Page 65 of The Wedding Pact

‘Okay. So who are the people that you’d pick up a phone call from? Only the folks who mean a lot to you, right? Like Elliot?’

‘Yeah. Kit and Elliot, definitely. We’re in regular contact still, even though we don’t work together any more. But we usually message each other. It’s rare we talk on the phone. So it would have to be about something really serious if they did phone me. Which would be alarming.’

‘I wouldn’t usually call a mate either. It seems invasive, somehow.’

‘Yeah. Which is crazy because we’ll let a text message on our phone distract us from a conversation in the room with someone, which is also invasive.’

‘But you do have a choice about when to answer it. Not like a call. It’s very immediate.’

‘True. With calls, it feels like you have to be on your A-game and able to give sensible answers without having time to think about it first.’

‘I guess that’s why I liked our chatroom DMs. It gave me a chance to finesse my responses.’

Raffa holds up a finger. ‘Speaking of – I missed someone off my take-a-call-from list,’ Raffa says.

‘Oh yeah. Who?’

‘You.’

Warmth pools in my chest. ‘Me?’

‘Yeah. I’d consider you a good friend now. And I feel like I owe you big time for coming to this thing with me and being so cool about it all.’

‘You really consider me a good friend?’ I can’t stop a smile of delight from pushing at the corners of my mouth. So much for being cool.

‘Sure. Don’t you consider me one?’

‘I guess.’

Raffa holds a hand over his heart. ‘Ouch.’

‘No! I didn’t…’ I let out a low breath and shake my head at myself. ‘Of course I consider you a good friend.’

The server approaches the table with a cafetière of coffee and pours us each a cupful, which we both pick up to drink immediately.

I’m grateful for the interruption. It was all getting a bit too emo for comfort.

Once we’ve given her our meal choices, we turn back to each other, the atmosphere a little strained now.

Raffa surprises me by asking, ‘Do you have a lot of other chatroom mates, other than me?’

I cock an eyebrow. ‘Why? You jealous?’

‘No. Just making conversation.’

If I didn’t know in my bones that there’s no future in this – not with a workaholic billionaire, and I know a workaholic when I see one, having grown up in a house with two of them – then I might be more worried about how presumptuously I’m coming across. As it is, I don’t have an issue with showing him my authentic self, especially as there’s no potential real relationship to protect.

I’m just here to have a good time and maybe to get some fun anecdotes out of it.

So, I say, ‘Just you, dude. Just you.’

‘Good to know,’ he says with a wry smile.

We drink our coffee in silence for a minute.

‘Okay. Tell me something fun about the business world,’ I say, needing to break the quiet.

He seems to think about this for a moment, then leans back in his chair and smiles. ‘You know how humans love to count and rank things? That it gives us a sense of our place in the world?’