Page 46 of Cinderella's Fling with the Off-Limits Billionaire

“When I’m here, we’ll keep it light.”

“Fun,” she repeated.

“We’ll eat out, use the spa, watch movies, walk around, go to bed. Did I say go to bed?”

A half-smile flickered on her lips, but her eyes were melancholy. “And then what?”

He had a vague idea what she meant but he asked the question anyway. “What do you mean?”

“When does it end, Leandro?”

“When we’re both ready for it.”

“When will that be?”

That was of course the flaw in his plan. He knelt down. “I don’t know, but I can tell you, I’m not ready now, and I don’t think you are either.”

“I’m not,” she admitted, and those two words felt as weighted and important as any wedding vow ever could. She felt as though she’d just admitted something huge and terrifying. But then again, he clearly already knew how she felt. At least he was admitting the same back to her.

Should she push for more? For him to open up to her? Or did she just need to accept that he would always be a closed book, and be grateful for what he was willing to share?

In the end, it wasn’t really a choice. She didn’t want to end this yet. She appreciated his honesty, how much he was leaving the choice up to her. She appreciated the gift of more time with him. Whatever came next, he was right. She’d always be grateful for having met him. He wasn’t going to be in her life forever, but he would always be the man who’d helped her heal after Jay. She still wasn’t ready to be in a relationship. To trust a man with her heart and life, but she was ready to open herself up to at least this form of happiness, to someone like Leandro, who was so different to any man she’d ever known. Who was worthy of trust, even if she wasn’t ready to give it.

She stood on legs that were a little shaky, and he did too, so they were close, their bodies only an inch or so apart.

“Okay,” she agreed.

His relief was palpable. His hand caught her cheek and she angled hers into it. He stroked her flesh with his thumb. Everything trembled inside Skye. Heaven. Fear. Need. Want. Longing. Lust. Everything.

“Okay?”

She nodded.

“Thank Cristo.” He sounded as though she’d just saved his life. “How long can you stay tonight?”

Her cheeks flushed pink. “I can stay all night. My mom knows I’m out. She’s in charge of Harps.”

He groaned then, dropping his head forward and kissing her with all the hunger of a man who’d finally found his way to a buffet after years of starvation. She laughed into the kiss, but even her laugh was one of desperation—something they shared. It carried them to the bedroom, and they stayed there for hours. Kissing, touching, exploring, worshipping, remembering, pleasuring and being pleasured, until it was the small hours of the morning and they lay as a tangle of limbs and cotton sheets in the silver light cast by the moon through the expansive windows.

“Are you tired?” He asked, propping up onto one elbow.

She leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, just because she could. She shook her head. “I should be, but I’m not.” If anything, she felt completely and utterly alive—more alive than she’d felt in forever.

“Then let’s go out.”

“Out?”

“I’m hungry. We can get some pizza.”

“Of course you’re hungry,” she said with an eye roll, but then her own tummy gave a little groan, and she clamped a hand to it. “I guess that makes two of us.” She kissed his lips then. “Give me five minutes to get ready.”

Manhattan in the middle of the night was a mystical place. Devoid of the crowds that usually flooded the streets, there was an eerie, almost apocalyptic feeling on the sidewalks. It was cool and she huddled into Leandro’s side as they walked, his arm around her protectively, keeping her cocooned. She breathed him in, that woody, citrussy scent of his, and acknowledged, just for a moment, how right this felt. How much she liked being there with him.

How glad she was that she’d decided to just go along with this.

It scared her to think of losing any hint of her independence and in offering her a ‘fun’, causal relationship, he’d possibly built a bridge between what she wanted and what she knew she couldn’t have. This could work.

She didn’t want to think about when it stopped working, and they were no longer in each other’s lives. The fact they openly acknowledged that time would come should surely take the sting out of it.

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