No Ordinary Billionaire (Sinclair #1)

Chapter 20

I should have told him. Why didn’t I tell him?

Sarah had watched as Dante went through security and disappeared out of sight to board Grady’s private jet. Right then, she’d felt the urgency pounding at her, the words stuck inside her by a lump the size of a grapefruit in her throat. She’d been afraid that it was too soon to tell Dante, too soon to let him know. Everything for them was too new, too surreal. She hadn’t wanted to spoil what they had by blurting out that she loved him prematurely. Now the words were pounding at her soul.

I should have told him.

She and Dante had never talked about love. Need, want, desire . . . yes . . . but never love. Now that she wanted to tell him, needed to tell him, it was too late.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she walked outside, making her way to the parking lot, searching absently for her car.

She, of all people, knew how short life could be. At the age of twenty-seven, she’d already had two brushes with death and knew that anything that had to be said should be said when she wanted to say it.

I was afraid.

Sarah readily admitted to herself that she would be shattered if she said those words and Dante didn’t respond favorably. Now she realized it shouldn’t have mattered. The fact was that she did love him, and he needed to know that, especially if he wanted them to have a life together. He’d either have to accept the way that she felt . . . or not. Admittedly, she wasn’t used to loving a man, didn’t know what he’d say, but she should have said it out loud. Yesterday, she’d tried to tell him with her body how much she loved him, but she’d clamped down hard on her lips to keep from letting the words escape her mouth.

I should have told him.

Sarah didn’t start her vehicle. She leaned her head back against the seat and let the pain of her separation from Dante flow over her like a river. The agony was for the words that had gone unsaid. Had she told Dante that she loved him, maybe it wouldn’t hurt quite as badly. But he was leaving not knowing how she felt.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter that Dante had never said it, or if it was too soon. She needed to say it, and the compulsion was so vital that she started rifling through her purse for her cell phone. Knowing Dante’s plane had already left, she sent a text message, relief flooding through her body at the thought that he would know as soon as he switched on his phone in California. It would have to be enough.

She’d say the words out loud as soon as she talked to him, but for now, she’d done everything she could to let him know the minute he was within contact range again.

“I love you,” Sarah whispered, wishing she’d been able to tell him before he left.

With a long sigh, she swiped away her tears and started the car to begin her drive back home.

“I apologize for the delay, Mr. Sinclair. We’ll be in the air shortly.”

Dante nodded at Grady’s pilot abruptly before the middle-aged man went into the cockpit, wishing the damn plane would just take off. Now that he couldn’t see Sarah anymore, he was antsy and ready to get back to Los Angeles.

For what? So I can see my empty, tiny apartment’s white walls without a single picture or decoration to make the place less depressing?

No doubt everything in his refrigerator would be growing mold, which wasn’t anything new. He never ate at the apartment unless he brought home fast food, and leftovers eventually became rotten. Usually, he waited for the smell to get so bad that he threw the stuff out. Most times, he came back to his apartment so damn tired that the only thing that really got used there was the bed.