Page 67 of Billionaire Romantic
Noah doesn’t take the bracelet off. Instead, he gets down on his knees, sliding his warm palms around the backs of my bare thighs as though to keep me here.
“Lucky Emerson O’Callahan from County Cork Irish Ashton, don’t fucking leave me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry my brothers and I tried to buy your company. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it was yours. I’m sorry we offered you fair but low market value even though the company clearly has huge potential for growth. I’m sorry I said we wouldn’t fucking budge on fifteen million in a mean way. I’m sorry you had a stressful day today and it was my fault. I’m sorry I couldn’t take some of that worry away this morning before you snuck out on me. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to kiss you and make sweet love to you until you were happy again, which is all I really want to do. I’m sorry we didn’t tell each other the truth about who we were. But I’m also not sorry about that, because then you would have hated me before our weekend ended and that would have ripped my heart right out of my chest. I’m sorry your life has been so hard, for a long time. I’m sorry you lost your parents and you’ve spent so much time feeling so alone. I’m sorry you’ve been scared that you’re going to lose your company and your apartment. And thatwouldbeveryfucking scary. I’m sorry you think I’m evil. I’m not evil, I promise, and I’m going to prove that to you no matter how long that takes. I’m sorry you don’t believe I’ve already fallen for you.Hard.I fell in love with you the minute I saw you and every minute of our weekend together only made me fall harder. And then I fell even more in love with you today and I’m falling even more in love with you right now. It just keeps compounding on itself exponentially. The thing is, I’ve also been alone for a long time. I have my brothers but I’m not talking about that kind of alone. I meanalonealone. I mean the kind of alone where you feel lost and sort of broken because you know you’re fucking destined to love someone with everything you’ve got, but you can’tfindthat person. So you spend all your time just fuckinglookingfor her. And you start to doubt everything about life itself. Because there’s always this big black hole in the middle ofeverything and you don’t know how to fill it. The thing is, Irish, you filled it. You just waltzed into that restaurant the other night and fuckingfilledit. With your white-gold hair and your blue, blue eyes and that way you look at me like you’re exasperated with me.Gone. And don’t tell me I can’t know that. Don’t tell me it’s too soon. I know what a fucking black hole feels like, Lucky Irish. I also, now, because of you, know what it feels like to have it filled up. Because suddenly there you were.”
32
I’m literally speechless.
“I’m going to prove to you that I’m not evil, baby girl. Starting now,” Noah says. “I know I have to prove myself to you, and I will. Do you have a pen and some paper?”
I’m still kind of reeling from his speech. Which included at least a dozen of the nicest and also romantic things anyone has ever said to me in my entire life. All I’m carrying is my small bag that contains my phone. “Um…not on me.”
He gives me a look. And flicks his eyebrows. Toward my apartment. “Inside?”
“Probably.”
“I need to write something down.”
His gush was kind of life-changing. I can already tell I’ll never forget it. But it still doesn’t change my situation, my discovery about who he is or all that has happened over the last hour. I don’t want to invite him in. Because if he continues to be this nice, apologetic,hot, perceptiveandgrovelly, I know exactly what will happen. “I’ll go get one for you. You wait here.”
“I need a table too. To write on.” When I don’t immediately invite him in, he adds, “I promise I’ll leave as soon as I’ve written it down.”
“What do you have to write?”
“I’ll tell you as I’m writing it.”
Againstallmy better judgement I push the door open, gently extricate myself from his grip and walk inside, leaving it open behind me.
My apartment, as always, looks stunning and inviting in the mid-morning light. Rays of sunlight land idyllically on the quaint, plush window seat and the etched-glass orb lamp I bought from an antique store in Vermont one weekend when Grace and I randomly decided to rent a car (she knows how to drive) and spent a weekend at an Airbnb she found on the shores of Lake Champlain. It was only a few weeks before my father died and my life turned upside down. I don’t know why, but I always leave the lamp on.
Beyond the window seat, outside on the balcony, my flowering indigo wisteria that climbs along the edging so it frames the whole view, looks cheerful, blissfully unaware it’s about to be pulled out by its roots.
A lot of people who visit my apartment comment that it looks like a decorating magazine spread and I consider that now, as Noah sees it for the first time. It looks so beautiful and cozy it breaks my jaded heart.
“Wow.” There’s that manly sincerity again. “This is a nice apartment.”
Which reminds me why I actually hate him and why I can’t let my guard down with him, no matter how beautiful and heartfelt his little soliloquies might be. “Thanks. Too bad I’ll be being dragged out by repo men by the end of the month.” My surly melodramatics might be atadoverdone, but I forgive myself since the occasion does actually call for it.
A smirk plays at the corners of his annoyingly perfect mouth, like he finds my angst adorable. “The pen and paper, please?”
I go to the closet where I keep my printer and office supplies. I hand him a pen and a few sheets of printer paper.
Noah motions toward one of my kitchen stools. “May I?”
“Help yourself.” I put on the kettle. “You want some peppermint tea?”
“Okay. Where’s your roommate?”
“She has a really busy schedule on Mondays. She won’t be back until late. That is, if she comes back at all tonight. She might end up staying with her new boyfriend.”
“The one she met through the app?”
“Yes.” I don’t want to talk about the app. “Can we make this quick? I need to go to work.”And figure out how to start filing for bankruptcy.
Noah sits and starts scrawling something. “I have my own business entity that’s separate from Invested Enterprises. It’s called Blue Sky Enterprises. I am the sole founder and director. I use it for real estate investments and a few other business investments.”
“Good for you.” I realize I’m being surly but I have to. I need this barrier up.Wayup. Because his muscles are straining even under his suit porn. His size and his outrageous in-your-face masculinity are sort of filling up the room and infusing it with those crazy pheromones he emits.
He smells so fucking good.
