The Billionaire’s Lust (His Submissive, Part Seven) Read Free Page B

that Mom missed the sound and my rigid strides in the opposite direction, but I could tell she hadn't from the way she hesitated before following me.
    I pushed open the door to my office, making a grand gesture. “And here’s where I spend most of my day.”
    She walked in first, marveling over it even though it didn’t hold a candle to the set-up in Mrs. Joy’s office. She went to the desk, picking up the cat figurine before moving to a framed picture of me and Jacob.
    I remembered that day so clearly, so vividly, that it felt like yesterday instead of over a month ago. We found a family owned vineyard with rows and rows of grape vines. I’d leapt at the chance so squash the grapes with my feet and make wine and I’d been floored when he rolled up his pants and joined me. The picture was a moment, frozen in time forever. A moment of sheer bliss. It was a snapshot of what we were and now...now it was just evidence that things had fallen apart.
    “So what happened between you and Jacob?” Mom asked, putting the picture back. “Cade Wallace?”
    It was my first inclination to agree. To pinpoint the exact moment we veered off course to the moment Cade sat at my table and said hello. But that was a cop-out. Cade wasn’t the real problem. Jacob and I took a turn the first time I lied to him. I had to stop lying. To him. To myself.
    “Turns out you were right. He wants to marry me.” I ran my thumb along the edge of my desk. “Wanted.” She wasn’t pushing me, which wasn’t characteristic for my mother at all, so I did something uncharacteristic too--I opened up to her.
    “I keep thinking that the things I’m doing, keeping things to myself…” I closed my eyes. “I keep lying for what I think are the right reasons, but he keeps pulling further and further away. Maybe I don’t deserve him. Maybe I don’t deserve happiness.”
    “Leila Christine Montgomery.” Her tone was strict. “I don’t want you to ever say anything like that again. I don’t care if you’re dating Jacob Whitmore, the president of the United States, or a garbage collector. You deserve happiness. You deserve love.”
    “Then why do I keep screwing it up?”
    “Because you’re sabotaging yourself.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”
    “It’s cheerleading, yearbook staff and the musical all over again.”
    I laughed at that. “Everything you just named was situations where I was shy or thought I had zero chance and would make a complete fool of myself.”
    “Why?” she asked plainly. “You knew the routines for cheerleading tryouts. I watched you perform them all in the backyard. Your pictures from family vacations were good enough to go in a brochure. And don’t even get me started on your singing voice.” She paused, like she was listening to me belt out a tune even though I was just glaring at her. “Every single time, you didn’t think you were good enough so you made sure that they fell through.”
    It wasn’t true. On the day of cheerleading tryouts I got violently sick. There was no way I could have performed and risked vomiting all over the gym floor. And just because I happened to snap a decent picture of the beach of a Ferris wheel in motion didn’t mean I was good enough to be on yearbook staff. And as far as the musical, it was one thing to give a speech as the class president and a whole other thing to sing and go up against theatre majors.
    My stomach clenched.
    Excuses. Every one of them.
    Was it true? Did I keep sabotaging my relationship with Jacob because I didn’t think I deserved him? Because I was afraid he’d wake up and realize he made a terrible mistake in trusting me with his heart?
    “You deserve to be happy, Leila,” Mom said firmly. “If Jacob makes you happy, stop screwing around and be with him. It’s as simple as that.”
    I wanted to believe her, that it would be such an easy fix as just cutting it out. But there was a part of me that worried too much had happened and too much