by Katy Kaylee
“Sure.” Pippa didn’t sound like she believed me for even a second, and I knew she could see right through my ruse. It wasn’t a very good ruse, so I couldn’t blame her. For a moment she stood there, thinking, her lips pursed, and my heart sank. Claire had probably told her not to say anything, hadn’t she? I was sunk. But then Pippa sighed and spoke again.
“Claire always eats at the same diner every day that she has off. She’s there at nine thirty in the morning like clockwork. I’ll give you the address, and you can meet her there—but for one reason only.” Pippa’s gaze bore into me and I knew that I was definitely in the doghouse in some way. “So that you can make things right between you two. Claire’s not too keen on what happened. So you’re going to go and you’re going to fix things. Understood?”
“Ah, yes ma’am.” Taking orders from a person a good twenty years younger than I was, understandably, was not something I did often but I was pretty sure if I didn’t do as Pippa said she’d find a way to murder me and make it look like a medical accident.
“Claire’s next day off is Saturday,” Pippa informed me. “And if I hear from her that you made it worse and ruined her favorite diner for her…”
“Ah, got it, understood.”
Well, I wasn’t very well just going to show up to her favorite diner and just plop myself into the booth with her. Claire would be embarrassed. And I wanted to do something bigger than that, a grand gesture. I wouldn’t be surprised if Claire had heard about my reputation and I wanted her to know right off the bat that she wasn’t just another conquest for me. She wasn’t like any other person that I had been with before. Something inside of me yearned for her in a way that it hadn’t for any other woman I’d ever met, and I had to see this through.
It was easy enough to call the diner in question and ask to buy it out for a few hours on Saturday morning. At first the owner was confused, and explained apologetically that I would have to pay more than what they would usually make during that time, seeing as this was their busiest morning of the week. I offered to pay double what they made on their best Saturdays. Plus a five hundred dollar tip to all the people who wouldn’t be working in the diner that day as a result of my buying it out.
The owner agreed to go with it pretty damn quickly, let’s put it that way.
After that, I called the best florist in town and ordered a bunch of flowers, enough to fill a booth at the diner. Roses were traditional but I was already going pretty over the top as it was, and I didn’t want to be too cliché. Instead I went with camellia and baby’s breath with blue irises and hyacinths. They made a lovely bouquet and I wasn’t sure if Claire knew the language of flowers, but blue hyacinths stood for constancy, blue irises stood for faith and hope, camellias stood for love and affection, and baby’s breath stood for everlasting love.
If nothing else, I wanted Claire to see that I was one hundred percent serious about wanting to be with her, and in a serious relationship. Not a hook up buddy, not a casual fling, but a genuine relationship.
I couldn’t let this go without a fight.
Hopefully… just maybe… I could use this to show her how important she was for me. That I was willing to go out on a limb for her. Nobody else would be around in the diner, so there would be no pressure from people watching for her to say yes. I just hoped I could convince her to continue seeing me, the hospital rules be damned, because I was going crazy without her.
18
Claire
I was so glad it was finally my day off. The hospital was where I wanted to work, it was what I loved doing, but it was also draining and exhausting. My day off was my chance to relax—and I especially needed it right now, after Alex.
Seeing him every day, reliving what we’d had every day—it was really hard. More difficult than I had ever imagined it would be. I’d tried making my peace with it. It was just hormones, I kept telling myself. I’d never experienced sex before so it was just a holdover from that. It was a false sense of connection.
I didn’t know what was worse—the fact that I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about our night together or the fact that I was most likely just another notch on Alex’s bedpost.
Ugh. I needed this day off, definitely. I needed to stop thinking about Alex and get back on track. A relationship wasn’t possible between us and besides, who wanted a relationship? I certainly didn’t need the added stress or time commitment. Look at my parents and how they had turned out. They’d hated each other for far longer than they’d actually been married to each other. It wasn’t worth it.
I was just glad for the comfort of my routine, and the freedom of my day off. I would get breakfast at my favorite place, I’d go for a jog later, watch some TV, finish that book I’d been putting off…
Huh.
The diner that I ate at was oddly empty. Saturday mornings were the busiest of the week, and I was lucky that I was just one person and a regular so I could easily get a table. But right now there wasn’t anyone in here. Literally no one. I couldn’t even see any staff, although I could hear clanging in the kitchen which meant that there were at least cooks back there.
What was going on? Was there some kind of weird buyout or closure that I didn’t know about?
I looked around—and saw my usual booth. Only right now, it was covered in beautiful white and blue flowers.
Holy crap. What—what was going on here? This wasn’t just a random coincidence, I knew that. My booth, specifically, was covered in flowers and the diner was empty but there wasn’t any kind of sign out front and I’d been allowed to just walk on in? Yeah, it wouldn’t take a genius to know that something was up.
“I have to admit, I was worried that you would break with tradition.”
Alex’s voice came from a few feet behind me and I jumped in surprise, whirling around. He held his hands up in apology. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I gaped at him. “What—what are you doing here?”
