Deep Dive: An enemies-to-lovers billionaire romance (Deep Love Series) Lauren Winter (red white and royal blue hardcover TXT) 📖

“What?” she asks incredulously.

“Once I’m done here.” I wave a hand at the half-painted garage door. “I’m going to sell the house. I have to get back to my business in New York. Since you don’t want to come with me, I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

I thought she would cry or scream, but all I get is deafening silence. Finally, I work up enough courage to look up. She is weeping silently. She covers her mouth with a shaking hand.

“Why are you saying that? Do you really mean it?” Her lips tremble as I return her questions with silence. She covers her face with one hand and walks away.

Panic overtakes me, and I try to salvage this. Maybe I’m being too rash. Maybe she just needs more time. “Rachel!” I call out to her.

I realize my mistake too late. It is so bad that I want to punch my own face. Amelia’s footsteps quicken and she doesn’t even look back once.

I find her back at the cafe. She had to leave her truck in the parking lot earlier since the battery died. I promised I would help jumpstart it after lunch. Of course, that was before our big fight. Now, she’s sitting at a small table by herself staring at her hands. Her clothes and hair are wet. She doesn’t have any money for a mechanic and she left her phone back at my house. I feel like such a jerk.

I noiselessly slip into the chair in front of her. “I’m sorry,” I mutter like a guilty child.

She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. My apology feels hollow.

“I’m really really sorry.” I try again.

“I didn’t deserve that,” she whispers, tugging at the drawstrings of her sweatshirt with her fingers.

I take a deep breath and say nothing. She grimaces at the silence so I say quickly, “Yes, I’ve been a real jerk. I’m really sorry.” My fingers curl into the palms of my hands, balling my hands into fists. I think that’s the most I have ever apologized to a person. I anxiously wait for her reaction.

She doesn’t smile or forgive me immediately. Her big green eyes are watchful. “Fletcher,” she says earnestly. “I really like you, but we’ve just met. I want to spend more time with you and get to know you. But you can’t just expect me to uproot my entire life after one week.” She places a gentle hand over mine. “I need more time, and I’m not trying to string you along. I want to give us a real chance, but I need to go at my own pace.”

I swallow a hard lump in my throat. “I know, I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t need you to apologize. I need you to not punish me for someone else’s actions. I need you to not treat me like some old girlfriend. I don’t want to be someone else’s replacement.” She stops there. Instead of trying to pry into who Rachel is and hit me with jealous accusations, she just asks for something I can do, something I should have done all along.

My face burns. “I know. I shouldn’t have. You’re so much better than her—” I cover her hand with my other hand.

She shakes her head again. The wet tendrils of her wavy hair bounce softly. “It’s not about that. I don’t care about that, but I care about you. I’m trying to give us a real shot and if I am to do this, I need us to be on the same page.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was being stupid… and insecure.” My voice strains as I search for the words to describe myself. Me, Fletcher Payne, billionaire tech extraordinaire, stupid and insecure? But I know it’s true.

“Tell me about Rachel.” She squeezes my hand.

To my surprise, I struggle more than I expect. I have trouble even remembering what she looked like. It is as if she has long ceased to be a person but became an idea in my mind. I have infused all my frustration and disappointment over the years onto this idea, and that I have completely forgotten about the person.

“Rachel— was my fiancé,” I tell her. I realize that I need to get this off my chest. I want her to understand me. I want to understand myself. “We were to get married, but she left me. Out of the blue.”

“You guys didn’t have any fights?”

“No, yes, I mean, not real fights. We bickered like all couples, but she just held everything in. She never actually came out and said that she was unhappy or anything. Well, until the very end. She liked to keep scores. I’m sure every time I said or did something stupid, she secretly enjoyed tallying up our scores so that she could justify leaving me. I was busy with my company. I wasn’t a good fiancé. So like a rich bastard.” I laugh bitterly. “I just threw money at the situation, hoping that it would make the problem go away. So she left me.”

She watches me quietly as she waits for me to finish.

“You must think that I’m a world-class jerk,” I say, shame-faced. I should have been a better fiancé. I should have paid her more attention and been more solicitous of her needs. She left because I wasn’t good enough for her.

“She shouldn’t have treated you that way.” Her words surprise me. “You didn’t deserve that. I’m really sorry.”

My eyes sting, and I glance down.

“It must have been really hard to give your everything and then to have her treat you this way.”

I am at a loss for words. Everyone thought I had driven Rachel away with my hard demands and rich-jerk attitude. No one believed I had given the relationship my all, as imperfect and flawed as my all was. If Rachel had told me she was