But I was in no mood for jokes.
“What are you talking about?” I asked in a low voice. “Don’t pull my leg please, not anymore.”
And suddenly all three men were serious.
“Baby, we’re not as depraved as you think,” began Kane.
“Or we are,” corrected Tyler. “But we want to change our ways.”
“Because sweetheart, we’ve lived long enough as complete assholes. We’ve always had things go our way, and sure, it was a little weird when you weren’t interested. Okay, more than a little weird, a lot weird. We were freaked out,” rumbled Mason.
“More than freaked out,” added Kane wryly. “Completely fucked up. We couldn’t figure out why.”
I was silent for a moment.
“So you’re moving to Knox because …?” my voice drifted off.
And Tyler took a deep breath then.
“Because we love you, baby girl, and we didn’t do right by you the first time around. Like morons, we went around doing what we’ve always done. Using girls. Giving them gifts. Expecting them to be on call afterwards.”
“How could you do that?” I asked in a trembling voice. “You were leaving without saying goodbye. Without even a goodbye.”
The three men grew serious then, leaning in close, blue eyes fierce.
“It was a mistake,” growled Mason. “We shouldn’t have. And we’re here to make it up to you. To show how much we care, we’re moving here, to tiny Knox, Tennessee. Effective immediately.”
I sat back then, unable to believe my ears.
“But why?” I asked plaintively. “Or how? I don’t get it, this is all so sudden.”
But the men were gentle.
“Honey, we treated you like all the other girls, and it was startling when you didn’t cave. Normally, it wouldn’t be a big deal. You didn’t want the emerald necklace? Fine, exchange it for a ruby one. You want a different apartment? Fine, just ask your broker to send some floorplans. So when you didn’t get on board, it threw us for a loop.”
“But a good loop,” interrupted Tyler. “A real good one. Because we realized that things were gonna have to change. We want to make a commitment to you, baby girl, to do something that means something. And moving our ops down here is the ultimate sacrifice, upending our lives to show you how much we care.”
I shook my head, lips trembling.
“But I don’t want that from you,” came my low voice. “It’s not about sacrifice. You belong in New York. I belong here. It’s just the way things are, I get it.”
If I’d surprised the men before, then they were doubly surprised now.
“No, honey, you’re not listening,” rumbled Tyler gently.
But that wasn’t true.
“I can’t ask this of you,” were my slow words. “You’ll resent me forever if you move. You’ll hate it here. It’s not just that we don’t have a Starbucks, but we don’t even have any ATMs. If you want to go to the bank, you park your car, get out, and go in to see a live teller. You talk to a human being. It’s different down here and I don’t expect you to understand. So don’t do this for me, please. You’ll just hate it after two months and hate me too.”
But that’s when all three men got on their knees, surrounding my form. Tyler took my left hand, Mason took my right. And Kane placed a possessive fist on my thigh, the three men marking me as theirs all over again.
“Sweetheart, that’s where you have it all wrong. We’re not doing this for you. We’re doing it for us. Don’t you get it? We’ve been leading fucked up lives for so long that when something good happened, we couldn’t even see. You were like a gift from the heavens, landing squarely in our laps, and yet we were such idiots that we almost let you get away. So this isn’t for you baby girl. This is for us.”
I was stunned then, staring at the men, heart racing.
“For you?” I asked weakly. “You’re doing this for you?”
The billionaires nodded, blue eyes penetrating.
“We want to change sweetheart. This visit to Knox is the best thing that’s happened in a long time because it brought us you. It let us see a different way of life, where generosity has nothing to do with money. Where giving means helping others, without expecting something in return. That’s the kind of life we want to lead, baby girl, and you’re the woman we want at our side.”
I was flabbergasted.
“But what – what caused this?” I asked softly. “I mean, what made you think this way?”
At that, the billionaires laughed a little.
“I think we were always this way,” began Kane. “But we lost sight of our roots.”
“Remember, we built our empires using bare hands,” added Mason. “Brick by brick, stone by stone. It’s been a long time since we were upstarts, but once upon a time, we were simple men, and the simple things in life brought us joy. But after so long as assholes,” he added wryly, “you lose sight.”