Billionaires Dollar Series

It breaks against him like a ship against an iceberg, unyielding and unforgivable. “Tell Cole and Skye,” he repeats. The gentleness in his voice isn’t the same as mine-his is cold. “And then what? Do you expect us to arrive to dinner at their house hand-in-hand and announce that we’ve decided what, exactly? To get to know one another better and please wish us luck?”

The scorn in his voice… Is that so unthinkable? “Why not?” To my horror, my voice wavers. “There’s no rush, but yeah… one day, eventually, I do kind of hope we’d do that.”

Nick shakes his head, pushing away from me gently. “I can’t do that. I can’t be that for you.”

“Why not?” I hate the smallness of my voice, the meek question.

Nick pulls at the dark fabric of his coat. It stretches across his shoulders, struggling to contain an uncontainable man. I can empathize.

“Can’t you imagine it?” he says. “What they’ll say, what they’ll think. It won’t work.”

“Nobody will care.”

“Everybody will care,” he says. “Have you never read the newspapers, Blair? You’re admired far more than you’re scorned.”

“You think I care about what people might say about us? People I’ve never even met?”

“I know you would,” he counters, throwing an arm out in the direction of my couch. “You just punched everyone who ever critiqued your business sense. What will you do when they critique who shares your bed? You think I don’t know that everyone in your circle, your own mother included, wonders why your brother claims me as his friend?”

He’s thought a lot more about this than I have.

I shake my head. “That won’t happen. And if it does, I’ll handle it. Just give me more pillows to punch.”

“You say that now,” Nick mutters, a hand on the handle of my front door.

“You’re leaving?”

“I don’t see us getting anywhere with this discussion right now,” he says, and the tone in which he speaks… it’s the same one I’ve heard him use for years. Cold, dismissive.

The door shuts behind him with a decisive sound. I sink down onto my couch with a sick feeling in my stomach. How had everything changed so quickly? Where, exactly, had the day gone wrong? I’d fallen asleep in his arms, closer to him than I’d ever been before, and now he’s running as fast as he can.

A puppy would probably be easier to manage, I think, but I don’t even have the energy to smile at the thin joke.

“Are you certain?” Gina asks, the professional concern in her eyes warming me.

“I am,” I say. “I feel like I’ve done all I can to consult on B. C. Adams’ new image and inventory. The rest is up to your financial team and marketing experts.”

She nods reluctantly. Both of us know I’m making sense. “I understand that, and I can imagine that you have a lot of projects competing for your time. It’s a shame, though. You have a keen understanding of this industry and I’ll be the first to recommend that we bring you back if we have need of it.”

Is it possible to grow a few feet from praise alone? I feel like I have. “Thank you, I truly appreciate it. Would you mind informing Mr. Park about my letter of resignation during your afternoon meeting?”

“Not at all.” Faint speculation is in her eyes. “I was under the impression that you were family friends, though.”

“Oh, we are, but he’s nothing if not busy. I’ll call him tonight and explain.”

She taps her fingers against my desk. “Very well, then. Feel free to leave your keys and access pass here when you leave.”

I release a shaky sigh as she walks away.

This is the right thing to do. I accepted this job to prove a point to Nick and Cole, and the point has been made. B. C. Adams’ profit margins are getting better by the day.

I leave the office without having glimpsed Nick once that day. Professionalism to the very end, I think, gathering up my few belongings and waving goodbye to his assistant. The decision feels like one of those punches that Nick wanted me to throw in my living room. He goes after what he wants, and so would I.

And if he believed we couldn’t work together and still be involved, I’ve just made it really, really simple. I’d rather have him than this job.

But he doesn’t pick up when I call to tell him that.

He doesn’t pick up the day after, either. My two texts-one polite, one mildly frustrated-go unanswered. Is he still upset from when he’d stormed out of my apartment?Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

It’s hard to ignore the feeling that you’re a fool. It creeps up when you least expect it, resistant to common sense and rationality. We’d had one little fight. Hardly even a quarrel. Practically a disagreement. A discussion. And then he’d run?

It didn’t seem like the Nick I’d gotten to know, the man who steered his company with an iron grip, who was competitive to a fault, who was proud and private and shockingly loyal.

But it did seem like the actions of a man who had a decade’s experience of keeping women at arm’s length. And that thought made me feel more foolish than any other. That I’d had the arrogance to think I’d be the one to make him change.

On the fourth day post Puppygeddon, as I was beginning to think of it, I ask Cole to come over to my apartment. With no work and no Nick, there has been nothing to distract me from my own business plans.

And it’s time to throw another one of those punches.

“What’s this?” Cole asks, standing on the threshold to my office. “I didn’t even know this room existed-you’ve kept it closed for years. It’s not a spare closet?”

“Nope. I’ve been working on something.” I’m standing by the rack of clothing, nerves racing through me. I feel like I’m seven again and asking him to play with me, scared he’ll say no.

Cole steps inside. The change when he starts to realize what he’s seeing is instantaneous. His face grows sharp, his business persona, the one I’ve seen him adopt a thousand times. “Blair, what is this?”

So I tell him. I lay out the entire launch schedule I’ve plotted out over the last couple of days. I show him pieces and sketches. Packaging design. I even hand him the spreadsheet of my financial calculations.

My brother reads it all-every word, every cent, every thing he’s shown. The quiet concentration on his face is the greatest compliment he could pay me, even if he hasn’t commented yet.

And then the questions start. Where do you store your stock? Who’s your distributor? What’s the long-term vision?

I answer all of it to the best of my ability, and when I’m done, he sinks into my office chair. “Well,” he says. “I’m very impressed, Blair.”

“You are?”

“Yes. You’ve mapped it all out meticulously. There are some areas where I think you should hire outside expertise, but overall… you’re set.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “I’m hurt, actually.”

“Hurt?”

“You must have investors already, but it’s the first time I’m hearing about this. My money not good enough?”

I shake my head. “No investors.”

“How are you paying for all this?” And then, his narrowed eyes. “Your inheritance?”

If I speak quickly, perhaps I can pre-empt his anger. “I wanted to do it on my own. If this doesn’t work out, if it’s not a success… I couldn’t have you or someone else take the financial hit again.”

Great. Now he looks offended. “You thought I wouldn’t help you?”