Billionaire's Christmas Vixen by Cara Nelson Read Free Book Online Page B

he’s a great man. Truly. But he isn’t the man that I want to be with. Nor am I the woman he wants.”
    She bowed her head into her hands, humiliated.
    “I loved him as a brother more than anything, I suppose. I loved him in the way you love a childhood friend that you share everything with. I love him in the way that you love your protector, your confidant. But I never loved him as a boyfriend, much less a husband. I wanted to, but I never did.” She paused. “He knew it too.” She was talking to herself more than to George at this point. She let out a low, disbelieving laugh. “He knew, and that’s what it was all about.”
    “He knew? That you didn’t truly love him, or that he didn’t truly love you?”
    “Both, I think. He realized well before I did that we weren’t right for one another.” She replayed their final conversation in her head. The conversation where he walked out of her apartment and never looked back. The conversation that left her curled in a heap on her living room floor because it was the end of the world. “He tried telling me. Many times. He tried but I didn’t want to listen. I only thought he had cold feet, that he was nervous.” She shook her head, still talking to herself. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
    For a moment, she envied George. Not for his many conquests, but for the fact that he could remain so detached from relationships. She wished that she had been able to do the same, both with her parents and Eric. Even her sister had seen, to some extent, that Eric wasn’t right for her. It was odd that, of all people, George was the one to help her to finally open her eyes.
    “You clung to him because he was all you knew. It’s difficult to do something new when you’ve always done the same thing. You get comfortable, you get into a routine, and when that routine is disrupted, when everything you know changes, chaos ensues. But only if you let it. Embrace the change and move forward. Don’t live in your past, Brea.”
    She started at her name on his lips. She liked it. “You’re right. I was scared. Scared that everything I had known was wrong, everything I had tried for was a failure. I don’t need another one of those notches on my belt.”
    There was silence as they both watched the rumbling fire. George rose to add another log and to encourage the flames to continue. He returned to the couch, but only after draping a blanket over Brea, who had begun to shiver. Grabbing a blanket for himself, he sat back down, a bit closer to Brea. “My parents live in Livingston.”
    “But, that’s only an hour from here,” she stated, eying him curiously. “You said you have no family.”
    It was George’s turn to show shame. “I haven’t spoken to them in five years. When the company took off, I turned away from them and let my only concern be myself and my career.”
    She reached out and placed a hand on his arm. She was shocked that he could turn away from his family so easily. They must have done something horrible. More horrible than her own family? She thought it was possible. She knew that families could get far worse than her own. “What happened?”
                  “Nothing. My parents are wonderful and kind.” He shrugged as he looked away. “Unfortunately, they didn’t fit into my plan for success.”
    “Your plan for success is to disassociate yourself from your family?”
    “No,” he said harshly, but she could see his face soften just as quickly as the word came out. “I’m sorry. No, it wasn’t originally my plan. My plan was to be successful. To never struggle in the ways that my parents did. My plan was to make a name for myself. I don’t have time to waste on a family.”
    He said this without emotion. He did not have time for anyone but himself. Brea was disappointed. She had seen a glimmer of something. Hadn’t she? A glimmer of the real George, or rather, who the real George could be if he only allowed it. The