Admit You Love Me (Irresistible Billionaires 2)

“Not yet ready to give up?”

“I meant what I said yesterday,” he said, looking at me straight in the face. “I’m choosing you and everything that comes with. Even the drafty room upstairs.” I stared at him open-mouthed. What was it going to take? I was flattered, to be sure. But I wanted him to get fed up and leave, not to suddenly gain a new lease on life and embrace countryside living. My pulse kicked because that was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever said to me. He was making this harder for me. I picked the menu off the table to change the subject.

“Should we eat?” I offered.

“Let’s. I had a steak pie last night and it gave me indigestion.” I laughed.

“Let’s not get that then. How about the house salad? We’ll probably be okay after that.”

We got two salads and Niall followed my lead getting a Coke to drink. We chatted over our meal, mostly discussing what Niall thought of Belshire. He thought the country air was doing him good, but it was a total change of pace from what he was used to. I didn’t want him to be enjoying it, but it was nice to hear that there was something he liked about it. The place had been my home for the last five years and it did have its one or two charming points. The salads weren’t anything to write home about but they got the job done. We talked about his family home and the time he spent there before he ran away to New York.

His upbringing hadn’t been warm. Being thousands of kilometers away in New York, his family never bothered to contact him, and he didn’t bother to contact them either. Unfortunately, it was the same for me.

“Can I ask,” he started.

“What?”

“Your money issues, they’re kind of public knowledge.”

“Are they?”

“Maybe not public but there are people who know. People talk. Do you think the news has gotten to your parents? Have you talked to them about it at all?”

“No,” I said.

“Why not? I know you said there’s bad blood there, but wouldn’t this be a good reason to bury the hatchet?”

“What would it take for you to bury the hatchet with your father?” I asked. He pursed his lips thinking as he played with his salad.

“I don’t know. I don’t even think about him unless I have to.”

“That’s me and my parents. I don’t think about them unless I have to either. To be honest, Riley hasn’t even met them.”

“You’re joking.”

“They came to visit when he was born and that was it. Never saw him again, never send gifts, not even Christmas cards. It was like they forgot about me when they married me off. I didn't tell them when Russell died because I wanted to see whether they reached out first and they didn’t. I don’t want to ask them for help since they abandoned me, but I don’t want them in my life anyway. I don’t want to be beholden to them in any way so I’m not saying anything. If push truly comes to shove I’ll do what I have to do for Riley but before then, I don’t want to know.”

He nodded. “I suppose I understand.”

“I'm not happy with it but they haven’t been a family to me. They treated me like I was disposable to them. I think that’s grounds enough to cut the cord.”

“Fair enough.”

“Sorry. I know you'd rather not hear about my depressing life story.”

“I want to know everything about you,” he said. Don’t say things like that, I thought. If you don’t want to date him, how about you stop telling him stuff like that and opening up to him. Did Russell even know my middle name? Did he know what I was called before I became Edwina Nicholas? We never dated, the two of us. That wasn’t to say that unconventional marriages couldn’t work but you had to actually put the effort in to get to know your partner. Courtship didn’t stop after marriage, but Russell never bothered. Already, Niall was scoring points against him. This wasn’t good.

After lunch, I gave him a walking tour of the village. I had a complicated relationship with the place that had been my hometown for the last five years. It was quiet, peaceful, and friendly. There wasn’t too much in the way of modern comforts and once Riley was old enough for school, I would have to drive him thirty minutes to the nearest town, but it had become home. Whereas my life with Russell had been hell on earth, it had been set against the backdrop of an idyllic English village. I didn’t know where the next several years would take me since the future of the estate was uncertain. We didn’t have to live here fulltime to retain my son’s inheritance.

“Wait here,” Niall said, suddenly walking off the path we were strolling into a field.

“What? Where are you going?”

“I want to get you some flowers,” he said. He descended on a patch of wildflowers, gathering handfuls of them.

“Niall, you don’t need to do that.”

“No,” he said, panting a little, coming back up to me with a rough, handpicked bouquet. “Here, for you.”