Page 57 of Falling for Mr. Grump, the Big City Billionaire

"Are you going to keep staring or..." I start, my sharp mouth autopilot kicking in.

Before I can finish the sentence, his hand slides around my waist. One moment we're bantering, the next - we're kissing.

And holy fusion tacos, what a kiss.

It's not soft. It's not gentle. It's passionate and fierce and everything we are - two people who fought tooth and nail for something they believe in, and now, finally, allowing themselves this moment.

My hands find their way into his hair. His grip on my waist tightens. The world could literally end right now, and I wouldn't care.

When we finally break apart, I'm breathless.

Literally breathless.

"Well," I manage, "I guess preventing a corporate buyout prevention is an excellent aphrodisiac."

Troy laughs.

And in that moment, with the town we saved behind us and possibility stretching out before us, everything feels perfect.

Chapter fifteen

TROY

It’s today.

That's all I can think of early in the morning as light filters through the curtains of my inn room, casting long shadows across my meticulously packed suitcase.

New York.

Corporate headquarters.

Reality.

The thought alone feels like a weight pressing against my chest.

I'm Troy Bellamy. CEO. Billionaire. Master of corporate strategy. And right now, I feel completely, utterly off-balance.

What if things go wrong?

My fingers trace the outline of my phone, where a series of tense emails from my Board of directors await.

They have no idea how much has changed - how I've changed.

This tiny coastal town has infected my carefully constructed world with... something inconvenient. Humanity, maybe. Emotion.

Skye Martinez.

A woman who represents everything I typically used to despise - spontaneity, community, passion for something as mundane as a food truck.

And yet, she's managed to crack open something inside me I didn't know existed.

I adjust my designer watch - a $50,000 piece that suddenly feels grotesquely pretentious in this simple inn room. The tick-tock sounds like a countdown to leaving everything behind.

The goodbye with Skye is going to be complicated.

We're not a conventional couple. Hell, we're barely a couple at all.

We started as complete opposites - her, a passionate small-town food truck owner fighting corporate interests.

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