Page 117 of Rival Hearts

Now that there was no storm and the ocean was calm, it was easy to get to the beach, and the island was quiet and peaceful.

After making sure the boat was secure, I walked across the beach and up toward the lighthouse. The door was closed but unlocked, as we’d left it. I doubted anyone had been here before.

The lighthouse seemed old and abandoned, and it was the stuff of my memories with Chris when we were kids. But today, there was so much more to it.

It was also filled with memories of Charlotte.

The ground floor was less threatening, with no water driving in through the broken windows and cracks in the wall. It was the kind of place where I imagined people making a life. I’d heard of so many people renovating lighthouses to live in, and it was something that could be done here—the room was big enoughto make a cozy living space, with a small kitchen, and the view would always be spectacular.

I climbed the first set of spiral stairs. The room Charlotte and I had spent the night in seemed small and cold and nothing like it had been with her. The storm had raged outside when we’d been here, and we hadn’t known how long we would be stranded, but it had been so warm with her.

It had been like a fairy tale.

Now it seemed cold and abandoned and forgotten.

But it could be done up, too, if we really wanted to do it.

The tarp still lay on the floor where we’d slept. I’d returned the lamp and matches to the chest for someone else, but the rest was still as it had been when we’d been here.

I flashed on her naked body pressed against mine. Not only during sex, when our bodies had melded together and we’d become one, but when we’d slept, too.

When we’d talked about our past and about the possibility of our future.

When I’d told her I was adopted, she hadn’t looked at me like there was something wrong with me. She hadn’t made me feel like I was lacking somehow, like I was in a world where I didn’t belong.

But I felt like I was.

It didn’t matter how much money we had; it didn’t change where I’d come from, what my start was in life. And even though I’d been taken out of that situation, it didn’t change who I used to be, and the abusive man my father had been was still ingrained in my very DNA.

What if something like that came out one day when I didn’t expect it, and it turned out I was a nasty, low-life son of a bitch, too?

It hadn’t happened so far, but if I’d learned anything, it was never say never.

My whole life I’d spent with women who only wanted my money, so I’d taken from them what I wanted and I hadn’t given them what they wanted. They couldn’t get that from me when I didn’t feel they cared about me as a person.

But not letting them get close had allowed me to avoid the fact that I didn’t feel like I deserved more than someone wanting me for my money and just getting a one-night stand out of it.

I’d never had to face the facts because it had never come up before.

But Charlotte was so incredible and what we’d shared had felt so much like home that I’d started to think about what I was giving her in return if it wasn’t my money.

I’d weighed myself and measured myself, and I’d realized I was lacking.

So, as pissed off as I was that Charlotte had broken things off with me and thought that I was like her father, I guess it didn’t matter.

I hated that she thought that of me because that was terrible, but it was better that I wasn’t in her life.

Because thekindof terrible didn’t matter in the end. Whether it was about personal gain and money—like her dad—or if it was because I wasn’t worth everything the rest of the world thought I was, she deserved better.

So, instead of being pissed at her and saying that she should have acted differently, I guess it had worked out the way I’d known it would all along.

And it was better this way. It hurt like a bitch, but the fact was…

I loved her.

She deserved better.

It was better to let her go than to hold onto her for my own selfish reasons and let her be with someone like me.