The Billionaire Heir Called Me a Freeloader, I'd Bankrolled His Family for 600 Years novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Fifty Years

I answered him in the potting loft, with the little lights on.

Rowan sat on the narrow bed and I sat on the floor in front of him, because I could not say it looking down at him.

"Fifty years," I said. "I'll be here. You'll be eighty-four."

"I know the math."

"I had a husband in a city that no longer exists under that name. I was twenty-six, by my own count, and he was a printer. He died of a fever in nine days."

Rowan said nothing.

"I had a daughter after that." My voice did not shake, and I was surprised. "She was seventy-one when she died. I sat at her bed looking twenty-nine, and the nurses called me her sister, and I let them."

"Eleanor."

"I'm telling you the cost. It's not romantic. It's that I'm the only person at every funeral who isn't allowed to look old with the mourners."

He leaned forward and took both my hands.

"Go on."

"I stopped keeping anyone close, and I called it wisdom. It was only cowardice. Each time I swore I'd stop, and each time I didn't, and each time it was worse."

"And now?"

"Now there's you," I said. "Four years of tea outside my door, and I never asked who made it. I've been a fool about you for a very long time."

"You didn't know."

"I should have. I've known everything else."

He smiled, and then he was serious.

"My answer is simple," he said. "I'm going to be old, and I'll complain about my knees, and you'll make fun of me for it. I won't hide that from you."

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend