Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(95)

I’ve never let a man into my heart the way I’ve let West in, because my genes are corrupt.

Watching him walk away will hurt every bit as much as letting Remy go.

But I can’t be what he needs either.

We’re in this honeymoon phase. I’m playing at having a family. But I’ll get bored. He’ll get tired of my constant need for new entertainment. At me wanting to go out at night.

Just because I’ve felt more like staying in with him lately doesn’t mean it’ll last.

It’s better to let him go now.

Before either of us get more attached.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment in Brazil that I need to leave for. Feel free to stay as long as you need. I’ll be gone at least two weeks.”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

His voice is hoarse, and I want to stop and fling myself at him and promise him promises that I can’t keep.

Because any other man would ask why are you doing this to me?

But not West.

Even while I’m throwing daggers at him, he’s asking why I’m hurting myself.

“Life’s complicated, Mr. Jaeger.”

And I’m going to lose all of my willpower to do what’s best for both of them if I don’t leave.

Right now.





Forty-One





Daisy



“For the record, I am formally opposed to every bit of this course of action,” Tiana informs me as she follows me out the side door of my mansion to my waiting Daisy Wagon.

“Noted.”

I’m in big Tiffany sunglasses. Bright yellow Versace dress. Stilettos. Diamonds. My hair swept up like Jackie O. Lips red. Lashes thick and dark. Eyes smoky.

I’m dressed to fucking crush the world, and all I really want to do is curl up in my bed and eat froyo until I cry myself out.

Girls like me don’t get the man, the babies, the white picket fence.

We get the parties. The superficial. The mansion on the beach and the reputation for being the nice person among the rich assholes.

Fuck that.

I don’t want it anymore.

I step into my Beetle, cross my legs, and look away from my house. “Alessandro, take me to The Dame’s house.”

He meets Tiana’s gaze in the rearview mirror, then shifts his attention to me. “Don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Any other day, your opinion counts. Today, I want you to drive me to my grandmother’s fucking compound.”

It’s a quiet hour drive to South Beach after that, full of shitty drivers, horns honking, stop-and-go traffic, and more indigestion than I’d wish on three-quarters of my worst enemies.

Anthony Roderick can have six times this amount of indigestion. And jock itch to boot. And all his nose and pubic hairs plucked out by a monkey with a rusty pair of pliers. And lice in his ear hairs.

We pull up to The Dame’s hacienda, and I don’t wait for Pierson to greet me at the door.

I also don’t wait to be told where to find my grandmother.

I know.

And I’m not surprised to find her working in her office.

“You didn’t call me to tell me Remington was missing,” she says.

No hello.

No are you okay?

Just you did it wrong, Daisy.

“I quit.”

Her eyes flare wide and her mouth forms a silent O.

“Also, I surrendered all parental and guardian rights to Remy. He’s one hundred percent Mr. Jaeger’s son now.”

God, my heart.

But I won’t subject either one of them to this anymore.

Or myself.

And I won’t use them as a crutch either.

I won’t let them be my easy family. The one that Julienne’s will gave me. They deserve more than me being there simply because they’re convenient, and they deserve better than me. The me I am today, anyway.

Even if I feel like there are icy daggers shredding into my chest and pecking away at my newly exposed heart.

Maybe I’ll never build skyscrapers in Hong Kong again. Maybe my line of spas for Carter International Properties will all close because the curtains are mango instead of cerulean.

Or whatever.

But I am not worthless.

And I won’t sit here and let her make me think I am for one more minute.

The Dame rises to her full height.

If she were truly an immortal highland vampire dragon, she’d spit fire out her nostrils and crack open her old lady shell to reveal her true form, an armor-plated flying cockroach.

“Daisy,” she whispers. “Oh my god, Daisy.”

My knees wobble, because she’s not breathing fire or using her powers of mind control to bend me double in pain.

Instead, she seems utterly gobsmacked.

In a lesser woman, I’d call her stricken.

“Go ahead,” I say, my voice quivering. “Disinherit me. I don’t care.”

She slowly shakes her head, eyes still wide. “You—Daisy—I could never actually—” She swallows, and all of her armor does crack.

But it’s not a beast who emerges.

It’s a broken, old, sad woman. “I’ve hurt you.”

“You’ve hurt a lot of people.”