NautiCal (Forever Wilde 8)

“What?” I asked in a breathy voice. “What is this?” I thought I might hyperventilate.

“I bought the camp from Brian and Sharon and put it in trust to the foundation so you can use it for your program. According to the mission, the program can serve anyone with a unique need, whether it’s financial, adaptive, or psychological.” He rifled through the stack to find a colorful graph and slid it to me. “This is the preliminary budget my team drew up for the first year’s expenses including necessary updates and upgrades to the facilities to make them more accessible and ADA compliant, the addition of new adaptive equipment including several new watercraft, and…”

His voice faded out behind the roaring in my ears. He’d bought the camp? The whole camp? And… what? Was he taking it over to run the program that I’d created?

“I… I don’t understand. You… you bought Annie’s camp?”

Worth put his hand on my arm, but I flinched and pulled away. His eyes widened in surprise. “Well, yes, but—”

My entire body started shaking as my brother’s words came back to hammer my brain like a punishment.

Never trust a rich older man trying to get into your pants. They’re manipulators and users.

I shoved my chair back, stood up, and shook my head. I didn’t think Worth had meant to manipulate the situation, but the result was the same. He’d taken over something of mine, something I really wanted to do myself, and made it his own.

Had he thought my asking for help had been a thinly veiled attempt at getting him to fund my whole damned program? Did he think I’d come to him to ask him for money? It was like my worst nightmare. I knew, I knew, how much he hated people asking him for money, and now here I was doing the same. At least, that’s what he must have thought.

Or did he simply think I couldn’t handle it on my own and needed someone older and more experienced to take over?

I felt like I was moving through sludge. All of my dreams were going up in smoke before my very eyes, and I felt like dog shit in front of the one person outside of Annie and my family who I wanted to be proud of me.

“That’s very generous of you,” I managed to say around the lump in my throat. “I wish you all the luck in the world.”

And then I turned around and ran out.

24

Worth

I stared at the conference room door as it closed behind him. The glass turned transparent again a moment later, and Natalia stormed in.

“What just happened?” she asked. “I was talking to Crystal at the reception desk when Cal came storming by. I tried to call out to him, but he slipped into an elevator without even turning around.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged. “I… I don’t know. I was telling him about the new foundation and how we’d bought the camp, and he just… left.”

“Wait. You… you told him about the foundation before you told him about your feelings?”

“Well… yeah. Yes. I mean… I was going to tell him about my feelings at dinner. I didn’t want to…” I yanked at my hair again in frustration. “I didn’t want him to think the foundation thing was based on my feelings for him.”

She threw up her hands. “But it is. It is based on your feelings for him. Don’t you see? You’ve never, ever done something like this for someone you’re dating.”

“I’m not dating him!” I said, exasperated beyond belief.

“And whose fault is that?” she shouted back. “That man wanted to make you proud. He wanted to do it himself. Don’t you know him at all? He doesn’t want to take your money. The last thing he wants is to look helpless and needy in front of you. He wants to learn how to help people.”

“And I can help him help people! I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t he want my help when I have all of this money to invest in the program?”

She stood aside and pointed out the door. “Go. Go get him. Right now. Tell him how you feel. Make this right.”

I didn’t stop to wonder if she was right or not because I was too scared of missing him, of trying to catch up with him later at his hotel and discovering he’d left to fly home. Or worse, Singapore.

I raced to the elevator and used the button trick Crystal had taught me to request an express car. When the doors opened, I pressed the button for the lobby and was whisked straight there in seconds. My shoes almost slid out from under me as I ran across the lobby and out into the late-morning sun. I frantically looked both ways until I saw the spiky dirty-blond hair I knew so well.