A Summer with the Earl: An Age-Gap Billionaire Instalove Fake Relationship Romance (Regency and Rivalry) by Maude Winters

Author:Maude Winters [Winters, Maude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palas Publishing LLC
Published: 2024-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

Everything’s Over

SABINE

Ipractically threw myself into my mother’s lap, sobbing hysterically as I had not since childhood. I was so sad. So embarrassed. So everything. She was confused but settled me with quiet shushing. She rubbed my back and told me to breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t calm down. I’d been crying for half an hour on my own, unable to come down.

“Sabine, my darling, what is the matter?” she asked.

I sat up, unable to speak without whimpering. “Malcolm just broke up with me.”

“What?”

“He… he says that he… is… sparing me,” I hyperventilated. “That he has to… give up his practice… and move back home… and we can’t make it work.”

“Oh, darling, how? Why?”

“His father is dying. Within a year. He’s very sick. Malcolm says he doesn’t want to burden me or some such.”

My mother fell silent.

“I can handle something like that. I could make it work⁠—”

“Sabine, you are much younger than Malcolm. He’s lived more life than you have⁠—”

“And I just…”

I looked for the words. I loved him. Did it even matter now? I loved Malcolm Ferguson. I knew it. I hadn’t known, but I did now. I wanted to wake up with him every morning and go to bed with him every night. I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted him to make me laugh. I wanted him to be grumpy with me. I wanted to gossip and joke. I just wanted him back. More than ever.

“He’s doing what he can to protect you, Sabine, before it gets really… serious.”

“Mum, it already has,” I insisted. “We already⁠—”

“I think this is the first time you’ve ever had a grownup relationship. And, as such, you’re finding it exciting and wonderful⁠—”

“Mum do not patronise me! Do not do that.”

“Do what?”

“Baby me! I realise that I sought out comfort, but… I am a grown woman. I want to be in a relationship with him. He’s not some old creep who needs to spare me. I am not a princess in need of saving from myself. I know what I want. Why is everyone trying to ‘spare’ me suddenly? Spare me from what? Happiness with someone who understands me and doesn’t see me as damaged goods?”

“Oh, darling, no one sees you that way⁠—”

“Mum, people absolutely do. Everyone whispers. Fuck! I mean, Jamie’s girlfriend doesn’t stop jawing on about how different or lucky I am. I get it from all sides. All Malcolm sees in me is pure perfection. He adores me. He spoils me. He sees me as an equal. Or, at least, he did until he tried to go all paternal to ‘spare me’ from whatever!”

“There are other men⁠—”

“I don’t want other men! I want him!” My voice echoed through my mother’s sitting room.

It was unexpectedly powerful.

Mum furrowed her brow. “Sabine, you have never said that. I… I assumed it was just a summer thing.”

“It may have begun that way, but… he wanted me for me. I wanted him for him. We were divine together. Yes, everything about it was fun and exciting, but it was also just… normal.

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