His eyes meet mine and the gold glows in them. “You’re Sinclair,” he breathes out, saying it like it has meaning, like I should understand.
“But who is that?” I whisper, emotion clogging my throat. The last couple of years I’m not sure I even know. Some days I could swear I’ve almost faded into nonexistence. Everything has felt so… numb.
He slides his hand around my neck, the pads of his thumbs pressing gently over the racing pulse in my neck. “Someone beautiful.”
I roll my eyes. “Cameras are all about light and how it hits your face. I have a face that photographs well, that’s all. I’m plainer in person, I’ve been told that more than once.”
“By who? Idiots?” Denver grumbles. “It’s not the camera that makes you beautiful. It’s the light in your eyes, the one in your smile.”
I give him a half smile. “You’re sweet.”
“I’m accurate,” he huffs. “But I didn’t mean on the outside. I meant the way that you look after others when you’re hurting. It takes someone special to do that.”
“I don’t.”
He fixes me with a warning look that tells me not to argue.
“It’s easy to be happy for others when you’re happy yourself. But to be happy for them on your darkest days… that takes something special. And you have that, Sinclair. Youarethat. You hired your father a dating coach to find him love because you knew he needed it. You’re angry at your brother for having a suite at The Lanceford because you want him to find someone too. You convinced Zoey to meet Ashton and now they’re getting married. You don’t see it, but I do.”
“But you called me a spoiled princess when we got smoothies.” I pout, loving the tenderness that’s crept into his eyes as he gazes at me.
“I called you a princess. Not spoiled. You added that yourself.”
I open my mouth to argue, then close it again. He’s right. He’s never once called me spoiled or treated me like he thinks I am. Not like a lot of people I meet do. I know what they must be thinking, supermodel with a billionaire father, heiress to one of the largest family-owned diamond businesses in the world.
To the outside world, I have it all.
To Denver, I’m Sinclair. And that’s all I need to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Tell me something about you.”
“Me?” He arches one perfect, thick brow.
“Anything. Something I don’t know.”
His eyes pinch like he’s considering how much to share with me.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was five. My grandparents took me in and raised me.”
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I had… I had no idea.” My heart clenches painfully. How can I have spent so many years with Denver in the periphery of my life and know so little about who he really is?
“My grandparents were great. You don’t need to get upset for me. I was loved.”
The deep sigh that accompanies his words has my breath stalling.
“Theyweregreat?”
“They’re both gone now too. I lost them both when I was eighteen.”
I swallow down the yelp that bursts from my lips. “I’m so sorry.”
He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs like he’s trying to ease my pain. Like I’m the one who deserves to be comforted.
“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
“That’s the thing,” I whisper, holding his eyes. “Idoworry about you. I’m starting to worry a whole lot.”
His eyes soften. “I told you, worrying is my job. Now, are you going to come and wash my back for me like you promised?”
