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I just stand there for a second, like someone pulled the plug on gravity. My legs feel like overcooked noodles.
Then I turn and walk—actually, I float—back toward Serena and Audrey, who are waiting by a gelato truck like two giddy gargoyles.
“Well?” Serena demands.
I try to play it cool, but I can’t stop grinning. “I gave him my number.”
Audrey lets out a gasp loud enough to scare pigeons three blocks away. She’s already pulling out her phone, probably drafting a flowchart for optimizing stranger-flirting success rates. Honestly, she could write a whole manual. Not that the boardroom bros ever give her the mic long enough to realize how brilliant she is.
“Well done.” Serena grins as she nods her approval.
“Didn’t get his name. Didn’t give mine either,” I say, grinning wider. “Figured if he wants it bad enough, he’ll have to work for it.”
“Oh my god!” Audrey clutches her chest as if my casual nonchalance struck her like an electric jolt. “Layla! You’re a walking romance novel! This is too good!”
Serena grabs me by my shoulders. “Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?”
“I don’t know. I was just…enjoying myself.”
They both scream.
People stare.
I don't care.
For the first time in forever, I don't feel like the responsible one. Or the awkward one. Or the one who has to play it safe.
Right now? I feel unbelievably alive. And maybe a little reckless. Like I've just lit a match without checking what's flammable around me. But that's tomorrow's problem. Tonight, I'm going to revel in the fire.
BENNETT
“That was unnecessary,” I say as our driver eases into traffic. “Dominic is capable of handling Tokyo alone.”
“He already has.” Beside me, Caleb doesn't even glance up, his thumbs moving in rapid succession across his phone screen. “You can thank me later.”
“For fabricating a reason to drag me away from an interesting conversation?”
Now he looks up. One eyebrow arches in that annoyingly familiar way I've seen since our first year at Harvard Business School. “Interesting? You looked at her like she was the answer to a question you didn’t know you’d been asking.”
I glance out the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of gold and blue. He's not wrong, which is precisely why his interruption was both irritating and probably necessary.
“Just be careful,” Caleb says, voice dipping into that rare territory he reserves for friendship rather than legaladvice. “Random encounters like that don't happen without strings. Not with men like us.”
“She didn't even know who I was.”
“You don't know that,” he counters. “Your face has been on those damn 'Most Eligible Billionaire' lists for the last three years. Half the internet has a crush on you.”
I scoff. “So has yours.”
“Exactly. Which is why I recognize the signs.”
His cynicism isn't unfounded. We've both been burned by people who saw our names as assets, not identities.
“She felt genuine,” I say, surprised by the softness in my voice.
Caleb lowers his phone, just enough to shoot me a look. “So did Rachel Donovan. Until she turned out to be the daughter of your rival's CFO and was stealing intel every time you took a damn shower.”
I flinch. That one still stings, even though it happened early in my career. I was too young, too trusting, too careless. She was a mistake I swore I’d never make again.