New York Billionaires Series

“Yes, but I’ll be leaving soon.”

“No need, I’m already out. I’ll meet you there.”

“Tristan, I-”

But he’s already hung up.

I stare at the phone in my hand, blindly, wondering if that just happened. But there’s no denying the effect his voice and words have had on me. Adrenaline floods my system and launches me into action.

He’s coming here.

When I return to our table, I reach for the coat hung over the back of my chair. “I’m sorry, guys, truly, but I have to head out.”

“What? Why?”

“We just got here.”

“I know,” I say, “and I’m sorry. But we’ll have other nights. Congrats again, Quentin.”

He gives me a rare smile. “Thank you.”

“And don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself until it’s official.”

“Thank you. Both of the things I know.”

Toby winks. “And don’t… oh my God. What is he doing here?”

Their eyes are both locked on a point somewhere over my shoulder, and I still, too scared to turn around.

“Frederica,” he says, drowning out the sounds around us. My hands shake as I tie the waistband of my coat. When I turn… there he is, standing in a suit and a navy overcoat, his thick hair dusted with snowflakes. A tan across his skin.

Seeing him feels like coming home, like something clicks inside of me, and I know I’ve made the right decision to stay in New York.

“You came here,” I say.

“I did,” he confirms, looking past me to Toby and Quentin. He gives a single, professional nod in their direction.

“Gentlemen.”

A glance over my shoulder tells me they’re in a complete and utter state of shock.

“I need to speak to Ms. Bilson for a moment,” he says. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.” He steps aside and motions to the exit, the length and breadth of him easily giving us space in the crowded bar. I wonder who else in here is from the office. Who might be watching.

But I can’t find it in myself to care.

“See you tomorrow,” I tell Toby and Quentin.

“Um, sure. Have fun?”

Tristan holds the front door open for me and we emerge on the busy sidewalk, the cold New York air a comfort to my fevered senses.

“Thank you for meeting me,” he says.

“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.”Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“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?”