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Juliette gives a huffing little laugh. “And look what you became.”
There’s pride in her voice. It moves me in a way I can’t put into words. I wait a moment before I speak again.
“I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.”
“As you should be.”
I can’t help but laugh as I gather her close, slide a finger under her chin, and kiss her firmly.
“Just a little over a month ago, you thought I made at least part of my fortune through illegal means.”
She winces. “I don’t even know if I fully believed it at that point. I didn’t want to miss something.”
“I still don’t like it. But,” I add as her look of guilt deepens, “I understand it better now.”
“As I do your drive to be the best.” She tilts her head to the side. “Although, I’m curious. Why this deal in New York? Normally your projects seem bigger, splashier.”
Pride fills my chest. The deal with Paul Properties has evolved in the last couple of days to include more investments in the community. A targeted recruitment plan for locally owned businesses. Grants to fund said businesses. Future meetings with some of the neighborhood organizations to have them be an active part of the development process.
“One of the things I’ve been trying to incorporate into the deal is development not only for the sake of the deal, but for the neighborhood and the people that it impacts.”
She freezes. “What?”
“The slum I grew up in in Santorini made an impression. There were good people there, some of them through no fault of their own except circumstance. Fate. I watched so many of them struggle. Once I realized I was actually going to make a success out of Drakos North America, I started taking on the occasional personal project.”
“The project in Los Angeles,” she murmurs. “I remember reading about the high crime rate in the area, the lack of housing and restaurants that might attract workers. It surprised me that you would push for that property.”
“Which is why that project included guarantees from several local business and franchise owners to put in said restaurants and shops. It also included funding for a year for a private security firm and donations to renovate some of the houses in the area.”
“You did all that.”
“Yes. It’s good business.”
And not enough.
Not nearly enough when I have so much at my fingertips. I want to tell her more about the spark she’s created in me to use my wealth in a way I never thought about. But before I can, she sits up, eyes flashing, color filling her face. She doesn’t even seem to notice that she’s bare from the waist up with a sheet tangled about her hips. She’s magnificent as she leans forward and pokes me in the chest.
“Don’t you tell me that line if it’s just business. You care. You’re doing good things.”
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone. I could lose my reputation.”
She buries her face in her hands and groans. “How did I miss all of this?”
I grab her hands and pull them down from her face. “Because you weren’t looking for it. Juliette, I’m going to say the same thing to you that you said to me. Don’t turn me into a saint. I only started making this a priority in the last year. I still make a lot of money off these deals. Money that, as you can see, I use in very selfish ways.”
“But you’re doing things for others,” she insists. She cups her hands on either side of my face. “You don’t have to be perfect. But you’re so much more than I ever realized. I have to wonder that, if not for your father and this ridiculous will, if I would have ever seen that.”
I’m lying to myself every time I think her words don’t matter. They matter a great deal, more than anything that matters to me in recent memory, including Drakos North America. I’m not quite ready to fully accept that yet. Just a little more time. A little more time to process these newfound emotions, figure out exactly what I feel for Juliette and how far I want it to go.
She leans down and kisses me. Her naked breasts brush my chest. Blood pumps through me. I’m hard and grow harder still when I brush against her thigh. She laughs against my lips and makes me want her even more.
“What about your breakfast?”
I pull her to me and roll, pinning her body beneath me.
“It can wait.”
Whatever else she is about to say is lost as I grasp her hips and slide back into her wet heat. As we start to move together, as I surrender even more of my control and let down my walls, emotion surges with the lust already pounding inside me. I realize, as our breaths merge and her cries grow louder, that I feel like I’m home for the first time in my life.