Even as I said it, though, I knew. I knew that he was the reason this was happening. Only something of monumental proportions could’ve gotten a busy mom and pop grease diner in the middle of Boston to close on a Saturday morning, and a billionaire sure was something monumental. And who else would fill my usual booth with flowers?
I had to admit it was… it was a nice gesture, the flowers but the diner also being empty. If I’d walked in with the usual sea of people and seen the flowers I would have probably burst into tears of mortification. I was a private person and I had never had a relationship of any kind before. That included people trying to use grand gestures to ask me out. I was pretty sure that if anyone had been into me in that way, they’d been smart enough to realize that a large public gesture would have sent me into a tailspin of embarrassment and anger, so nobody had tried.
Except that Alex was apparently trying. And he’d circumvented my embarrassment by making sure that we had the entire place to ourselves, nobody watching to judge us. I didn’t see any of the staff and I was pretty sure that was because Alex had asked them not to watch.
It would have been really sweet, and really nice, except that I was also pretty sure that Alex had done this kind of thing for other women. I mean, he was practically a professional womanizer and he had billions of dollars to spare in setting up romantic little gestures like this. It probably wasn’t a big deal for him to do something like this for a woman he wanted to sleep with.
Except… he’d already slept with me. So why was he putting in all of this effort now, after the fact? I was a damn virgin before him, it surely couldn’t be because of my insane sex skills.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I wasn’t dumb, I could put two and two together, but I wanted to hear him say it out loud.
It was only after I spoke that I saw there were two menus in his hand. Oh my God. He wanted us to actually share a meal together? Seriously? I wasn’t sure if I was appalled or impressed.
A part of me went a little soft inside, actually. Warm and ha
ppy. But I ignored that part. That was the part that wanted me to spend more time getting to know Alex outside of my job, outside of his relationship with Tabitha as admirable and loving as that relationship was.
“I thought that… well, there were things that I wanted to tell you, but you weren’t letting me while we were at the hospital. And so I figured that maybe, outside of our professional setting…” Alex gestured at the booth.
He had literally bought out this damn place for me, I supposed that I might as well hear him out. I sat down, trying to ignore how my heart was in my throat when Alex sat down across from me.
“I’m sorry for invading a place that’s special to you,” Alex said, sliding me a menu. “I figured that I had to find a place that you went to reliably. But if this doesn’t work then you have my word that I won’t bother you here again. You won’t have to find another place to eat.”
That was… unexpected, and a comfort. I didn’t want to find another place. But I also didn’t want to be paranoid about Alex ambushing me here again. I hadn’t thought that he would care about this kind of thing but, apparently, he did. He noticed. It was a sweeter gesture from him than I had ever expected.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling wrongfooted and with no other idea what to say to him. Just being near him had my breathing getting shallower, my blood hotter. His gaze was so intense, and I could almost feel the phantoms of his hands and mouth on my skin.
Dammit, did this happen to everyone after a one night stand? Did they linger thinking about the person forever? I certainly didn’t think so, otherwise everyone would be going crazy and nobody would sleep around. It was just me, I was the exception, I was the one being stupid.
Alex sat across from me. Our legs were almost, but not quite, touching. I could feel their presence, only inches away from me, and I was torn between wanting him to press them against mine and being terrified that he would.
“What is this?” I asked. My voice didn’t shake or break, thank God. I didn’t want Alex to see how nervous I was. I had never been like this before with anyone and I didn’t intend to start now. He was one of the richest men in the world. He was handsome and could have any woman he wanted—in fact, he’d had every woman he wanted. I was not going to let him see that he had an effect on me.
“I’m trying to prove a point,” Alex said, and I could imagine him saying something like that in a boardroom, commanding the attention of everyone, being so sure of himself as he laid out the facts. There was a softer edges to his voice, though, that I didn’t think he tended to use in business meetings.
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow, scrambling for the remains of my dignity. “What point?”
“I wanted you to see how important our night together was for me.”
That… what? Out of all the things I’d thought he’d say, that wasn’t it. I’d expected—I actually didn’t know what it was that I had expected. Something about how beautiful I was, or intelligent—something flattering. Something intended to win me over. Pretty words.
“I don’t take what happened between us lightly. I don’t think of it as some random encounter and it’s not something that I’m ready to move on from.” Alex sounded so earnest—like the way that he did when he was talking to Tabitha, or about Tabitha. It wasn’t exactly the same, of course. Talking about your sick daughter wasn’t the same as talking to the woman you’d hooked up with. But there was still that—that level of earnestness that I hadn’t expected. Hadn’t even dared to hope for.
“And don’t think—it’s not because you were…” His voice lowered. “…a virgin. I hope that I could make it… I hope it was… well.” He shrugged and gave me a small smile as if to convey he was out of words.
Alex Conner, out of words. I never thought I’d see the day.
