Hadn’t those been his exact words?
“I miss you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” Kaden pleaded, genuinely sounding heartfelt.
But his words were going in one of my ears and out the other, especially when Rhodes was looking at me the way he was looking at me.
“Please. Please, talk to me. You can’t throw away fourteen years. You can’t. I’ll forgive you. None of this has to matter. We can put it all behind us and forget about it. I can forget you being with somebody else.”
Only then did Rhodes’s little smile disappear at the same time his head lifted and his gaze landed on my ex.
Rhodes was in his old Levi’s, this crazy cute zip-up wool sweater that Amos’s aunt had given him for Christmas that was maroon, and dark gray boots. He hadn’t even bothered with a jacket, but there was one in the car. And he was the best-looking man I’d ever seen as he reared up to his full height, holding onto me just as tight as ever, and said in that voice of his, “She’s going to be forgetting someone, and it’s not going to be me.”
The flush on Kaden’s face went even deeper, and to give him credit, he looked pretty determined. “Do you know how long we were together?”
This shallow chuckle bubbled out of Rhodes’s chest, and the hand he had been rubbing over my upper arm halted as he turned his arm to let his wrist dangle over my shoulder. But I knew that expression, and there was nothing casual about it. “Does it matter?” he asked, stone-cold and serious. “Because, to my thinking, it already doesn’t. You’re the past. And I’ve got no problem with making sure you end up being some guy that broke her heart before I took over and put hers in mine for safekeeping.”
For someone who wasn’t used to being so loving, he really did say the sweetest things. And if I had ever doubted that I loved him, which I hadn’t, I knew then that I’d chosen right. Chosen best. There were going to be no mistakes here.
Not ever.
By the time I focused back on him, Rhodes’s facial features had morphed even more into one of his most serious expressions. “I love her. And I will gladly give her all the things you were too stupid not to give her. You wouldn’t even hold her hand in public, right? Or kiss her?” he basically taunted him. “I’m fine not being the first man she’s ever loved because I know I’m going to be the last.”
Kaden’s gaze flicked to mine like he was stunned. He’d asked for it. And honestly, I was getting turned on by what Rhodes was saying, big-time.
“That’s the difference between guys like you and me. If she needed something, you’d give her a hundred dollars from your wallet even if you had more and think that was good enough. I’d give her everything that was in mine.” His voice went hard. “The only person you can blame is yourself, dumbass.”
My heart soared. It might have even got straight to the moon. Because Rhodes was right.
Kaden would have a roll of bills in his wallet and part with a hundred, easily. And Rhodes would give me five dollars if that was all he had. He would give me everything at any cost. And Kaden… It didn’t matter. And it never would again. He had killed anything and everything I’d ever felt for him, and there was nothing there. Not a speck. There never would be again.
And now it was my turn to tell him the same so there was no miscommunication.
Love could be about money. It made things easier, that was for sure. But the best kind of love was about so much more than that. It was about giving the person you loved everything. The easy, effortless things, but also the hardest intangible stuff, the uncomfortable. It was about telling someone that you loved them by giving them everything you had and everything you didn’t because they mattered more to you than anything material ever would or could.
I caught his gaze and told him as seriously as possible, “I told your mom, and now I’m going to tell you too. There is no amount of money in the world that you could ever give me to get me to go back. Even if we could be friends, which isn’t going to happen”—Rhodes grunted beside me—“I wouldn’t work for you or help you again. You need to understand that. I will never change my mind.”
Hurt, clear and bright hurt, flashed across the good-looking face staring at me. “This isn’t about you writing for me, Roro. I love you.”
The arm over my shoulders stiffened, and Rhodes’s voice dropped as he grumbled, “Not enough.”
I focused on this man that I had known so well for so long and made a face so he would know I wasn’t exaggerating, that I meant every word out of my mouth. “Bye, Kaden. I don’t want to see any of you again. I mean it. I’ll make you regret the day you met me.”