Page 42 of Billionaire Retreat

“As you were saying,” Griffin prompted me, not letting me forget that I had yet to answer his question.

“I’ve been busy with life, too busy to date.”

“Care to elaborate?” he asked perceptively, knowing there was more.

I stared into his eyes, trying to read him. Trying to see if somehow he already knew or had guessed. But his eyes revealed nothing and I figured I was just being paranoid.

“These past years have been busy. I’ve been busy dealing with everything that life has thrown at me so I haven’t had much time for anything else,” I answered cryptically.

He nodded. “I understand that. I found myself in a similar situation.”

I inwardly sighed in relief, grateful that he was going to leave the subject alone and not pry. But nope, I was wrong.

“Tell me about your life there. What do you do? I can’t imagine there are a lot of opportunities for actresses in small town Georgia.”

“There aren’t but I keep myself busy. I’m a front-end developer.”

“You’re a computer geek?” he said, smiling proudly at me.

“Sure am. The entry level salary was exactly what I needed at the time and the economic outlook for the career is great.”

He laughed at me then. “You sound like a career counselor.”

“I had to make money. I have mouths to feed.”

“Mouths?” He looked at me curiously.

God, I wanted to kick myself. This is not how I planned to tell him about Sadie. Actually, I don’t know how I planned to tell him about Sadie and it was clear that I needed to.

“It’s just a Southern figure of speech.” I promptly changed the subject. “So, did your mom tell you everything that happened in your office that day?”

He sat back and sighed. He folded his hands in front of him. “She only admitted to having you escorted out. She said she thought you were a stalker, but she emphasized to me that she just felt sorry for you.”

“Stalker! Sorry for me! I was scared spitless! I thought she was going to have me arrested and she’s making the whole incident sound as if I were some sort of crazed gold digger.”

“My mother does have a way of spinning the truth.”

“Ha!” I laughed bitterly. “Tell me about it.”

“Let’s not talk about my mom. I didn’t bring you here for that. Let’s keep talking about you. I want to know more about your new career.”

“Not much to tell. I’m good at it. It pays well like I mentioned and I can work from home.” I stopped myself from continuing about how as a mom I needed that flexibility. “Anyway, it allows me flexibility which is what most millennials want, well according to all the stuff I read on career websites.”

“I guess your teacher was wrong, after all,” he said as he poured me a glass of wine.

I tilted my head in confusion.

He laughed. “I have a great memory,” he said with a shrug. “You said on the island that your programming teacher commented that you couldn’t apply yourself. Apparently, he or she was wrong.”

Knowing that he remembered that piece of information from a conversation we had years ago, made my heart soften towards him even more.

“Yeah, she was wrong. I guess I just needed the right motivation,” I said furtively and then immediately regretted my words. Sadie had been that motivation, but my emotions were too raw and the information I’d uncovered was too new for me to want to add a conversation about Sadie to an already emotionally charged evening.

“You didn’t give up on your dream to become an actress, did you?”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t ever really my dream, I realized that over the years. It was just something to do while I figured out what I wanted in life.”

“And did you figure out what that something was?” I didn’t like his tone. Something about it was unnerving. And I realized suddenly that all the anger I felt towards him had dissipated. And I started to feel things towards him that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in years. I still had a thing for my baby’s father.