Reunited by the Tycoon's Twins

‘And after...’

‘After I dropped out of uni I had to accept that it was never going to happen. I missed my chance.’

She took a few long breaths and Finn kept his eyes on the city, giving her the privacy he knew she needed to compose herself. He sensed her straighten her spine, push her shoulders back and he finally glanced over at her.

‘It’s not too late,’ he told her. ‘If you want to go back. You could finish your degree.’

She shook her head, her expression fixed and fierce. ‘That ship has sailed. It’s sunk. It was in flames as it went down. There’s no way that I’m going back into that world. Not if it means explaining what happened.’

He laid a hand on her shoulder, wishing he could offer more comfort than that. That he could take her in his arms and protect her as every muscle in his body was urging him to do. But their lives were more complicated than following base urges. There was too much at stake to ignore all the reasons why she needed protecting from him as much as from anyone. What she needed was support, and the only way he could really give her that was by absolutely indisputably refusing to fall in love with her.

‘But you still want it,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have to tell anyone what happened if you don’t want to. Lots of people go back to university.’

She whipped round to look at him. ‘And how would I pay for it? It costs ten times what it did when I was there before. Even just repeating the final year is beyond what I can imagine being able to afford. I don’t know if the credits from the earlier semesters are even valid any more so I might have to repeat those too. That’s before I even get to the question of where I would live and what I would eat. It’s impossible, Finn, so please just leave it.’

‘Of course it’s not impossible. I’ll pay for it.’

The look of horror that she shot him hit him straight in the gut, and he recoiled at the anger on her face. He couldn’t believe that he had just offered that. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it. His personal finances had been incredibly rocky around the time of his divorce, but some judicious investments had paid off, so that he could breathe easy again at night rather than lying awake, worried that he was bringing two babies into a world that was too precarious for him to be able to guarantee that they w

ould always be well fed and warm.

‘God. No, Finn. Absolutely not. That’s never going to happen.’

‘Why not?’ He had helped hundreds, maybe thousands of people go to university by now with his scholarship funds and early intervention programmes he had started early in his career, wanting to see other kids like him follow him up that ladder. Of course he would pay her tuition. Her housing. Whatever she needed.

‘Because it would be weird,’ Madeleine said. ‘And inappropriate. And uncomfortable.’

‘Weirder or more uncomfortable than me eating breakfast at your house every day for seven years? Uncomfortable like me wearing Jake’s hand-me-down school uniforms? Weird like that time I came on a family holiday with you?’

‘That’s different,’ she said, though they both knew it wasn’t. He let it slide this time. ‘Anyway, what would we tell Jake?’

‘How about to mind his own business?’ Finn offered. ‘Or we don’t tell him anything. Or, um, I don’t know, something outrageous like I’m helping you out because you’re family and because I want to and I’m in a position to.’

God, there were a lot of ‘I’s in that sentence, he realised as he stopped speaking. This wasn’t about him. It was about her. If he didn’t think that it was what she wanted, he wouldn’t be pushing this. But there was something about the way that she had looked out the window that made him think that she hadn’t given up on this dream just yet. That she still wanted it. That if he could help with the practicalities, clear obstacles from her way, she could go back to it.

‘He’d ask awkward questions.’

‘Like what? It’s not like there’s anything going on between us. We have nothing to hide from him. He can ask what he likes.’

His words seemed to freeze out the rest of the world, because he had never in his life heard something that was so completely true and such an enormous lie at the same time. They hadn’t slept together, hadn’t even kissed. They had both sworn that nothing like that was ever going to happen between them. And yet they were stupid if either of them truly believed that there was nothing going on. Because he was fighting the urge to kiss her every minute they were together. And the urge to fall in love with her every second.

Love? When had he started thinking like that? She had only been back in his life for a few days. For years of his life he had seen her every single day. Eaten meals with her. Gone on holiday with her. Why was this only happening now? Was it just because they were all grown up? Was it because she’d ditched the baggy clothes and raised her eyes from the floor? Was it because he was finally grown up enough to realise just how beautiful she was? Or because he was suddenly divorced and single again for the first time in years?

No, he knew that wasn’t it because that was all superficial bull, and if there was one thing that he knew for certain about these feelings that had been growing for Madeleine these last few days it was that they were anything but superficial.

It was that for the first time in his life he was in a room with Madeleine and felt completely her equal. Something that he had never felt when they were growing up. But he had built this business from nothing and he was proud of it. Hadn’t realised it was possible to feel prouder, actually, until she had said that she was proud too. And he had never felt so valued, so truly seen as he did standing here with her right now. She didn’t see the kid he’d been, as he so often thought that Jake did. She didn’t see the CEO he’d become, like everyone else in this building, the failed husband, the man who had lost his home and taken his business to the brink little more than a year ago. She saw the whole person. Everything he had been. Everything he had worked so hard to overcome and become. Everything he still wanted to achieve. No wonder things had been so intense between them. But that wasn’t love, or attraction. It wasn’t even friendship, he told himself. It was just knowing someone at two extreme moments in their life. He was almost sure that he could convince himself of that.

Hart burbled behind them and he crossed to the pushchair, his arm brushing against Madeleine’s as she followed him and picked up Bella.

‘Do you want me to take them somewhere so you can get some work done?’ she asked, and he felt the No in his gut before it made it to his lips.

‘Hang around for a bit,’ he said, hoping his voice sounded more level than he felt. He crossed to the double doors of the supply cupboard at the far end of the office and opened them, flicking on the light with his elbow. It was only when he heard the warm chuckle from behind him that he realised how strange it must look.

CHAPTER TEN

‘YOU KEEP THE babies in a cupboard?’

Madeleine laughed and took a step closer to investigate. The floor was covered with soft play mats, layered two or three deep over foam tiles locked together on the carpet. Fairy lights and gauzy fabric criss-crossed the walls and draped from the ceiling, and when Finn hit another switch, swirling stars were projected over the whole space and the notes of a nursery rhyme tinkled from a hidden speaker.