“I’m not new to this bullshit,” he says matter-of-factly. “Of that family. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have told you any of this. I would have handled it myself, and you wouldn’t be any the wiser. However…I’m not Bobby. I’m not going to give you a reason to put me in the same sentence with Bobby. What I will say, though, Daydream…is I have it handled. I’m not going to die. I’m just going to destroy. Giordano didn’t take the hit on me because he won’t gamble with his town, because he’s already done his research on me. I’m a billionaire. Buying his businesses and the blocks he operates out of is chump change to me. There’s power in numbers, and mine has a lot of zeros behind it.
“If I were worried about being killed, I wouldn’t have come here, where my mother resides, to eat bougatsa and bring your parents here. Bringyouhere. Bobby is desperate; he’ll remain that way because he can’t get out of his shit. My so-called family has a home in London, which was my grandmother’s. He’ll go there.”
I’m not Bobby.
I’m a billionaire.
Power in numbers with zeros.
“You’re a billionaire?”
His lips coil slightly because I can’t help but lighten the mood, because it’s thick, tense, and so unlike what it was when I was in the dining room moments ago. “I am. So are you.”
I shake my head. “I’m not?—”
“You didn’t sign a prenup with me.”
“I would never?—”
“Stay married to me or take it?”
There’s that loaded question again.
And I know I need to jump. That I’ve left him on this cliff of jumping or leaving him behind.
It’s not fair to him, even though he put me here in the first place. If he really does have power in numbers with a bunch of dollar signs, he hasn’t shifted his weight onto me, so I felt the heaviness of it.
It’s my decision.
And even if I say I want a divorce, he still wants to support me. Despite giving up his marital rights on what’s moral or not.
“What do I get if I do?”
I know what he said before, but I want the little things. Not what he’s built for himself and what he could financially offer me.
“Christmases in Prague,” he mutters softly. “Late night dinners with me. Flowers because I love you. Me.”
All highly intriguing and exactly what I’d want.
Because he loves me.
How insane does that sound? That he fell in love with me from afar? How lonely that must’ve felt when I didn’t know anything about him or what was going on in the background.
“And in return?” I force from my lips, feeling equally giddy and nervous at the same time.
“You,” he deadpans. “That’s all, Daydream.”
My heart swells like a Swiftie to a Taylor Swift song. It’s all feels
I bob my head. “Your mother is waiting for me.”
“She can wait another few seconds.”
I’m sure she can and won’t mind since her son isn’t at the table and I’m in here with him.
However,mymother might come looking, and the last thing I want her to do is find us making out or his hand in places it shouldn’t be.
“You need an answer right this second?”
