Page 109 of Think Outside the Boss

“Of course. Wasn’t expecting you to be here so quickly, though.”

“I was in the area already.”

“Oh.” I take a deep breath. “It’s actually perfect, this, because I have to tell—”

Tristan shakes his head. “Let me go first, please. I need to tell you what I should have told you weeks ago, before you accepted the job in Italy. What I wanted to say.”

My mouth closes on my words. “You do?”

“I’ve been an idiot.”

“You have?”

A smile spreads across his features, and combined with the tan and the look in his eyes, he’s breathtaking. Every inch the handsome stranger I’d met at the Gilded Room all those months ago. “Freddie… Frederica. I want you, and I’ve vowed to never stop telling you just how much. Fuck, Freddie, do you know how deep inside of me you’ve crawled?”

A shake of my head and his words pour out, passion blazing in his gaze.

“I was in the crystal blue waters of Tahiti with my son. I was determined that I wasn’t going to hold you back in any way. I tried to be happy for you, genuinely. But you were there on that trip along with me, next to me the whole time, a phantom you. One I couldn’t reach out and grasp, couldn’t share my thoughts with, couldn’t sleep at night for thinking of.”

My throat is dry, a desert of emotion. “Tristan, I want you too. You know I do.”

“I do, Freddie, and I’ll never take it for granted again. So I’ll tell you what I felt like I couldn’t before, and perhaps it’s selfish of me, and if so, you’re free to hate me for it. But I don’t want you to go to Milan. I want you to stay here in New York with me.”

I open my mouth to respond, but he shakes his head. “But,” he interjects, “I know you have your dreams and goals, and I will never stand in the way of that. So if you’d like, go to Milan. I’ll be there as often as I can. As often as you’ll let me.”

I shake my head at him, but I’m smiling. “Tristan, I turned down the job.”

“You did what?”

“I turned it down,” I say. Above us, snow whirls in indecipherable patterns under the streetlight. “I just got to New York, and I want to stay here. I want to work at the headquarters and I want to live in my tiny apartment a bit longer.”

Tristan grips me around the waist. “You’re serious.”

“I am, oh I definitely am.”

He laughs, a deep, unbelieving sound, and then he bends his face to mine. Perhaps I should mind. There might be people from work passing by. But I can’t, and I don’t, because the feeling of his lips against mine is a promise and a balm after two weeks of uncertainty. He kisses me like it’s the first of many, many, many.

“I’ve already called my co-owners,” he murmurs as he lifts his head, thumb grazing my chin.

“Okay. Uhm, why?”

“Because I’m renouncing my title as CEO of Exciteur.”

“You’re doing what?”

“I’m not going to spend the coming ten months of your internship hiding, Freddie.” His hand slides down my arm to grip my hand. Long fingers twine through mine. “I want to show you around the city. Take you to my favorite spots, have dinner with you at restaurants, Sundays in the park. All of it.”

I grip the lapels of his coat. “But what about Exciteur?”

“One of my business partners will take over as CEO.” A trace of sly confidence appears in his smile. “I’ll still be able to influence decisions behind the scenes.”

“Of course you will,” I tease, but there’s no emotion behind it. Nothing can drown out the happiness bursting through me like a broken dam. “What will you do instead?”

“Perhaps,” he murmurs, lowering his head again, “I’ll take some time off.”

“Oh, will you?”

“Mhm. And if that doesn’t work, there’s a publishing company I’ve been looking to buy.”

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