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REALITY’S FOR SUCKERS
GRACE
My throat’s still burning a little from skimming off the top of Zach’s scotch, but it’s hardly taking my mind off of the gallon of adrenaline running through me.
“How does she know about the ring?” he asks.
“It’s Naomi,” I answer. “She doesn’t do well with personal boundaries. I don’t know when you bought it, or even if you were still planning on giving it to me someday, but it made me realize something.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“First off, I’m nowhere near ready to marry you,” I say. “I mean, we’re talking not even a little bit.”
He forces a smile. “Thanks for coming all the way here to let me know that,” he says. “My day’s just getting better.”
“Calm down, testy,” I respond. “It also made me realize that this whole time I’ve been looking at you as the billionaire businessman. At first, I didn’t want to get involved with you because of it, and then I tried to bury myself in that world, but I never thought of you as just a guy.”
I hold out the scotch and he takes it from my hand.
“You may already know this, but I wasn’t asleep that night,” I tell him. “I didn’t remember you at first. You’ve changed so much.”
He takes a sip of his scotch and sets it on the desk. His voice is raspy as he says, “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“Here’s what I’d like to do,” I tell him. “I’d like to stop with all the back and forth. If we’re going to do this thing, we’re going to need to be in the same place. I know you’re still a little wary I’m going to go all socialite moron on you again. Maybe I will, who knows? Being with you is going to take some getting used to, there’s no doubt about that. When I realized I’m nowhere near ready to marry you, though, I also realized something else.”
“That is?” he asks.
“I’m ready to start down that path and see where it leads,” I tell him. “No more nonsense. No more thinking of you as the billionaire guy, but actually getting to knowallof you, not just what I can read in the papers.”
“I’d like that,” he says.
“Can I see it, though?” I ask. “Not now, but whenever you’re done here for the day, can I take a look at it?” I know it’s silly and maybe a bit misleading, but I’m curious.
“Yeah,” he laughs. “You can see it. You know,” he says, walking around the desk to me, “I bought that when I made my first million. No, I didn’t expect you’d be ready for something like that yet. The reality is, I’m not ready for it, either. We still have a lot to learn about each other,” he says and holds his hand out to me.
I take his hand and rise to my feet. “Yeah, like what happened with the glasses?” I ask. “Did you do the laser surgery thing or is there some kind of medication that’s only made available to the ridiculously wealthy?”
“You have a way of making me forget what I’m talking about, Grace Michaels,” he says, kissing me on the cheek, then on the lips. He smiles. “It’s a problem.”
I snort with laughter.
“You know,” he says, looking back toward the office door, “my assistant’s already holding my calls.”
“Yeah?” I ask, kissing him.
“Appointments, too,” he says as I loosen his tie. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already set up the machine gun nest around the office. We have one of those, you know.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “I’m back to where your rich guy stuff doesn’t impress me so much, Mr. Scipio.” I slide the tie the rest of the way off his neck.
“I like it when you call me that,” he says.
“Really?” I ask as I unbutton his shirt. “I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve said it since we met.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t like it when you call me that,” he says. “What was it again?”
Slipping his suit jacket and shirt off of him together, I whisper in his ear, “Mr. Scipio.”
“Yeah,” he says, giving me a pat on the butt, “that was better the first time.”