The Player + The Pact = I Do (New York City Billionaires #2)

Chapter 12

TWELVE

Leo

Jules is much better company than I expected. I thought she’d scuttle into her room as soon as I got home, and I wasn’t about to coax her out, but cooking with her? Chatting? Having a to-and-fro? It’s fun. And… not what I expected.

“That’s really nice tequila,” she says. “Get that imported too?”

“Ha, but no. I got it from Costco,” I lie.

“You did not,” she says. I like the fact that she calls me out. Most people, especially most people who work for me, would never dare. “I bet you’ve never been to Costco in your life.”

I chuckle at all her assumptions. She’s trying to put me in a very defined box and that never works. Not for anyone, in my experience. “You’d be surprised.”

She mixes the pasta into the sauce and I pull out an oven dish. “Thanks,” she says, a note of surprise in her voice. Clearly an oven dish is “off-brand” as far as she’s concerned.

She pours in the mac and cheese and my stomach rumbles. Proper comfort food. There’s nothing like it.

“So surprise me,” she says.

I frown, confused. What’s she wanting? Me to dress up in a Spiderman costume for dinner? Or maybe Wolverine.

“You said I’d be surprised. You a Costco regular?” She sprinkles some grated cheese onto the top of the dish and slides it into the oven.

“Oh, right. Honestly? Not recently. But as a kid I would go with my dad all the time. He had a bakery in Brooklyn and we’d go a lot.”

A grin explodes on her face. She’s really fucking beautiful. I’ve always been vaguely aware that if you stripped off the thick-framed glasses and made her smile, Jules would be pretty, but I don’t think I realized just how gorgeous she is. Maybe I’m just a sucker for a girl in sweatpants who can cook mac and cheese.

I pick up the tequila bottle and pour out two more shots.

“So that’s why you know your way around a kitchen? It’s in the family. You said before that you didn’t come from money.”

“Not at all.”

She looks at me for a long beat and I swallow under her gaze. It’s like she’s seeing right through to the heart of me. Like she’s been looking at me through fog until now and it’s finally cleared. “That’s nice, I think.”

“It’s nice that I grew up poor?” I ask on a laugh.

“I think it makes you more… interesting,” she says.

“Less on-brand?”

She laughs. “Yeah, maybe. ”

I pick up both shot glasses and hand her one. She looks a little panicked.

“You don’t have to have another,” I reassure her.

“That’s the problem,” she replies. “I want one.”

I freeze. Does she have a drinking problem? Have I just enabled her addiction or something? Shit.

She laughs. “You look worried. Don’t worry, I won’t start playing air guitar and flashing you my boobs if I have another. It’s just, you know, even though I’m not your assistant anymore, you’re still my boss.”

“That’s another thing to drink to,” I reply. “You have another job. If you don’t want the shot, don’t take the shot, but can we agree on one thing?”

Her eyes widen slightly and I really want to know what she thinks I’m going to suggest. Her imagination is likely far more potent than the reality. “This is my apartment and my home. I don’t want to be a boss here. As soon as I step outside those doors, the only time I’m not… I’m always someone’s boss or a developer, someone people want something from. When I’m here… When I’m with my friends, I’m just Leo. And I’d like to be just Leo when you’re around, if that’s okay?”

Her eyes soften. I can tell she’s not going to try to negotiate with me.

She takes the shot glass from the counter and raises it. “Just Leo.”

Our gazes lock, and I’m sure she’s holding herself back from saying something else. But I want to hear it. She’s funny and interesting and I want her to feel comfortable around me.

She tips back the shot and, when she recovers, says, “We need a salad.”

I smile. Maybe I’ll hear what she really wanted to say later. “I have nothing salad-like in the apartment. Want me to order something?”

“I’m afraid I only eat salad from Le Bernardin.”

“Well, I get my salads from the deli on the corner of 73 rd and Amsterdam.”

She laughs. “Any salad will be just fine.”

I place an order with Door Dash and then dig about, finding cutlery and placemats. “I don’t use the dining room much. But maybe we should. The view from that room is great.”

“The views from all the rooms are great.”

I don’t know why I care, but I’m pleased she likes it. “I can’t argue. It was a big reason why I bought the place. We came to the US when I was fifteen and I always dreamed of having an apartment with amazing views.”

“What made you move from the UK?”

I pull out plates and napkins and together we take everything into the dining room. “My dad worked his whole life in a bakery in Slough, until one day he announced he’d bought a bakery in Brooklyn. My mum cried for weeks. She didn’t want to come. Didn’t want to leave her friends and family.” I shake my head. My dad was an arsehole for not talking to her about it before he went and did it. “It turned out fine. Her best friend ended up moving to Spain shortly after and she made friends here.”

“What about you? Did you mind moving countries?”

