Page 105 of The Heartbreaker

So, I pulled her hand up to my lips and got back to the main point by saying, “You’re the happiest you’ve ever been …”

“Yes.” Her smile softened in a way where it was still there, but she was hiding her beautiful teeth. “Now that we’retogether, together, so much has changed. Ridge, I’ve never felt like this in my whole life.”

Since thattogether, together moment had happened, the night of the incident at the club, I’d been bringing her here every Saturday. This was our fourth one in a row. And each date was nothing like the one prior. I’d rented us a boat with a captain for the first Saturday, a catered picnic on the sand for the second, and some paddleboarding for the third. As for tonight, Addison had no idea what I’d planned.

Surprising her was something I loved more than anything.

And because my staff needed some time to set up, I’d walked with her about a half a mile in the opposite direction of the hotel, waiting for the text from my team that told me to head back.

Once I felt the vibration in my pocket, assuming it was them, I turned us around and asked, “What do you see when you look at the sky tonight?”

“Is that a trick question?”

I laughed at her grin and the cuteness of her question. “Not at all.” I nodded toward the water. “The sun is getting ready to set, so I imagine billowy and wispy aren’t the way you’d describe it.”

“You’re right.” She was on the inside, closest to the ocean, her bare feet kicking up drips of the salty water every time she took a step. With her face pointed at the horizon, she said, “Gold and orange. Those are the colors filling my vision. I don’t even notice the clouds.”

“Why?”

“Because the sun is dominating my line of sight.” She turned her head toward me. “Just like you do whenever I’m around you. All I see is you.” Her eyes narrowed while she took me in, but her smile didn’t dim at all. If anything, it grew. “I think that makes you my sun, Ridge.”

“I’ll take that title.” I winked.

“What do you see when you look at the sky?”

I released her hand and threw my arm around her shoulders, bringing her even closer. “I don’t even see a sky.”

“You’re kidding, it’s over there?—”

“That would mean I’d have to take my eyes off you. I can’t do that, nor do I want to.”

She held my hand that hung near her tit. “How do you do that?” When I didn’t immediately reply, she continued, “How do you make me feel like I’m the most important woman in the world and the only one you’ve ever wanted?” She raised her other hand in the air between us. “And I don’t say that to takeaway your love of Daisy or Jana—I don’t mean it that way at all. I just mean that when you look at me, when you say those kinds of things to me, I feel”—her eyes closed as though she were searching for the right word—“like you’ve placed a spotlight above me and you’re the only person in the audience.”

“I’m just telling you exactly how I feel. They’re words that come from the sincerest place in me.” I pointed at my chest. “Right here. My heart.”

“I can tell.”

I kissed the side of her head, breathing in her vanilla-latte scent. “I have one request though.” I noticed we were getting closer to the hotel, and I could see all the preparation that I’d organized.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s no longer use any references that involve a stage unless we’re talking about a concert—thatI can handle. The thought of you back at the club, I cannot.”

“Deal.” She laughed as she leaned back to look at me. “Those days are long over, thanks to you.” She let out a long, deep sigh. “I know I already told you this a few weeks ago, but I can’t express enough how good it felt to send the remaining balance to my sister and to pay off a massive chunk of my student loans. The weight on my chest is finally starting to lift, and I feel like I can breathe again.”

What she didn’t know was that the weight wasn’t just lifting; it was disappearing. But she wouldn’t know that until she received her next student loan statement, which would show a zero balance. It had taken a little maneuvering to make that happen and a lot of help from her best friend, Leah, who I’d met when I stayed the night at Addison’s last week.

I couldn’t live with the idea that she was going to make payments for the next twenty years, working multiple jobs to make that happen. That shit hadn’t sat well with me at all—because I didn’t want her to have to work multiple jobs, not when I could do this for her, and I wanted to do it for her, even though I knew it was important for her to work off that debt.

She could fight me all she wanted, and I suspected she would, given how prideful she was, but I also knew she was worth far more than what she was paid.

Hell, I would give her a million, and she would be worth every goddamn cent.

“But what made carrying all that weight worth it,” she continued, “was seeing my parents’ faces when Morgan and I gave them the gift. You know, they’re still texting me every day, telling me it was too much and they’re having a hard time accepting it, but they’ve already packed their suitcases even though they don’t leave for months.” Her smile was achingly beautiful as she spoke. “God, they’re adorable.”

“You did it right, baby.”

She nodded. “I know.”