Page 12 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

He’s quiet for a long moment, and I wonder whether, despite all the money, he has as complex a relationship with his parents as I have with mine.

Is that even possible? At least he still lives at home, never has to worry about rent or his next meal.

Even the fact he’s had the time and energy to study stars and constellations means he’s never had the same worries as me.

“We just care about different things,” he says at last.

For the hundredth time since I slid into his Range Rover after work, I’m surprised at how easy conversation is between us.

We’ve shifted between topics as though we restarted a conversation we’ve been having for years, not hours.

At the bar, he sat and nursed his Coke while scrolling through his phone, waiting for my shift to end.

From the minute I stepped out the door of the bar with him, I’ve had this fizzy sensation bubbling inside me, but the feeling doesn’t make me anxious.

I’m just happy—and it’s strange to realize I’m happy with him . Being worry-free is a novelty.

“You’ve lived with your aunt since you were seven?” he asks, shifting onto his side to face me.

“She saved me,” I whisper into the dark. “I’m just so glad my parents never had any more kids.”

“Do you still see them?”

“More than I’d like. My aunt’s too forgiving. Mickie and Niall aren’t good people. They’d stick a knife in her back if it saved their own.”

“You don’t think it would have been nice to have someone else who understood what you were going through? A sibling? Sawyer, Maren, and I lean pretty hard on each other sometimes. We spend too much time looking after Ava and Gage, though.” His tone is rueful.

“When I was little, I wanted someone, anyone, but once Aunt Verna got me out of there, I just…” I close my eyes and take a shaky breath. “I wouldn’t want anyone to face the same years, the same problems, I did.”

He eases my hair off my cheek with his fingertip. “I’m about to be too much,” he whispers.

“Be too much,” I say, meeting his gaze. “I dare you.”

“Hearing you talk about your past makes me wish I could throw enough money out into the world to get a time machine, and I’d go back, and I’d stop any of that from happening to you.”

Tears prick at my eyes, and I’m surprised at the warmth flooding my chest, the chill streaking behind it.

Even if he doesn’t mean it, can’t possibly mean it when we’ve only known each other such a short period of time, his words are comforting.

I like the idea of being cared for that much, but I don’t know how I’d ever learn to trust it.

“Have you always been such a hopeless romantic?” I ask. “Cinderella only gets the prince in the fairy tale, you know. That’s not real life.”

“There’s nothing hopeless about my romantic notions,” he says with a slight smile. “Or at least, I hope not.” He takes my hand and kisses the palm. “All of this is real.”

“Is it?” I ask. “It’s so fast, and I just…

” He can leap, but I can’t. The depth, the dimensions, the safety net—I need all the details to take a risk, and by then, is it even still a risk?

The only times I leap without enormous calculation are when I don’t feel like I have any other choice. Jump or die.

“We can slow it down.” A slow smile spreads across his face. “Give me more than tonight. Easy.”

“None of this makes any sense, does it?” I ask.

“I don’t need how I feel to make sense for me to trust it. I just know you’re it. I know .”

In the distance, another engine roars across the silence, and we’re hit with a bright light, waves jostling the boat, yanking us both out of our private bubble.

“This is the coastguard,” a female voice blares out of a speaker across the water. “We had reports of a drifting boat. Are you in distress?”

With a huff, Nate gets to his feet, and he heads into the cabin, where the radio is located. I tug my phone out of my pocket, and I’m shocked at the time. The lights of the coastguard boat flash and then they peel away.

“We have to get back,” I say to Nate when he comes out. “I don’t have a phone signal, and it’s the middle of the night.” My Aunt Verna will be beside herself. Hopefully, she hasn’t called the police.

We rush full speed to the campground and then into the Range Rover to get me to the apartment I share with my aunt. At the door to the building, Nate frames my face and stares down for a beat.

“So, best friend,” he says with a small smile, “are we the kind that kiss?”

We’ve been touching each other all night, casual brushes or caresses that never went any further but shot electricity through me with each contact.

Now that I’m home, my sense of urgency to get here, to get in the door, is gone.

Instead, I’d rather stand out here with Nate’s hands on me, his handsome face mere inches from mine.

Jump or die . God, it feels like I might die if I don’t jump.

“I might need another taste before I can be sure which way it should go,” I say, breathless.

“Easy,” he says, and he tilts my chin before his lips brush mine, unhurried, far more practiced than I want to consider.

But he’s right. It is easy. So easy to slip into the rhythm from the other night, to forget about my waiting aunt, the massive social-class gap, all the ways this decision could bite me in the ass. None of it matters as his lips move across mine. All I can think is Nate, Nate, Nate .

When we break apart, I punch my code into the building, and he holds my hand until he can’t possibly hold it anymore.

“I’m coming back,” he says through the glass, and I smile, unable to hide the joy that’s bloomed in me.

“You’d better,” I say, and then I rush up the stairs to the apartment, slot my key into the door, and shut it, collapsing against the wood with a sigh.

“Where in the world have you been?”

Aunt Verna’s voice makes me jump at the same time my phone finally gets a signal and begins vibrating with messages. Probably messages from her, and I know guilt is seeping in, but it hasn’t reached me yet.

“I met a boy,” I say before I can think it through. Everything inside of me is buzzing. It makes me wonder if this is what it’s like to be drunk or high—it’s a feeling I can see people chasing, longing for, constantly wanting to replicate.

“A boy?” Aunt Verna’s tone shifts quickly from concerned to amused. She comes out of the kitchen, a mug of something warm in her hand. Steam rises off the cup.

It’s the middle of the night, but I knew she’d be awake.

Even if I’d messaged to tell her what I was doing, she would have waited up, but I’m surprised she isn’t mad.

With everything my parents have done, I try to be good at telling her where I am, what I’m doing.

Disappointing her or letting her down makes me anxious.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so…” She smiles. “Happy. Do I know him?”

“Nate,” I say. “Well, Nathaniel. Tucker. He’s a… he’s a Tucker.”

“Hollyn.” Her expression darkens, and she shakes her head.

“He’s not like the rest of them. He’s not like the ones you’ve warned me about.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t seem like it. They never do.

” She rubs her face. “But it’s not that I’m worried about.

You’ve always been good at looking after yourself, protecting yourself where boys are concerned.

” She gives me a look loaded with a meaning I can’t decipher.

“Mickie and Niall are going to think they’ve hit the jackpot.

Their daughter dating a Tucker? One of Celia Tucker’s kids?

Whew.” She sucks on her teeth. “I hope you’re ready. ”

“They’ve got nothing to do with who I go out with. Who I’m friends with.” I straighten against the door.

“Oh, sweetheart. I’d think you’d know better by now.” And that’s all she says before she wanders down the hallway back to her bedroom.