“Honestly, I didn’t have an opinion. My parents made the decisions. I just went along with it. But when we arrived, I knew I’d found the place I was meant to be.” I set the plates onto the dining table and look out across the city. “I felt excited. Like my future was going to be… different. I’d grown up in a neighborhood where everything was the same, and looking back, it probably had been for generations. Ev eryone had a house with a front garden and a back garden. The grass was mown by the dads on Saturdays while the mums did the shopping. Sundays were about washing the car and a roast dinner and then the week started again. I never questioned it until we came to America. In Brooklyn, where we lived, on the way to the park you could see the Manhattan skyline, and I sort of knew that the city was waiting for me.”

I glance over at Jules to find her looking at me, the reflection from the lights bouncing off the windows and lighting up her face, picking up strands of her dark brown hair and making them kinda glow. She’s gorgeous.

“Sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale,” she says wistfully.

I chuckle. “Met a few trolls along the way, but yeah. I feel so lucky we moved here.” The door buzzer goes and we both head back toward the kitchen. I collect the salad from the courier and she takes the mac and cheese from the oven and brings it over to the table.

“What about you? Do you feel lucky to be in Manhattan?” I pick up a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses on my way back to the dining room, then set about opening the bottle while she dishes out our food.

She sighs. I like the way she thinks before she talks. It strikes me that I don’t have many personal conversations with women. I have professional conversations, and some of them seem like they’re personal. I can laugh and joke and do whatever it takes to get the job done. And then in my social life, I’m not looking to share information about myself with a woman. When things are just physical, I’m not interested in where and how she grew up.

It’s been like that my whole life, with only one exception. Looking back, even with Nadia this summer, it was mainly about the sex. Every time I tried to connect with her, she’d get naked and I’d get distracted.

“It’s hard,” she says eventually as she takes a seat. I sit opposite her. “My mom has worked in hotels her entire life. She’s had a grueling time of it, and she wanted something better for me.”

Her words hit me at my core. I get it. That’s why she’s here, pretending to be my fiancée. She wants a better life for herself and to make her mum happy. Fuck. We’re so similar.

“And she got her wish,” I say. “You’re going to manage The Mayfair.”

“Temporarily,” she corrects.

“I’ve discovered tonight that I don’t know you that well. But from what I do know of you, I don’t imagine you’re going to let this opportunity pass you by.”

Her gaze falls on her plate, and I detect a slight blush across her cheeks. “You’re right.” Then she full-on laughs. “You’re totally right. You’ll have to have security lift me from the building if you want to fire me.”

I won’t need to. I have a feeling she’s going to be exactly what that hotel needs.

“I have something for you,” I say, and I quickly go and grab the Cartier bag that’s been sitting on the coffee table. “I just got something off the peg,” I say, setting the bag down next to the mac and cheese. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

She places her palm on her heart. “You didn’t have my engagement ring designed and made to order? I’m offended.”

I roll my eyes. “I just mean, do you think people will be suspicious?”

“It depends on the ring, I suppose.”

I lift my chin in the direction of the bag, inviting her to take a look and make a judgment for herself. She sets down her fork and takes the bag. “I just went online—” I start, but don’t get very far because she takes out the ring box, opens it, and screams.

“What?!”

“What?” I echo. I didn’t check the box. Did they fill it with joke shop spiders or something?

“ This is the ring you’re expecting me to wear?” She turns the box to me. It looks like the ring I saw online and called up about.

“Do you hate it?”

She splutters, “No, I don’t hate it! How could anyone hate it?”

“So why are you screaming like you’ve just seen a dead body?”

She glances between me and the ring, once, then twice. “It’s just gorgeous . I’m worried I’m going to lose it.”

“It’s covered on my insurance. You’re not going to lose it,” I say.

She’s still staring at it like it might bite her.

“Are you going to put it on?” I ask.

She pulls it out of the box and slides it on her finger. “It fits perfectly.”

It looks good on her. Appropriate.

“Don’t tell me how much it cost.”

I chuckle. “I won’t if you promise not to get too attached to it.”

She sighs. “I can’t promise that. But I can promise that I won’t cause you physical pain when you ask for it back.”

“Good compromise,” I say, taking a mouthful of mac and cheese. I groan. “This is so good.”

“It’s homemade mac and cheese,” she says. “Of course it’s good.” She grins at me and forks up a mouthful of pasta. Her eyes flutter closed, and I can’t take my gaze off her. “It’s good.”

I nod, and we continue to eat in happy silence, the ring glinting on her finger, just like we’re an engaged couple having dinner together. And it’s easier to believe than I thought possible. The woman opposite me is funny, ambitious, beautiful, and great company, and I’ve enjoyed tonight more than I thought I would. I’ve just got to make sure I don’t step over the line. I can’t fuck this up. For either of us.