Free The Sweetest Kiss: A Billionaire Love Story by Kate Ward Page A

they were gold diggers, he would say. I couldn’t take him seriously. He cheated on my mother. What, so she gained a good amount of the money when they divorced, and that made her a gold digger? I shook my head at the thought while watching Hayley looking around the place wide-eyed.
    Sure she wasn’t perfect, but who was? Everyone appeared to have it together when you first met them. They showed you what you wanted to see. The best of them, and hid the other stuff in the background until you moved in. But you could still glean a lot from a person before making a big life decision like marriage, just from watching the way they were with people, with their money, with their words and life. Actions and time spoke volumes. I wasn’t expecting her to marry me after a week. All I wanted was to be given a chance to know her. To see if there was a connection, a chemistry. Sexually, I could feel the desire between us. It was tangible. The way she looked at me, and playfully answered my questions. There was some definite flirting going on. But whether it was the kind of connection that would last over the long term, the kind of relationship that could weather life’s storms, that was hard for anyone to tell. No one could know that until you spent time with them. A good amount of time.
    As we moved around to an aquarium, I got into a wet suit and invited her to join me. She was up for it immediately. Now that was something I did love about her. Hayley wasn’t one to back down. She stepped up to the plate and drove that boat, and now she was willing to let her makeup run and get her hair wet. I smiled as she came out wearing a black and blue suit, damn, she had a nice body. That suit hugged her frame and for the first time I got to see how curvy she was in all the right places. She had definitely looked after herself. I mean, it wasn’t a big deal if she hadn’t. I didn’t go for the girls that were too thin. I liked a woman who had a bit of meat on her. Something you could squeeze, hold, and grab in the heat of passion. And Hayley had it. It literally felt as if the air had been taken out of the room when she came in. She had the cutest feet, the most beautiful smile. It would have been easy to forget about doing any kind of business when I was around her. She literally made me want to forget about my life before her. How could a woman do that? Not all of them could. Just as I was sure, not all men could for women. There was something to be said about physical attraction and another about being attracted to their character.
    I thought about Ava, a woman I had dated prior to Emily, we had been together for over a year. She was beautiful and wealthy. It was hard to impress her because she had everything she needed, not that I should have needed to impress her but anyway. Now my father had high hopes for her and when I called it off, he flipped. How will you ever find a woman as wealthy and attractive as her? That was the order. He honestly thought more about what she had in her bank account than her looks. And character? That didn’t even come into the equation. Yeah, it was odd. The problem was I became more and more jaded by dating women who had money. Many of them thought the world should stop for them. That everyone owed them something. I started to notice the way she treated people, and I wasn’t liking what I saw. There was no gratitude. If there was it was fake. It was tough to break up with her as I didn’t want to break her heart but I consoled myself in the fact that she would eventually get over it. In fact, she did. Within a matter of days, I had seen her out with another man. But that was the way it was in my world. Those who had money could attract others easily. Maybe that’s why I took on the cottages? I wanted to do something that most of my peers would never have done. They would have just bought them and paid someone else to do the work. I didn’t. Sure I got some help from others for things I couldn’t do