Hollywood Heir (Westerly Billionaire #4)(12)

There was an earthiness to her. She hadn’t flirted with him or name-dropped to impress him. She’d been as open as a springtime window and just as refreshing. Despite the way they’d parted, thinking about her made him feel—hopeful.

He couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d bought those balloons for the children near the fountain. When was the last time he’d looked at the people around him and asked himself what they needed? Somewhere along the way, his focus had shifted inward. Even as he’d watched Sage bring happiness to the young girl, his thoughts had been on himself and the darkness in his own life. It was a realization that had haunted him since.

While in rehab, he’d come to terms that there were parts of his life he resented. After his parents divorced, his childhood had become lonely. As one of five children, three boys and two girls, he should have scars from wild adventures, memories of laughing until his stomach hurt, and embarrassing stories about each of his siblings.

He didn’t.

His mother had taken the three youngest with her and built a new life with another man. Money was the evil she’d blamed for the failure of her first marriage. She’d turned her back on everyone and everything associated with it—including her two eldest children, Brett and Eric.

Brett aligned himself with their father and grandmother and became as cold and judgmental as they were. Eric withdrew from his two families, not comfortable in either. He found solace in books—and later in theater.

Wealth came at a heavy cost. His father’s obsession with the family business had made him absent from not only Eric’s life, but Brett’s as well. For a long time, Delinda had been Eric’s only family.

There’d even been a time when he’d believed she understood him, but as he’d grown up, he’d realized she viewed even him only in terms of achievements. She didn’t ask, nor did she care, how he felt as long as he was the best at whatever he did. Only scoring the lead role was celebrated, and then only if his performance had been flawless.

The entire Water Bear Man series had appalled her. She’d warned him not to take the role, then lamented the loss of his ability to be taken seriously by anyone once he had. Her complete rejection of the project had already driven a wedge between them before he realized how right she’d been. He shouldn’t have taken the role. Jasmine had seen him as nothing more than an ATM.

Delinda had predicted that as well when he’d announced their engagement. When it came to having a brutally clear vision of how things worked, Delinda was often painfully right. He’d won her approval back when Water Bear Man exceeded everyone’s box-office expectations again and again, but it had been an empty victory. He felt like the joke Delinda had warned him he might become.

So he’d done what he did best—withdrawn.

One counselor had outright asked him if he’d taken the anesthetic drugs because he wanted to kill himself. The question had shaken Eric. He hadn’t seen how far he’d sunk until then.

He didn’t want to die.

He wanted a reason to get up in the morning, a friend who didn’t care about his fame or fortune. He had more money than he could spend in his lifetime, with profits rolling in daily. It was a burden his counselor hadn’t been able to understand—similar to survivor’s guilt.

Why me? Why not someone more deserving?

And what is wrong with me? How could anyone have as much as I do and not be happy?

The door of the coffee shop opened, and Eric’s breath caught in his throat. Sage. Their eyes met across the room. She nodded once at him before looking away. Eric stood and knocked his coffee over, spilling it. One of the workers, a young man, rushed over to mop the mess off the table. Eric absently tried to help, but his attention remained focused on the woman who hadn’t seemed the least bit excited to see him.

He thanked the worker, slapped a generous tip down on the table, and stepped around him. She turned from the counter with a coffee and scone in her hands and made her way to the table where she’d sat with her friend. His hand instinctively went to his scar as he strode to her. Without asking permission, he took the seat across from her.

She didn’t smile at him, but she met his gaze and held it without blinking for a long moment. He was accustomed to female attention, but this was different.

He drummed his fingers on the table before him, then said, “I’m sorry about the other day. I shouldn’t have left the way I did.”

Her expression softened. “Was it something I said?”

“No.” He realized he was drumming his fingers again and stopped. Women didn’t normally make him nervous. It was a novel feeling. Yes, she was attractive, but had she offered to fuck him right then and there, he would have been disappointed. Somehow, although he couldn’t explain how he knew it, she was meant to be more. “It’s complicated.”

“You’re complicated,” she said, maintaining that steady gaze of hers.

“Not really. Just an ass.” Her eyebrows shot up, and he had to admit that even he was surprised by his comment. He wanted her to like him, so why was he still pushing her away?

She sipped her coffee. “There’s a cure for that. Our behavior is really the only thing we can control.”

He wondered if anyone in his family would agree. Money allowed them to shape their environment. Even his younger siblings, the ones who thought they’d been raised outside the influence of their wealth, had never known real adversity. Brett had covertly paved the way for them. There was no loan they hadn’t gotten, no grant they were passed over for. For Brett and Eric, their financial status had shaped their lives, defined how people saw them, even dictated whom they interacted with. It was both the wings that had allowed them to fly and the tool that had reined them in. “Because a handful of powerful people make the decisions the rest of us have to live with?”