Page 6 of Oops I Fell For The Billionaire Next Door

We sit on opposite sides of her kitchen table. Rain hammering the roof. She wraps both hands around the mason jar. Steam rises between us.

"Why'd you really move up here, Beck?"

The question is direct. No softening. She asks questions the way she does everything, like the answer matters and she won't waste time pretending it doesn't.

"Because I'm thirty-seven years old and I couldn't name a single person outside my company who'd notice if I disappeared."

Her fingers tighten on the jar. The crack widens.

"That's either very honest or very sad."

"Probably both."

She sets the jar down. Leans back in her chair. Studies me the way she studied that post before she committed to the hole.

"My parents ran a restaurant in Vancouver for twenty-two years. Haitian food. Best griot in the city. The landlord sold the building out from under them when the lease was up. Everything they built, gone, because someone else held the deed." She says it flat. Factual. But her hand is flat on the table, pressing down. "That's why I bought this place. Outright. No mortgage. Nobody can take it."

"That's why you won't let anyone help you with it."

Her eyes snap to mine. "Accepting help means giving someone leverage."

"Or it means the concrete sets before the rain washes out your gravel."

The corner of her mouth twitches. Almost. Close enough that I feel it in my whole body.

"Finish your coffee, Rhodes. Then go home."

I finish the coffee. Walk to the door. Turn back. She's standing at the kitchen counter, rinsing the cactus mug by hand, careful with it. Rain in her braids. Mud on her arms.

"Thanks for the coffee, Desireen."

"Desi."

One word. Four letters. My hand pauses on the doorframe.

"Desi." I say it carefully. Let it sit on my tongue. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Beck."

She follows me to the porch. Why, I don't know. Maybe to make sure I actually leave. Maybe something else. The rain has eased to a slow, steady drip off the roofline, the kind that blurs everything beyond the porch into soft grey.

We're standing too close. The porch is narrow, barely enough room for two people side by side, and she's between me and the steps. Her shoulder almost touches my chest. A drop of rain falls from the overhang onto her collarbone, slides down the wet skin into the hollow of her throat.

Every functioning brain cell tells me to say goodnight again, walk down the steps, go home. Every other part of me is rooted to her porch watching a raindrop travel down her neck.

She turns. Looks up. Brown eyes almost black in the dim light, searching my face with an expression I haven't seen from her yet. No suspicion. No wall. Just a question she isn't asking out loud.

My hand lifts. Reaches toward her face. Stops. My thumb hovers a half inch from her cheek, close enough to feel the warmth coming off her skin. Close enough that she can see exactly what I want and decide for herself.

Her breath changes. Shorter. Quicker. Her chin tilts up. Just barely. A fraction. And my entire body goes tight.

Then a gust of wind sends a sheet of rain sideways across the porch, hitting us both like a cold slap. She blinks. Steps back. My hand drops.

"You're gonna catch pneumonia standing on my porch, Rhodes."

"Probably."

"Go home."