trust from now on so you don’t ever have to speak to the woman again.” He’s flexing his hands as if he’s picturing wringing her neck. “Fuck, if I had the power to, I’d get her thrown back in jail for the rest of her life for hurting you like that.” He comes back over to me and grips my shoulders tightly. “I promise, I’ll make sure she never steps foot in your life again. Hell, I’ll get my lawyers to make it illegal for her to even come within a hundred miles of your life again.”
I feel the tears running down my cheeks, but I can’t fully explain why exactly I’m crying. It just feels like a whole mess of emotions are pouring out of my eyes like a deluge of damage, a flood of hurt, anger, and a thousand other feelings I’ve spent most of my life bottling up and ignoring.
I’m also crying out of relief, I realize. “S-so, this isn’t over?” I ask, hoping beyond hope. “With you and me, I mean.”
A genuinely pissed off frown slashes across his features. “Why the hell would this change anything between us?”
“Because. You’re a billionaire. We both know that gossip is more popular than actual facts about rich and famous folks. You won’t just be Jason Steele, young billionaire and philanthropist anymore. You’ll be Jason Steele, dating the daughter of a convicted hooker.”
“I don’t give one shit about gossip.”
“You may not, but your investors and board might.”
“As far as my board goes, I make a point not to hire folks who are idiots, so I don’t think I need to worry there. And as far as investors, if they have a problem with you, I just won’t work with them.” Simple as that, his tone seems to say.
“Jason, I can’t ask you to take that sort of risk.”
“It’s not a risk,” he says tersely. “You’re right, this may become gossip. And a few folks I do business with may care because image means more to some than others. But if you ask me, if the worst gossip about me is that I’m dating a smart, talented, successful woman who overcame a terrible childhood then really, I’m pretty much winning at life.”
Lordy, this man.
“Summer, I don’t care about your past. All I care about is you, and how good we are together. I don’t know why other men think you’re weird. But to be perfectly honest, I’m fucking ecstatic that they do, because it kept some other guy from laying claim on you before I could.” He tugs me into his arms. “You’re an incredible woman, Summer. Yes, you’re neurotic, but I find it adorable. And yes, you have a fucked-up mom, but I think the fact that you do just shows how resilient you are and how hard you’ve worked for everything you’ve achieved.”
His lips come crashing down onto mine. And he then proceeds to kiss me until I have very little oxygen left in my lungs.
“Don’t talk about things changing between us anymore because it’s seriously going to make me lose my shit. You and I are good. Solid. Fucking perfect. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, my heart just about bursting out of my chest.
“Now, I know we have brunch plans, but we’re going to have to make it lunch plans because I need to make you fucking come on my cock a few times to work all this out of my system. Sound okay to you?”
Sounds perfect.
22
| SUMMER |
MONDAY
(Time: 7:06 a.m.)
Jason and I have a meeting with the architect in ten minutes, but thanks to a big accident on the highway, seems like every worker on site is running late and clogging up the main roads up here.
