The Billionaire's Proposal

I snorted and began to pull back the covers—only to realize a second later that I wasn’t wearing any pants. The blankets shot right back up in an embarrassing burst of speed, and Nick’s eyes swept innocently from the headboard all the way down—dancing with such an absurd intensity, I could swear the man had x-ray vision.

“What’s wrong?” he asked casually, keeping his voice as innocent as his face.

It was a well-delivered performance, but I had known him too long for that. My eyes narrowed suspiciously as I tucked the comforter firmly around my legs.

“Nothing at all, thank you.”

My voice went up a bit on the ‘you,’ emphasizing it with that girlish petulance that women used to tease and harass their men. It was an accidental gesture, but one that was met with what looked like genuine appreciation from Nick. His lips curled up in yet another smile, as he took a deliberate sip of coffee—changing the conversation in its tracks.

“So, I actually came here because I wanted to apologize...for last night.”

My breath caught in my chest, as I stared in wide-eyed anticipation. In all the million times I had replayed the kiss in the hours since it happened, the one emotion I didn’t feel was regret. It didn’t matter to me if it was courteous or made some kind of logical sense—I didn’t want to hear him apologize. I certainly wasn’t sorry it had happened. Just surprised.

“You do?” Much to my great surprise, a sinking wave of disappointment settled in my stomach. I tried to keep it from my voice. “Well that’s fine, you don’t have to—”

“For the press.”

Our eyes met, and I could have sworn, he was hiding a secret smile. I started nodding quickly, hoping like hell that I looked as casual as him.

“Right—the press. Yeah, that...that caught me a little off guard.”

For the first time, a look of genuine remorse flashed across his face. Followed almost immediately by a sympathetic grimace.

“When I called them, I had completely forgot...” He trailed off, then shook his head. “It does get easier—the cameras. In a few weeks, you’ll hardly notice them. I promise.”

It was a kind thing to say, but we both knew it was a lie.

The constant fury

, attack, and recoil of the paparazzi didn’t fade over time. As long as you were alive and a celebrity, you lived in a constant state of siege. When I was first coming up the ranks in the PR world, there wasn’t a single week that went by, when I didn’t get a screaming client on the phone demanding that I do something about the unrelenting pursuit of the press. Of course, such interventions were damn near impossible, and on most such days, I would simply sit and listen—interjecting at all the appropriate times—until the client had calmed themselves down, or tired themselves out, or simply gotten bored and wanted to move on to something else.

Nick was a lot better than most. It was a rare day indeed when you would see a crack in the perpetual armor. He hid the constant stress and anger beneath a carefully crafted smile, one that he had been perfecting since he was about four years old.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I muttered, remembering my near epileptic break down in the swarm of flashing lights. “I seem to remember a picture of you as a child comforting the Secretary General of NATO when the cameras got too intense.”

By now, in the folklore of our fair city, it was an iconic picture. Like the returning WWII soldier sweeping that woman off her feet. Lennon in his glasses. Things like that.

The two of them were on the steps of the MET. One kneeling down to his knee to be at the same height as the other. Nick, in his miniature tuxedo, giving sage advice to one of the leaders of the free world.

At least, that’s how the picture was captioned in the New York Times.

“Are you kidding?” Nick laughed softly and shook his head. “If anything, that picture proves my point. I was having a full-blown panic attack. Javier Solana took pity on me, knelt there and told me stories until I was able to calm down.”

My jaw dropped open as my messy bed-curls tumbled into my face—completely aghast at the debunking of such a famous pose. It was like hearing that Marilyn Monroe wasn’t really the one in the white dress. That Elizabeth Taylor didn’t really like diamonds.

“Seriously? You’re not just saying that?”

“Take a closer look.” He downed the rest of his coffee and tossed the empty cup onto my nightstand. “It’s why he kept a hand on my jacket—he was holding me steady.”

I clapped a hand to my chest, overwhelmed by the adorable tragedy of it all.

“...he was holding you steady?”

Nick shrugged dismissively.

“I was six. I got scared.”

Yeah. He was six. Then why was it that right now, I was feeling so protective of him?