The Fine Print (Dreamland Billionaires #1)(96)

My vision clouds as I trace the annotation. It’s jagged like it was done with a sharp knife, but the handwriting is unmistakably my mother’s.

My little knights,

Love with all your heart and show kindness in all your actions.

Mommy

I trace the words with a trembling finger. It’s been years since I heard the phrase, and it hits me like a punch to the gut. My mother lived by her words in every single one of her actions. She spoke them to us every morning before we went off to school and would whisper them to us every evening before bed. The words sink their claws into me, tearing apart whatever justification I had for the decision I’ve made.

Would my mother be proud of the man I am now? Part of me would surely hope so but another part of me knows I’ve done a lot of messed-up things in my life because that’s all I know. I wasn’t raised with the kind of values my mom preached—at least not once she was gone.

I understand I’m not in the business of making everyone happy, but there’s a difference between being business savvy and being unnecessarily cruel. I chose the latter over and over again without feeling a damn thing because it was the easy choice. Cutting back on better health insurance was a shitty ploy to get my father to allow me to sit in during board meetings. He wanted me to earn my stripes before I was given a seat at the table, so I decided to go for the big guns. Just like it was simple to vote against increasing the minimum wage and widen our profit margin. I was willing to think about the company first while proving to my father that I had what it took to develop my own streaming company with Kane money.

I chose myself every damn time because it was easy.

Show kindness in all your actions.

It’s a joke to linger on those words. Everything I did was at the expense of others while everything my mother did was based on her love and compassion. I forgot she was like that. I made myself forget because I think deep down, I didn’t want to remember the woman she was. Because I knew she would be disappointed in me. My actions over the years have been anything but kind, done from a place of greed and anger. I’ve shown little mercy, let alone love.

Whatever son my mother raised died along with her, and I feel nothing but shame.

A wave of regret hits me all at once. I discard the drill, take a seat on the chair, and allow myself to come to terms with the monster I became at the sacrifice of my mother’s most important values.





I stop by Zahra’s cubicle, hoping to catch her on her first day back from her sick leave. I enter the space, finding her drawing something on a…tablet? The brand is the same as mine. Whatever she’s drawing on the tiny screen is being mirrored on her desktop monitor, and honestly, it doesn’t look half bad.

“Is that a wheelchair?”

She jumps in her chair, dropping the plastic pencil by her feet.

I lean over at the same time as her, and our heads smack into each other. She hisses at the same time as I wince.

Our eyes lock. I brush my hand across hers before releasing my grip on the pencil. She sucks in a breath, and I smile on the inside.

I’m happy to see that some of her color has returned, although she seems to have lost some weight. I frown at the hollowness of her cheeks.

Her brows pull together as she scowls. “What do you want, Mr. Kane?”

Mr. Kane? My jaw clamps down on my tongue to stop me from saying something stupid.

She raises a brow in a silent taunt.

“I needed to speak with you.”

She remains silent. I see she’s not going to make this easy for me.

“I came to…” To what? Confess how I feel in the middle of a busy workday?

“Yes?”

“To ask if you would come over tonight.”

Her mouth drops open. “You’re joking.”

Fuck. She thinks I want to make a move on her? This is why I don’t talk about feelings.

“No—shit. I’m not saying this right. I want to talk to you. Just talk.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk to you.” She turns toward her little tablet and tinkers away at her design.

I blink at the computer. It hits me that she is creating her own design instead of working with me.

Because she doesn’t need you anymore. I’m not sure why the thought makes my throat tight. I feel like I’m being replaced and forgotten by the one person who really saw me. The person who believed in me and supported me when she had every reason to despise me for what I represented.

“Zahra, hear me out. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’m stuck in a constant state of nausea and heartburn, no matter what I eat.”

“Sounds like you can feel after all.” She scowls.

“Yes. Are you happy? I feel like shit, ever since I left you in that damn hospital room, knowing full well you were crying because of me.”

“No. I’m not happy that you’re upset. On the contrary, I want you to be happy with your choices,” she speaks with such a neutral tone as if I didn’t break her heart.

“Why?” Why do you have to be so goddamn selfless all the time?

“Because I want you to look back on your choices and know they were worth it in the end.”

Except a lot of my decisions don’t seem worth it, despite how necessary they felt in the moment. I want to tell her that and a lot more if she will only give me a chance.