A Billionaire for Christmas

She locked the door behind him. “I have a countertop.”

He set the boxes and cups on the table and held the flowers out to her. Ivory roses and white Narcissus blooms filled the brown paper cone. “To celebrate your first trip to Paris.”

She stared at the flowers for a moment, gathering herself. Francis had never brought her such extravagant flowers, and he was the one who was supposed to be here in Paris with her, buying her flowers and seeing it together.

After nearly a year with Francis, marrying him had seemed inevitable.

Instead, this beautiful, impossible man had brought her flowers and breakfast in Paris.

He tilted his head. “You’re crying again.”

“I am not,” she said, wiping her face on her tee shirt again. She gulped some air and said, “The flowers are just so beautiful that they caught me off guard. And it was so nice of you to bring me croissants.” She took the flowers, the paper crackling in her fingers. “I’ll put these in some water. I really do appreciate them, Augustine.”

His smile was wary. “Are we still doing the ‘Augustine’ thing?”

“Yes.” She found a plastic water pitcher among the assorted useless things in the kitchen cabinets and filled it with water for the flowers. “Yes, and I don’t want to talk about why. Don’t tell me who or what you really are. Just be a mystery, okay?”

“All right,” he said, though he was still frowning, and his eyebrows still pinched together.

“It’s not about you,” she said. “It’s about me. I just don’t want to be me anymore. I want to be somebody, anybody else. I want to be a superhero or a princess in disguise.”

His dark eyebrows twitched.

She continued, “But I’m pathetic and stupid, and I want to be anybody else, so you can be someone else, too. Otherwise, I’d feel bad about lying to you.”

Augustine closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m following your logic.”

“That’s because there isn’t any. Just accept it, okay? Let’s just do it.”

He spread his hands. “All right. I’m game. It’s probably better, anyway. For the time being, my name is Augustine, and I owe you a coat. Is your name actually Dree?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, wincing because he’d caught her. “I was too drunk to make something up. My name is Dree, and I shall call you ‘Auggie.’”

He cracked up, laughing long and hard from his gut. He placed one hand on his lean, flat stomach as if his tummy were going to split open. When he wound down, he said, “Auggie, yes. By all means, let’s call me Auggie. Friends of mine will perish when I tell them this. Can we eat breakfast? I’m famished.”

“Sure. Didn’t you get something to eat while you were out?”

“I don’t eat in the mornings. I have to attend—” He stopped talking and frowned.

“The gym?” she offered.

“Right,” he said, drawing out the word. “I have to attend the gym.”

She set the pitcher of white flowers on the bedroom dresser by where Augustine was standing. He opened the box and began setting out the food on paper napkins he’d brought. Inside the box, a stack of a half-dozen croissants nestled little tubs of butter and strawberry jam.

She said, “Strawberry is my favorite! That is so sweet of you.”

He smiled at her, and his dark eyes crinkled at the edges. “Mine, too.”

Dree found some knives in a drawer, slathered butter and jam on a croissant, and bit into the flakey, buttery heaven. Brittle layers shattered in her mouth, and tender layers inside collapsed when she bit down. “Oh, my God. This is nothing like those little crescent rolls from the tube. Those are just bread.”

He raised one eyebrow while he ripped off a hunk and stuffed it into his mouth. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Those little rolls in the tube, and when you open the tube, it explodes and you jump.”

He shook his head as he spread jam on his croissant.

“Must be an American thing.”

The way his lips closed around the pastry and he sucked on his thumb made Dree’s knees flinch. Damn. She tried not to watch him nibble and lick the French pastry and failed.

She wanted to be the croissant, but she wasn’t supposed to see him or touch him ever again.

Stupid bucket-list napkin, bossing her around.

When Augustine had finished chewing the last bite, he glanced up at her. “Are you going to tell me why you were crying?”

She shook her head and concentrated on buttering her next bite of croissant.

“Then lie to me,” he said, reaching for another croissant.

What? “Lie to you?”

“Yes.” He tore another croissant to pieces with his long fingers. “That’s what you said we should do. If you don’t want to tell me the truth about why you were crying, tell me lies.”

It was completely ridiculous, so she laughed at him. “Okay, I don’t even know how to start.”