Page 77 of BillionHeir
“Will you please call me Max?” I grit out.
“I am sorry, but seriously, Max,” she says, well and truly worked up.
Finally, I reach out and grab her, pulling her close to me and kissing her. I run my hands up and down her arms, soothing her even as I can feel my own heart start to race.
“Chloe, honey, it is going to be alright. If you don’t want to go with me tonight, you don’t have to. But it would mean a great deal to me if you did.”
I feel her start to relax in my arms where I still have her tightly wrapped for fear that she might run away, never to be seen again. She takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out.
“Okay,” she says, sounding much calmer. “But don’t you dare leave me alone. If I have to meet the royal family, I am going to need you to hold my hand.”
“Consider it done,” I respond. I would give her anything she asked for. Holding her hand all night long was a foregone conclusion in my mind. “Now, is this the dress?”
She twists out of my arms to look at herself in the full-length mirror once more and I immediately feel a void where she just stood.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
I grab the glass of champagne I set down earlier and take a sip as I observe the dress. It is not something I would choose for her, but I am not sure how to say that delicately.
“If you don’t love it, I don’t love it,” I answer safely. Truthfully, she could be wearing a burlap sack and I would still think she was the most beautiful woman in the world. But I want her to be confident tonight, and I can tell that she is not feeling it in this dress.
“Right,” she says, flipping through the rack of dresses. After she goes through a few of the options, her eyes light up. She pulls a long, flowing gold dress off the rack by the hanger and rushes into the dressing room. “Be right back.”
While she is gone, I have some time to sit back and relax. My mind drifts back to this morning after she left for the hospital. I barely got any work done due to fantasizing about the woman of my dreams. I think that is a first for me.
Women have never been a distraction for me the way they seem to be for other men. I have always been able to focus on my company and get my work done.
But all of that has changed since Chloe came along.
I don’t hate it as much as I would have expected.
I find I rather enjoy spoiling her. If I am not doing that, I am thinking of ways that I can spoil her in the future. I want to give her everything her heart desires.
I have been pulling some strings behind the scenes, setting up appointments to make sure that everything runs smoothly tonight. I have also been speaking with some doctors I have become connected with over the years. I don’t know all the specifics of Chloe’s mother’s diagnosis, but once I do, I am confident we will be able to find a treatment plan that works for her.
When she reemerges fifteen minutes later, she is back in a pair of well-fitting jeans and a black T-shirt.
“Where is the dress?” I ask, confused.
“The woman who has been helping me is having it wrapped up.”
“I don’t get to see it?” I pout.
“It is a surprise,” she says, walking up to me and taking the champagne flute out of my hand. My eyebrows rise as she brazenly takes a sip of it.
I swallow loudly before stuttering out a reply. “Well, then.”
When we get back to my hotel room where I have arranged the hair stylist and makeup artist to meet us, it is more of the same. I had hoped to be able to watch her transition from her natural beauty to bedazzled for our night out as it was happening, but instead she kicks me out.
“Shoo,” she says with a smile, pushing the bathroom door shut after giving me a sweet kiss to soften the sting.
If I wasn’t so enamored with her, I might be annoyed.
Instead, I am charmed.
* * *
“Wow,” I whisper when she finally emerges.
