New York Billionaires Series

I nod. “Yeah.”

He gives me a solemn two-eyed wink, not yet having mastered the art of using only one. “I get it, Dad. You want to become her best friend first, before you tell her you like her.”

My mouth opens, my brain drawing a blank. He’s using my own words against me. Clever kid.

“But you have to talk a bit more,” he advises me, dropping my sleeve. “You were too quiet!”

With the startling revelation that my kid just gave me advice about women, I follow him down the street, wondering if the world has completely turned on its head.

Joshua and I return to the apartment late that afternoon, carrying bags of stuff. Scented candles, gift cards, toys for Linda’s kids, a book on knitting for my mother. Joshua heads to his room as soon as we get home and leaves me with my thoughts. And like all roads lead to Rome, my thoughts take me to Freddie.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

The idea of her regretting the night in Boston is a sharp pain sliding between my ribs, lodging somewhere between soft tissue and my pride. It hurt that she’d rushed out like she did. But it hurt more to think she wished it had never happened at all.

Joshua is sound asleep when I call her that evening. She answers after the third eternity-long signal. “Tristan?”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Are you busy?”

She clears her throat. “No, I’m not.”

“Laundry’s all done? Grocery shopping?”

“Yes,” she says, sighing. “Of all the people in New York, I run into you two. What are the odds?”

“We’re pretty great people to run into.”

“You are,” she confirms.

I close my eyes as I ask the question, as if it makes it easier to imagine her face before me. Easier to picture what her eyes will look like as she replies. “Do you want to meet up tonight? I’d like to talk to you.”

The pause is excruciating.

“Okay,” Freddie says.

Blessed relief sweeps through me. “The deli?”

Another pause, this one more delicate. “Yeah. Or you could come to my place, if you’d like?”

“Absolutely. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll buzz you in.”

My nerves are on fire as I pull on my coat, as I let Marianne know I’ll be out. The brisk winter air doesn’t cool me down either.

Freddie’s pull is undeniable. My feet take me to her apartment door without conscious thought, my mind spinning possibilities in kaleidoscopic patterns.

She opens the door in a pair of black sweatpants and a sweater, her dark hair unbound around her face. “Hi,” she murmurs.

“Hey,” I say, a hand on the door. “Can I come in?”

She lets me in. The simple sound of the lock sliding in place behind me sends hot, erotic anticipation through me. Can’t be helped.

I reach for her, powerless in the face of her nearness. Her hands are warm in mine. “I know the other night wasn’t what you’d planned. What either of us had planned,” I say.

Her mouth opens on a soft exhale, but I barrel on. “Did your co-workers suspect anything when you met them?”

“No. Not at all, actually.”

“Good,” I say, and I mean it. “I understand why you’d want to keep it from them.”

She frowns. “I didn’t mean to rush out like that. The idea of them being in the same hotel, of potentially having to answer questions… of HR finding out…”

“I understand.”

“It was panic. I don’t like to panic.” Her eyes turn to our intertwined hands. A soft thumb smooths over the back of my hand, the smallest, tiniest of caresses.

“As long as you don’t regret it,” I say. My body feels like it might break if she says she does.

But Freddie shakes her head. “I don’t regret it.”

My eyes close at the relief of those four words.

“How could I?” she continues. “When it was everything I’ve wanted for weeks? You’re not the only one who’s been burning since the Gilded Room.”

She reaches up and runs the cool touch of her fingertips along my jaw. Soft. Sure. I bend my head and kiss her, and her arms twine around my neck, leaning into me with the same trust she’s shown from the start. The same trust that undoes me.

As much as I loved her body in the tight dress and heels, the feel of her in loungewear is almost better. It’s easy to slide a hand under the hem of her sweater, smoothing across the skin on her lower back.

She tugs off my coat, and I toss it over the single chair in her studio.

“I’m happy you’re here,” she says, running her hands over my chest.

“I wasn’t too forward in inviting myself over?”

Her grin widens. “No.”

Kissing her is like losing myself. All the titles, the roles, the worries, they melt away. She pulls me forward until we’re back on her bed, devoting ourselves to kissing. Freddie bends a knee to fit me more snugly against her, but my hand never rises further beneath her sweater than the curve of her hip.

When I finally lift my head, her lips are rosy and swollen. “I didn’t come here just for this, you know,” I murmur.

“I know,” she says, her hands sliding under the collar of my shirt. “But you’re not complaining, are you?”

“Never.”

Her smile beneath me is intoxicating, beckoning me back down. We lose another few minutes to kisses, but any time lost in that way is never wasted. She’s the one who tugs the sweater over her head.