Paris with the Billionaire

“Okay. You’re good, sis?” Kelly asks.

I stare at her, smiling, willing her to see the happiness rioting around my body, setting every single one of my nerves on fire.

“I’ve never been better,” I tell her.

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you both,” I say.

They end the call and I reach forward, closing the laptop lid and turning to Forrest with an eye roll.

Even now, after everything that’s happened, part of me still expects his face to warp into livid rage and demand to know just who the hell my family thinks they are. In my overactive writer’s mind, I envision him marching around the room, kicking things, flipping the table, roaring that they have no right to speak to him in that way.

But his smirk is unwavering, his eyes focused on me and me alone.

“Come here,” he says, leaning back on the couch and pulling me toward him.

I lie down and pressed up against him, feeling his desire pressing solidly against my back. But despite the way he grumbles and his body tenses, he doesn’t try to touch me like that.

He wraps his arms protectively around me and pulls me close, squeezing me right up against him.

I feel as if nothing in the whole world could harm us right now.

“Thank you for doing that,” I whisper, kissing his hand.

“They deserved to know how much you mean to me,” he growls. “I mean it, Fiona. I won’t let anything happen to any of you.”

“I’m sorry for ruining Paris,” I mutter. “If it wasn’t for me and my messed-up past, we wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“Everything about you is important to me,” he breathes huskily. “Your faults, your past, your perfections, and imperfections … I want it all. So don’t apologize for a single damn thing.”

I close my eyes and wriggle against him, savoring the closeness.

Chapter Fourteen

Forrest

“Snails for breakfast?” Fiona giggles.

I smirk across the table at her, unable to contain the light and joy that’s twisting up inside of me. I never thought a man like would me would feel this—feel anything, for that matter.

Sitting in the rooftop restaurant with my Fiona – with the sun making Paris shine below us – I can almost forget about the security milling about in the street below, ready to intervene should Zack decide to make a play.

I can almost forget about the way my uncle’s fists slammed into my head, the way he grunted and snarled as he did it, the animal.

For the first time in my life, I feel human.

“No, not snails,” I smirk, gesturing at the menu.

She smiles and rolls her eyes, radiantly alight in the fresh morning air. She’s wearing a light-fitting summer dress, the same sort she was wearing yesterday before she changed into the sequined number. It’s bright and colorful and settles against the curvaceous glory of her body like it’s begging me to tear it off.

My manhood throbs at the sight of her cleavage, her breasts heavy and juicy and so wonderfully big in her bra.

I have to fight a thousand urges each moment just to stop myself from reaching up and tearing the front of her dress down, revealing the beauty of her womanhood.

“Sorry,” she says, with another intoxicating laugh. “Escargots. My mistake.”

“What’s the matter?” I smirk, reaching for my drink. “You don’t feel up to the task?”

“Well, we didn’t get the chance yesterday,” she murmurs.

I sigh, nodding.

“I hate the bastard for that. I wanted last night to be special for you.”

“It was,” she rushes to say, her voice full of vivacity, magnetizing me to her. “Please don’t think it wasn’t. To be alone in that bookstore … I never dreamed I’d get a chance like that. You know it’s more than a hundred years old?”

“No,” I tell her. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah,” she says. “And a bunch of famous writers used to hang out there. It’s got quite the history.”

“One day people will talk about how the famous Fiona Yates visited,” I tell her passionately.

She turns away, her blush spreading across her face and down her neck. She has no idea what she does to me when her blush moves like that, turning every part of her the same shade as her sex, the way she brightened for me when I visited her the first night.

“You have too much faith in me.”

“Nope,” I grin, wolfishly. “I have just the right amount. Now, stop procrastinating, firecracker. Are we eating these escargots or not?”

“I guess it’ll be something to tell our grandkids about, huh?” she banters. “Snails for breakfast. Hey—that could be a good book title, don’t you think? Snails for Breakfast.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, I like it. You could do a sequel, too. Frog Legs for Lunch.”

“Squid for Supper.”

We laugh together, our combined voices rising up into the Parisian air.

She sighs contentedly and looks up at the Eiffel Tower, seeming insanely close from where we sit, as if any second we could reach out and touch the towering metal construct. We’re so close I can make out people walking around at the top, like tiny ants scuttling here and there.