Page 50 of Coffee Break with the Billionaire

Oh.

“Do you come here often?” I ask to take my mind off everything else it’s thinking.

“Not really. I’ve come a few times by myself, brought Wyatt a couple more.”

“What’s the best thing about living here?”

“The water,” he says. “When I went to school, I couldn’t hear the waves and it took me forever to fall asleep. The sound, and the movement… it’s like a part of me.”

“So you have to live here forever.”

“No, I just need to be near water. Preferably the ocean.” He glances over. “Where doyoulive? I don’t even know that.”

“I’m ‘from away’ as everyone calls it. That’s all you need to know.”

“I’d like to know more.”

The sincerity in his tone twists my stomach in a good way. Trying to tell my heart to quit with the high-speed pitter-patter, I finish the chowder and hand the cup back to Silas. “Your turn. My father has houses in Los Angeles, London, and an apartment in Tokyo,” I begin. “There’s another apartment in New York and a place in St. Lucia. I live in any number of those places, depending on what I’ve got going on, unless I’m staying with one of my friends.”

“Your friends are—”

“The Billionaire Brats. You can call us that. Unlike the Brat Pack of the 1980s, we don’t take offence.”

“You don’t seem too bratty,” he muses, holding the cup of chowder up and breathing in the smell.

“Tell that to my mother. No—” I make a cutting motion with my hand. “I am not about to ruin a perfectly nice evening with thoughts of her.”

I hold my breath as Silas sips, expecting him to pepper me with questions about my parents. But he doesn’t.

“You mentioned in the car that you refuse to regret anything. What if you did?” Silas asks. “What would you regret?”

“Never falling in love,” I say without giving it any thought.

“You’ve never been in love?” he asks with surprise. “But you’ve been engaged…”

“Unfortunately,” I agree. “And maybe I thought I was in love at the time, but looking back, I’m not sure. What I felt for them wasn’t what I thought love feels like.”

“What do you think love feels like?”

I have to think about that for a moment; a long moment, enough for Silas to finish the cup and offer me more. I ask for half a cup.

“This,” I finally admit in a low voice. “Not—this.” I gesture between us with the cup. “But being comfortable. Being able to be myself with someone. I always felt I had to be the person they wanted me to be. Not me.”

“Are you able to be just you very often?”

“Not really, no. I think that’s why I like it here. I’m just able to beme, and no one is judging me, or laughing behind my back, or trying to win me over because they want something from me.”

Just saying that makes me feel sad.

I nudge Silas with my shoulder. “You’re not allowed to ask all the questions. What do you like about living here?”

He takes a deep breath. Is that a slight lean towards me, or is it in my head? “The community. Obviously not everyone, but I like that we’re all in this together. We get through the storms together, we get to have a really cool king. We care about each other, there’s always support. It’s like family, but more.”

“I’ve never had that before,” I tell him wistfully. “I have my friends and I love them, but other people aren’t that supportive. It’s different here. Meeting Sophie and Leodie, even Laura—it makes me feel good. Being here makes me feel good—when I’m not feeling left out because I don’t have my own community.”

“This can be your community,” Silas assures me. “When you’re here.”

I can hear the unspoken question in his voice.How long will you be here?

---