Page 85 of Role Play
I watch as her lips close around the fruit, and her eyes flutter shut. A drop of chocolate lingers at the corner of her mouth, and I reach across to wipe it away with my thumb.
“Forrest,” she says, voice slightly throaty, “are you always this attentive? Or is this just part of the billionaire act?”
“What do you think?” I counter, enjoying the flash of frustration in her eyes.
She purses her lips. “I think you’re deliberately being enigmatic.”
“And you’re being deliberately avoidant.” I lean back, studying her. “Why don’t you feel secure around me, Sora?”
A server appears to refill our glasses, and Sora relaxes at the interruption. When he leaves, I wait, letting the silence build until she can’t ignore my question any longer.
“Fine,” she sighs. “I don’t feel secure because I never know which version of you I’m getting. The escort? The devoted dad? The wannabe lawyer? The fake boyfriend?”
“Does it matter?” I ask, genuinely curious. “They’re all me.”
“Are they, though?” She leans forward, gaze intense. “How do I know what’s real and what’s performance?”
“We agreed to this arrangement,” I insist. “I didn’t lie to you about being an escort. I omit details, sure, because I don’t like talking about women like they’re conquests. I keep intimacyprivate. Other than me spilling my guts about all the women I’ve been with, I can’t for the life of me figure out what came alive and jumped up your ass after we fooled around. What is it, Sora? I keep going over it in my mind… Did I come on too strong while we were painting? Did you feel forced or pressured? Are you upset because we didn’t fuck? I’m at a loss. Just talk to me.”
Whatever billionaire sophistication I was harboring has gone out the window.
“That was direct,” she remarks with startled eyes. “You’re really not into the miscommunication trope, are you?”
My eyes pinch in confusion. “What?”
Before she can answer, the captain approaches to inform us we’re nearing the Statue of Liberty, our turnaround point.
“Want to see the view from the upper deck?” I ask Sora.
She takes the offered escape route, standing gracefully. “Lead the way.”
The night air feels cool as we climb the steps. City lights spark across the water, the stars barely visible above. The Statue of Liberty stands ahead, illuminated against the dark sky.
“It’s stunning,” Sora says, moving to the railing. “I’ve lived here my whole life and somehow never done this.”
“Never taken a dinner cruise?”
“Never been on a yacht,” she corrects. “Not even my dad has money like this. And even if he did, he wouldn’t spend it on romance.”
“I’m starting to understand why your parents didn’t work out,” I joke.
“You don’t say,” she joins in, a flicker of her usual sassy demeanor returning.
“Celeste is a special case,” I offer. “All that stuff you said earlier about taking the world for yourself, hanging your own moon? Even rich women do that. Celeste, and my boss, Rina, both married into wealth. But they weren’t afraid to walk awayand carve their own path when love was lost and all that remained was money.”
Sora nods in agreement. “I respect the hell out of that. My mom was the same. She never wanted to be with a celebrity author. She just wanted to be seen.”
She leans over the railing. Her repaired dress, messengered over this morning, has little sparkles in the tulle now. It wasn’t like that at the wedding. Celeste certainly knows how to enhance a gown.
“I was a jerk to you, and I’m sorry. I felt guilty, so much so, I bought Dakota a lot of new toys. I also stocked the fridge with kid-friendly things, but also healthy stuff.”
I rub my palm in slow circles against her lower back. “You were a jerk to me, yet you’re doting on my daughter?”
“Yeah,” Sora says, eyes fixed on the water. “She’s the way to your heart. Anybody who knows the real you can see that.”
Knows the real me.I like how that sounds. “True. Is that what you’re after? My heart?”
“No,” she squeaks, whipping around. She looks scared, like I just pressed a self-destruct button and now we’re waiting for the apocalypse to commence.
