Rich Player (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 3)

“Hi,” she says, ushering me into the building.

“Did he say what he wanted to talk about? Because I can’t get the money in time. It’s not going to work out.”

She shakes her head. “He didn’t say specifically, but he indicated that he wanted to discuss your business.” Gesturing to the back, I turn, and my stomach drops to my feet. Glenn is standing there.

I turn and start to walk out. “Diamond, wait,” he calls.

“Why should I?”

“Five minutes, please.”

I whirl around on him. “Give me a good reason why I should do that when you just threw me to the side like a bag of garbage!”

Glenn looks briefly at the realtor and nods. I hear her slip discreetly out the door to give us privacy. “I don’t deserve it,” he says. “I know I don’t. But I happen to be the biggest asshole on the planet.”

“Yeah, you have that about right,” I say. “You can have two minutes. That’s it. Then I never want to see you again.”

“That’s fair.”

I wave a hand, telling him to get on with it.

Glenn clears his throat. “I told you about my childhood, but I don’t know if I ever specifically told you about my dad. He was an asshole. Even bigger than me, if you can imagine. He was in and out. He never stayed for long. But every time he came back, I was so excited. He would make me promises. Kid stuff. That he would take me to see one of the local ball games. Road trip. Even simple things like going out for ice cream.

“And then he would disappear. Every time. Chalk it up to childish optimism, but I fell for it every time. Until the last time. So I vowed that I would always keep my promises, no matter what they were, because I didn’t want to be like him. I didn’t want to be that man.”

He shakes his head and looks down at the floor. “In some ways I think it’s helped me. In other ways, it hasn’t. I need to learn that not all promises are worth keeping. And that watching someone you love walk away from you, especially because you drove them away, isn’t worth anything.”

My mind trips over his words. Someone he loves. He can’t be talking about me. Because if I think he is, and I’m wrong, it’ll break me. But Glenn is watching me, like he’s waiting for me to say something.

So I do. “You said you wanted to go out and fuck thirty women because of some pledge. You let everything go without a second thought. How can I—” I swallow, forcing myself to take an even breath. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“When I met you, that was the plan,” he says. “But I liked you. And so I told myself I was just putting it off for a while because of how amazing our sex was. But then we started to fall in deeper and I started to like it. And suddenly, when Frankie and Wallace said they were happy for me for finding someone, I snapped. I had broken a promise that I had made to myself. The same one that they had broken to me. Just like all the promises my dad had broken, and I needed to fix it. I needed to prove that I wasn’t the man who went back on his word.”

Glenn’s eyes land on mine, and there’s no trace of lie or insincerity. “But watching you walk out the door ripped me in half. And I realized that I love you.”

My breath catches in my chest. He said that. He really just said that. Glenn takes a careful step forward, and I let him. I should yell at him. I should scream at him. But he came back. He realized he screwed up and is trying to fix it. To prove that I’m worth something to him.

That’s something few people in my life have ever done. “You love me?”

“I do,” he says. “Completely. I can’t promise that I’ll always know what to do. I’ve never been in love before, but I know that you’re what I want, Diamond.”

I clear my throat. “I love you too,” I whisper. “I’ve known for a while, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to say it.”

He smiles at me, and I can feel our mutual relief melting the air around us. “If you need to do it,” I say, “if you need to keep your promise to yourself, I understand. But I’ll need some time—”

Suddenly Glenn’s mouth is on mine, and he’s kissing me hard. “Never,” he says between kisses. “I don’t need other women. I need you.”

I ease into him, letting his kisses start to mend the wounds of today. It will take time, but God, I am in love with this man. “You can use me,” I say. “For the pledge.”