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She made it back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat. The seatbelt was in her hand. Then she let it go. “Why did you have to come here Bryce? I was just starting to have moments when I stopped thinking about you.”
Her fingers tapped the steering wheel, while her mind and heart fought over what she should do. The logical thing would be to start the car and leave. To put Bryce and this whole disaster in the past.
“Damn.”
Car keys dangling from her fingers, she marched back to the beach seat and dropped down beside Bryce letting out a resigned sigh. “Why are you still here, Bryce? Can’t get the private jet out of the hanger?”
He glanced over at her and gave her a weak smile. “Planet Billionaire is on the other side of the moon’s orbit right now, so I am stuck here on earth.”
Bryce pointed out to sea, to the cruise ship distant on the horizon. “I’ve never been to this city before, our nearest resort is in Dallas. According to my quick google search, Galveston is a big port for cruise ships. Have you ever been on a cruise?”
Vivian shook her head. This was a strange conversation, but just being here with him seemed the only place that was right. She hadn’t been able to find the willpower to turn on the car’s ignition and drive away.
“Me neither. We have a couple of cruise ships under one of the other leisure branches of the House of Royal, but they sail in the Mediterranean around the Greek isles. Of course I have been on the odd yacht or two. My planet has quite a few of them.”
He was taking her to task for her earlier angry remark about him going back to Planet Billionaire. But his words rang true. He did come from a different planet. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it must be like to hail from a family who had created a major international conglomerate with luxury businesses all over the world.
Men like Bryce Royal didn’t fall for girls like her.
His gaze drifted over her bare legs, up to her short skirt, where it lingered. “No sexy blue dress tonight?”
Vivian gave him a side-eye. “This is Texas, and besides Gaido’s isn’t the sort of place where you take silk.”
“Gaido’s?”
“It’s a local famous seafood restaurant, that’s where I was headed when I spotted you.”
“I’m really sorry Vivian. I mean it.”
She still didn’t trust him and hated what he had done to her. He’d come to an entirely wrong opinion of what their time together in California had meant to her.
“I can’t believe you really thought I had used you just for sex, and that my review was an attack on your skills as a lover. Bryce, we shared a wonderful night together.”
She wasn’t going to confess that she was sure if they had spent more time with one another that she would have fallen for him.
“That’s why I flew here. To apologize in person. Anything less would not have been right. You deserve to know that I am truly, deeply, sorry.”
It would be easy to accept his words, then let him go. What was done was done. But she couldn’t do it.
“Have you eaten?”
Bryce shook his head. “Figured I’d see what the resort nachos look like. It pays to benchmark against your own in house offerings. Though I expect someone has put two and two together by now and figured out who has taken the presidential suite. I checked in under my real name, so I don’t expect I will be getting the run of the house food and beverage service.”
Vivian got to her feet. “Come on, you might be a billionaire asshole, but let’s at least share a meal. Break bread and call a truce.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
She was asking him out to dinner. This was more than Bryce had dared hoped for with Vivian. Of course he was going to take it. If the relationship gods of the internet were watching, he was sure they would be giving him two solid thumbs up.
He struggled up from the hard concrete bench. With early starts at the office and some unplanned cross country travel, his gym routine had fallen away. As soon as he got back to New York, he would have to do something about getting an exercise bike and tread installed in his apartment.
“I would love to join you for dinner, Vivian, my treat,” said Bryce.
She shook her head. “I’m getting the check for tonight. And besides, you paid for our meals in California. I would like for us to part not feeling that either was owed anything.”
Her words spoke of having been made to feel somewhat less than him.
I did that, and I will forever regret it.
