I smiled.
“I wanted the paycheck too.”
He laughed.
“Fair.”
Then he became serious.
“I love your children.”
My throat tightened.
“I love your brother, even when he threatens to throw me out windows.”
“He likes you.”
“He has an odd way of showing it.”
“That’s Ryan.”
Christopher took a breath.
“And I love you.”
Everything went quiet.
I looked at the man I had once feared.
The man whose necklace had reopened the deepest wound of my life.
The man who had carried my brother’s secret for seventeen years.
The man who had been broken physically, morally, emotionally—and had spent years trying to rebuild.
“I love you too,” I whispered.
He smiled.
Then his knee buckled.
I caught him.
“Romantic,” I said.
“Extremely.”
“Do billionaires usually fall over during declarations of love?”
