Read Hard As Rock for Free Online Page A

basically gave you the equivalent of what I make in a couple of hours. So don’t worry about it, okay?”
    First: my mind was blown. That level of generosity was just staggering to me.
    Second: math. I was trying to add it all up in my head, and the closest thing I could think of was, He’s making 50 grand a day?!
    Third: it didn’t matter how much he was making a day.
    “Ryan, it’s still twelve thousand dollars. And whatever this plane ticket cost. I can’t accept that much money. I appreciate it, but – ”
    “Kaitlyn, I’ve been really, really lucky in my life. I’m more fortunate than 99.9% of the rest of the world. I have the best job there is, I love what I do, and I get paid well for it. Let me do something nice for somebody I care about, okay?”
    I started crying again. Right there on the boarding ramp to the airplane.
    “Hey… hey,” he murmured, and put his arm around me. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
    “It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s… it’s a good cry.”
    And it was.
    “If you say so.”
    “I say so. Ryan?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thank you.”
    He smiled. “You’re very welcome.”

12
    I had never flown first class before. The wider seats… the extra attention and courtesy from the airline attendants… the comfort… the glass of champagne they brought me before anybody else had even begun to board…
    It all distracted me for about five minutes.
    But as the people filed past, and the plane taxied to the runway, and then took off, I slipped further and further into a quiet depression. Ryan tried talking to me in the beginning, but eventually saw I needed to be alone with my thoughts… and so he let me go.
    There was a movie I once saw called Kiss Of The Spider Woman. It was about a couple of prisoners in a South American jail cell. One line I particularly loved was from William Hurt, who played a gay man imprisoned for his sexuality. It went something like this:
    The most wonderful thing about being happy is that you think you’ll never be unhappy again.
    I love that quote, because it’s so true. When you’re truly happy, everything is bliss – and always will be. You’re absolutely sure of that fact deep down in your bones.
    But there’s a flip side to it as well:
    The most horrible thing about being unhappy is that it feels like you’ll never be happy again.
    And on that plane flight, I felt like I would never, ever be happy again.
    I had fallen into a deep, dark hole. I was alone, and miserable, and would always, always hurt so bad that I wanted to die.
    Ryan had helped. He had helped tremendously. But he couldn’t stop the bleeding. He could only soothe me a little bit, distract me for a moment… but my life was seeping away from me, second by second, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
    That’s what it felt like, anyway. Like I was dying from the jagged edge of pain that was slowly tearing its way through my heart.
    As the plane soared into the sky and I stared out at the kingdom of clouds beneath us, I replayed all of the events in my mind, like a movie on repeat, with one word echoing over and over again on the soundtrack:
    Idiot.
    Idiot.
    IDIOT.
    I had known. I had known from the very beginning that this was going to happen, and I had walked into the trap anyway.
    I knew from the first time I met Derek that he was a womanizer. Four years ago, back when I was in college and he was a struggling wannabe, he had still had sex with dozens and dozens of women. I knew that. That was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t sleep with him then. Because I didn’t want to wind up as another notch on his bedpost.
    I had held back from sleeping with him when I came to LA because of that very reason. I knew what he was. I knew what he did.
    And I gave in anyway.
    But I didn’t just give in; I plunged in. I gave away my heart without question. I let myself fall in love totally and completely, and after it started, never gave a single thought or worry for how