“There’s something about you that makes me want more. More than I’ve wanted with anyone else. I’ve never wanted someone the way that I want you. And I don’t just mean—I’ve had people that I’ve been with for weeks, or slept with several times, and I don’t just mean sex with you. I hope that this—this gesture will show you that I mean a full relationship. I want to wine and dine you and spend time with you. Properly. Not just in bed.”
I honestly had no idea what to say. Everything that Alex was saying—it was washing away all of my frustrations and fears with him. I’d thought I was just another notch on his bedpost, maybe a novelty because I was a virgin, but now here he was telling me that I wasn’t, that he wanted to be with me.
Alex kept talking, as if he thought I was still upset or misinterpreting and he had to keep allaying my fears. “We can go as slow as you want, if that’s what you want. I don’t mind. I want you to feel comfortable. I just know that I want to keep seeing you—and seeing you properly. We can be low key. We don’t have to do anything fancy.”
I wanted to point out that this was pretty fancy by some people’s standards. He’d bought me an entire booth’s worth of flowers and had bought out the restaurant. But at the same time, it was just a diner, and he was making sure we had privacy. It wasn’t like he was taking me in a helicopter to Bali or having me meet him at a five-star restaurant. It could’ve been a lot crazier.
Alex gave me a slightly hesitant smile. “Claire? You still with me?”
“Yes,” I managed faintly. I didn’t know what to say, how to respond. I hadn’t been stunned a lot of times in my life. I tended to keep my composure and to be prepared for things, and frankly I hadn’t gotten a lot of truly shocking news in my time. But this? This was shocking me.
“I… I’m glad you don’t think of this as a one-time thing,” I admitted. “I looked you up and… I was worried. Not that—I don’t think less of you for dating a lot of women. There’s nothing wrong with that. You seem like a good person. But I didn’t want to just be one of those women. Another…”
“Notch on the bedpost?” Alex finished for me. “Yeah, I’m… sorry if you felt that way. That stupid reporter—”
“No, no, it’s… it’s fine. You can’t help who you are.”
“But I’m not that person anymore. After I lost…” Alex makes a face. “I ran away from home when I was in high school, and when I did, I lost contact with my sister. I’ll always regret that. The parents of a friend helped me get through college and meet investors to start my empire, and I wasn’t there for that friend, either, when he needed me. I was really self-centered, and I regret a lot of the ways that I abandoned the people that I cared about, that cared about me.
“Luckily my sister and I reconnected but… we only got a brief time together before she was killed. I adopted her daughter. That’s Tabitha.”
I was shocked. “But I thought…”
“That Tabitha’s mine? Yeah, most people think that. Lacey, that’s her mom, she and I always looked alike, so Tabitha looks enough like me—and I’ve had enough one night stands, it’s totally possible I got someone pregnant.”
“Have you?”
“If I have, the mother never told me. I’m on good terms with everyone I’ve slept with, so I would hope that they would tell me. I’d gladly support the kid.” Alex shrugged. “But Tabitha changed everything about me. Everything about my priorities. It became all about her—especially since she was sick. I don’t want to go out to parties or any of that. I don’t want to have any more random hookups. Everything feels like it’s in perspective.”
I hadn’t expected anything like this from Alex. This was all of my ignored daydreams coming true—but in the worst way.
Because there was still one inescapable fact.
No matter how happy I was that Alex was taking us seriously, that he wanted us to be together in every way, that he wanted to give us a proper chance… there were still rules to follow. I still had my job to worry about.
“I’m glad,” I said, because I was. “You’re a really good father, Alex. Honestly. You have no idea how valuable that is to a kid. And you’re a good person. I haven’t ever doubted that.”
Doubted whet
her I was just another conquest or not, yeah. But Alex’s actual personhood… he’d always been a good person, I had known that.
Alex had this look of hope on his face and I hated how I was about to crush it, destroy it.
“But this is still something that we can’t do.”
“What?” Alex stared at me like he couldn’t understand what I was saying, like I had switched over to another language.
“I was scared that I was just another conquest. And I’m glad that I’m not. But I’m still your daughter’s doctor. You’re still the father of my patient. We risked enough by sleeping together once. We were lucky that it was a Halloween party with masks and that nobody knew who you even were. We won’t be so lucky if we keep flirting with disaster.”
“Claire…” Alex reached for my hand and I quickly pulled away, standing up.
If I stayed, if I let him keep talking to me, I knew I would give into temptation. I would let him have his way with me all over again. Honestly, he could probably fuck me in this very booth and I would have begged him for more. Already I could feel myself wanting to fall into his eyes, wanting him to touch me, wanting to give in and believe in what he was saying.
But I had made a promise, signed a damn contract, when I’d taken up my job at the hospital and I was a woman of my word.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, and I meant it. “We can’t do this.”
The look on his face as I walked out made me feel sick with guilt and disappointment. Alex looked… he looked stricken. I never would have expected to see a look on his face like that, especially if I was the cause of it.
There was nothing for it, I reminded myself. Rules were rules. I couldn’t break them. Alex would just have to understand.
19
Alex