An Accidental Date with a Billionaire

“The point I’m trying to make is that for the last ten years, one or both of them have called me on my birthday, and for the last ten years, I’ve ignored the call.” She cleared her throat. “Until today. Today…I answered.”

He sat back down, forehead still wrinkled over the fact that it was her birthday and she hadn’t told him. Who cared, though, really? Birthdays stopped being fun once you were an adult. “And? How’d it go?”

“Horrible. She cried. I cried. She kept apologizing for what she’d done, and I…” She ran her hands down her face. “I almost wanted to tell her that it was okay. That I understood. That I was okay.”

He reached out, caught her hand, and held on to it tightly. “And are you okay?”

The bright green of his eyes drew her in, making her a little less shaky. But if she was going to do this…if she was going to tell him what they’d done…she could lose him.

This might be the end.

Was she ready?

She nodded. “I am, because of you. I didn’t realize it, but I was lonely before I met you. Being with you this past week and a half—”

“Is that all it’s been?” he asked in surprise.

“—has shown me that I shouldn’t have closed myself off to the world like I did. I shouldn’t have avoided”—she gestured between them—“this. What we have. For the first time in years, I’m happy, and it’s because of you, Taylor. You’ve made me happy.”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “I’m happy, too.”

“You are?” she asked, the words hard to get out past the giant lump in her throat.

“I am.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. “You showed me that relationships aren’t stupid after all. I always refused to budge from my plan, but being with you has shown me differently. Being with someone isn’t all that bad, if you’re with the right person.”

The problem was, she wasn’t the right person.

Not for him.

Yet, against all reason, against all odds, she wanted to be his happy ending. She wanted this to be real forever. Which meant… Oh God, she’d gone and done it.

She’d fallen in love with him.

Why else would she be dying to tell him how happy he made her, how she fell asleep smiling in his arms every night instead of hugging her pillow alone in the dark with tears under her cheek? Why else would she want to tell him the truth about her and let him decide whether or not she was worth the risk? Why else would she want to open herself up to that kind of rejection and pain, when he rightfully and inevitably said no?

Because she loved him.

And she wanted him to love her, too.

All of her.

She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

When they were done, he kissed the top of her head.

There was something in that gesture, in the innocence of it, which stabbed her straight through her heart, something that should have hurt but instead made her…whole.

Her throat threatened to close up on her when he kissed the spot between her eyes, tightening his hold on her. Then he held her and gave her what she needed right now: him.

“Happy birthday, Sammy.”

She buried her nose in his sweater and inhaled his scent deeply. “I’m sorry. I’m an emotional mess today. It’s just with this, and work today…ugh.”

He tilted her face up to his. The warmth shining in those green depths stole another piece of herself she’d been trying to keep. “You’re beautiful, and compassionate, and funny, and smart. Not a mess. Never a mess.”

She shook her head, stepping back. “How do you always say the right things?”

“I don’t know.” A frown creased his brow. “Are you okay? What happened today?”