Sold to the Highest Bidder by Donna Alward Read Free Book Online Page B

full of themselves, so oblivious to the way the world really worked.
    “The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, you know. I do care. I just grew up.”
    He spun around from the sink. “Grew up? You went away to college and never came back. You didn’t just spend time and money to get where you are. You also turned your back on our marriage. You sold out.”
    The bitterness soaking his words cut into her. “No, I didn’t.” She pushed out her chair and stood too. “I just stopped being a besotted teenager and started living in the real world.” She looked around the sparse house. Had he changed anything since she left? Anything at all? “You might try it some time.”
    He laughed then. “Right. You go off to the city and suddenly your world’s the real world and everyone else’s is what, the Stone Age?”
    “They don’t call it Backwards Gulch for nothing.” She fired the words back at him. “Look at this place. The furniture’s the same. Your truck’s the same. You probably get up the same time every Sunday morning and go fishing. Am I right?”
    “And there’s something wrong with that?” His eyes narrowed, criticizing.
    “God, yes!” Couldn’t he see that he was going nowhere staying in this hell hole? Didn’t he ever want more? “I can’t believe I was considering finishing the article here. I mean, my laptop’s all well and good, but I’d have to have Internet, wouldn’t I? And God knows that’s not going to happen.”
    “You’re right. There’s no Internet here. And I’m perfectly okay with that.”
    “Of course you are.”
    “There is technology outside of Denver.”
    She sniffed. “Yeah, right. It sure as hell isn’t here. Don’t you ever want more than horses and fishing? What about your dreams? Don’t you have any of those?”
    Devin clenched his fingers. He’d known this argument was coming, but he’d be damned if he’d slap her in the face with the truth. Of course he had dreams. And he had wanted more. Most of it he’d achieved and he was damn proud of DMQ. If this cabin was anything, it was an escape from the world he’d learned about very quickly after she’d gone. He liked it this way. Quiet. Simple. Disconnected from the rat race.
    But he’d waited a long time for her to make her way back and she needed to figure it out for herself. If she didn’t…it would truly be over. He wasn’t going to beg. But he wasn’t going to let her off easy either. She knew nothing about the man she’d left behind. Knew nothing of what he’d been through since she walked away, or what he’d accomplished. Or how difficult it had been.
    “You’ve focused so much on your own ambition that you don’t see anyone else. All you see is what you want to see. You did sell out. I know because I remember your dreams as well as mine.”
    She laughed, a bitter, harsh sound that made him want to punish her with another kiss just to wipe the sarcastic grin off her face.
    “You mean your dreams of owning your own business, Dev? How you were going to make us rich one day? And look at you. You’re still right here. Exactly where I left you.”
    “Don’t turn this on me right now.” He fought to keep his voice level, the words of his own redemption sitting on his tongue. No. Either she didn’t know the truth or she was goading him, and he didn’t like either option. If she was completely oblivious to his success she’d have to work for the truth. By the end of this weekend he’d show her exactly what she’d walked away from. What she could have had and had so blithely thrown away.
    “Do you even remember what you wanted back then? What happened to those dreams? What happened to you wanting to be a writer—and don’t tell me you are one because you know that’s not what I mean. You weren’t thinking of journalism when you said it. You wanted to be a novelist. You had plans. We had plans.” He let the words hit their mark before he continued, quieter but no less biting.