The Billionaire's Proposal

“Wait,” I cut him off, trying to keep it all straight, “you were looking up crime statistics for my neighborhood?” There was a beat. “By yourself?”

For a second, his eyes cooled.

“I know how to work a computer, you know. I don’t just use them as coasters.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. There was another migraine coming on. And for the first time in years, I didn’t have a place of my own to run back to.

“Why were you looking up...” Then a more relevant question popped into my mind, and I changed course. “Wait—since what day?”

Nick paused, caught off guard.

“What?”

I opened my eyes and stared him down, growing more curious by the second.

“You said you looked them up after ‘our talk that day.’” I shook my head, more confused than ever. “We’ve never talked about my neighborhood. What day are you even talking about?”

Much to my great astonishment, Nick actually blushed. To my even greater astonishment, he bowed his head—looking suddenly shy.

“You know what day.”

My eyebrows lifted in surprise, and I shook my head.

“No—I actually don’t.”

“Come on, Abby.”

“Nick,” I emphasized each word, “I honestly have no idea what you’re—”

“After that day in Dior,” he interrupted. Now that the truth was out, he was suddenly in a rush to get it over with as quickly as possible. “I looked it up after that day we went shopping.”

I wished I could come up with something to say. I wished I could think of literally anything else to do besides just standing there. But again and again, I came up blank.

“...why would you do that?”

He stared at me for a moment, before raking his fingers back through his wet hair with a little sigh. “You said...you said you were proud of being able to take care of yourself, because in the neighborhood where you grew up—it wasn’t the easiest thing to claim.”

He remembered the quote exactly. That brilliant mind of his working again.

Not that it made any sense.

My face softened, and I took a step forward. “Okay, well...Nick, that isn’t exactly a rare thing. There are lots of neighborhoods around New York like that—”

“But you’re not living in them,” he interrupted fiercely.

A sudden silence rang out between us, one that grew more and more awkward the longer it was allowed to go on. Twice, we tried to break it. Twice, we came up short.

In the end, he merely bowed his head with another sigh.

“I’m sorry I moved you without permission, Abby,” he said softly. “I really am. If you don’t want to stay here, then I’d be happy to find you other arrangements. Not in Brooklyn.”

The surprises just kept coming.

My lips parted, and despite having stormed in here with enough rage to power the entire island, I found myself profoundly touched. There was a method to the ma

dness after all. He was trying to take care of me. In his own, bizarre, Nick way...

This time, it was my turn to avert my eyes. No matter how far the two of us might have gone yesterday, I simply didn’t feel right about seeing him naked. This was still supposed to be an arrangement, after all. I was still supposed to be able to determine between what was real.