Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“That’s unlikely to happen.”
“Are you and Gideon sleeping together again?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell is going on here?”
“I’m not looking at it too closely.” And she really wasn’t. She was afraid of what she’d find if she examined her feelings about—for?—Gideon too closely. Right now she could look at it as a playful flirtation of sorts. And perhaps, a burgeoning mutual respect.
He had called her a cocktease earlier, confirming that he definitely had been witness to the raunchy performances—and she couldn’t quite suppress her smile at the knowledge.
“We understand each other.”
“You do? And what does that entail?”
Beth considered her friend’s question for a while and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Less fighting maybe? He asked me to go to his sister’s engagement party with him.”
Cat stared. “You do know about his background, right?”
“If you’re asking if I know that his family is wealthy, then yes…he told me about it.”
Cat snorted. “Wealthy? That’s like saying the Mona Lisa is just a painting. Gideon and his siblings are worth hundreds of millions of pounds, thanks to just their grandparents’ estate. Their mother left them more modest sums but we’re still looking at tens of millions.”
Beth gaped. Hundreds of millions of pounds? She couldn’t quite wrap her head around that information. No wonder they’d checked out the fiancé’s background.
Her eyes drifted to the shirtless man laboring away in her backyard and she couldn’t reconcile the thought of that man having access to such a truly staggering amount of money.
“He could so easily have decided to live the life of a lazy hedonist,” Beth mused when she found her voice again. “All this time I thought he was a loser with zero ambition, when he was the exact opposite. He has ambition; if he didn’t, he would have taken the easy way out, a cushy six-figure job as a useless figurehead in his family’s company. But he wants more than that.”
“He does.”
“I’ve misjudged him. I’ve known that for a while.”
“Well, let’s not lose sight of the fact that he was a bastard to you, Beth. He hasn’t been kind to you.”
“I haven’t been kind to him either.”
“Look, I’m happy you two are getting along better. And you know I love Gideon. He’s an awesome guy and he could have taken the easy way out. But by that same token, I do feel that no matter what he does, no matter how much he tries to make it in the ‘real world’, he will never be like us. Because even though he’s been trying to live a life independent of the obscene amount of wealth so readily available to him, he will always know that if things get truly desperate, all he needs to do is head to the nearest ATM and all will be well in his world again. He’s pretending. He can never, and will never, be like us.”
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Beth said, not unaware of the irony in her defense of him. “I don’t think he’s pretending. This is his life, and like all of us, he’s just trying to live it in a way that makes him happy. That’s all any of us are trying to do.”
“He could live like a king on the interest of that money alone. While we’ve been sitting here, he’s probably made another couple of million. Sometimes I think it’s irresponsible of him to just ignore all that money. It must be great to have the luxury and privilege to choose to not use money. And I mean he must have used it at some point. That bike of his…Cam told me that it’s a Ducati and its worth a mint. So maybe Gideon isn’t abstaining as much as he’d like to pretend he is.”
“If he’s not, then good for him,” Beth said resolutely, and Cat’s eyes widened in surprise. “I told him the money is a gift from people who loved him very much, I think he should use it.”
“I’m a little astonished you don’t think less of him for possibly not standing his ground about the money.”
“And I’m a little astonished that you do.” The retort was sharp.
Cat smiled, her eyes sparkling in delighted humor. “I don’t. I agree with you, he should spend it when and how he sees fit. I was just playing devil’s advocate. Time was, you would have leaped at the opportunity to think the worst of Gideon. I was just checking to see how deep this attitude change toward him goes.”
“It’s nice not to feel like I constantly have to be on my guard around him,” Beth said. “It’s been awful. There were times when I found myself unable to—” Just recalling it, made her stumble over her tongue. “T-talk around him.”
“Shit, Beth, I had no idea it had gotten that bad. I’m sorry.”
Beth smiled, her gaze finding Gideon again. He was tossing stones into a wheelbarrow, oblivious to the fact that he was the subject of such intense conversation.