Page 67 of Forbidden Billionaires, Vol. 9

I had avoided Rory all morning and afternoon.

I wasn't sure when he had come home, but no screams of pleasure had woken me up.

So I was hoping that meant he hadn't actually been on a date.

I didn't realize how much being in love was going to hurt.

In the movies it always looked so wonderful.

But my chest hurt. And I felt anxious. And I was so nervous about going to the wedding with him.

It was like we had just met all over again.

I looked through the dresses in my closet.

There were five bridesmaid dresses in it, all equally hideous, and all taking up a ridiculous amount of room.

I wasn't sure why I had kept all of them.

For a while I thought maybe it was because I wanted to remember how fun the weddings were.

I was usually sentimental. But that wasn't it.

The weddings all sucked. I was happy for my friends, but their weddings had just ended up with me getting drunk and going home alone or making out with one of their distant cousins and never hearing from them again.

I stared at the hideous dresses in the closet.

No. I held onto all of them because I was terrified that being a bridesmaid was the closest I'd ever get to the altar.

I was so pathetic. I pushed them to the side.

I needed to look great tonight. Because I needed to hear that he wanted to be with just me.

And if he didn't feel the same way I did, I was going to run away and hide in a new apartment all the way across town.

I sighed and pulled out one of my favorite dresses.

It wasn't one that fit Rory's criteria of being sexy.

But for some reason it was the one I felt like wearing.

Somehow I had lost a little bit of myself ever since Rory had moved in.

Just because he made me feel butterflies in my stomach and could make me want him with just a smile didn't necessarily mean he was my forever.

I barely even knew anything about him. The idea of not being with him made me feel sick to my stomach, though.

The dress was a red silky material. It was the dress I had bought for my very first date back in college.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. Justin.

I had said yes right away when he had asked me out.

I was such a nerd in high school, and I jumped at the chance to have a boyfriend.

But he always had better things to do than hang out with me.

And then there was Mike, who I wanted to date in order to get over my first heartache.

He was probably even worse than Justin. We weren't compatible at all.

I just didn't like feeling alone. My last boyfriend, David, I had met in Philly.

He was charming and seemed so much more mature than the boys I dated in college.

I thought he could be the one. But he thought I had gotten too serious too fast. He wasn't ready for commitment.

But he was ready to propose to the girl he started dating right after me.

They hadn't even known each other for a year.

And David had broken up with me over the phone right before our one year anniversary dinner.

I had to hand it to David. He had been right.

I didn't love him. I just loved the idea of being in love.

I was so sick of making mistakes. And I was even more sick of having men make me feel worthless. The way Rory looked at me didn't make me feel that way. He was definitely the sweetest guy I had ever dated. I sighed. But we weren't really even dating. I so badly wanted that to change.

I ran my fingers along the silky dress. It was definitely appropriate for a wedding.

The hem landed right above my knees, although there was a slit up the side.

The top wasn't low cut but somehow still accentuated my breasts.

It was super tight and still made me feel sexy even though it was modest. I applied my makeup and finished with red lipstick.

I smacked my lips together and looked in the mirror.

I was so glad that Connor had convinced me not to run away.

I didn't want to hide from how I was feeling right now.

Yesterday before I had discovered Rory was on a date, I had been so happy, despite the weight of telling him about the newspaper articles.

And I didn't want to miss out on that feeling just because I didn't have the guts to tell Rory how I felt yet.

There was a knock on my bedroom door. "Keira?"

Even his voice gave me that now familiar pull in my stomach. I slipped on a pair of black heels before opening my door.

"Wow, you look amazing." He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss against my lips.

He had never kissed me like that before. There was something gentle and loving about it. When he pulled away I felt like I could see it in his eyes. He was looking at me like he had missed me. All those doubts from last night seemed so ridiculous when he was right in front of me.

He held up a tie. "Do you know how to tie this?

" Just seeing him holding a tie reminded me of being blindfolded with one in his bedroom.

He smiled at me, as if he could tell what I was thinking.

"I've been thinking a lot about all the ways you might want to be punished.

It should probably involve this, don't you think? " He handed me the tie.

I swallowed hard and took the tie from him.

"I think you know what I like better than I do.

" I slipped the tie under the collar of his white shirt.

He was wearing a dark gray suit and I had never seen him look more handsome.

His suit was fitted and seemed to show off all his lean muscles.

I pulled the end of the tie through the knot I had made and tightened it.

His eyes locked with mine as I adjusted his tie.

He took a step forward, pressing my back against the doorframe. "Are you sure you don't want to just stay here?"

"As tempting as that is, I already told them we were coming."

He pretended to pout.

"Come on, Rory," I grabbed his tie and lightly pulled it, directing him to the door. "It's going to be fun."

"It'll be fun to dance with you all night." He slapped my ass.

"Rory!" I laughed. "You're going to try to embarrass me tonight, aren't you?" We stepped onto the elevator.

"I do like making you blush. But no, I'll be on my best behavior." He raised his eyebrow at me.

"You don't have to quite be on your best behavior." I pinched his ass.

He laughed and grabbed my hand as we walked along the sidewalk in search of a taxi.

I looked down at our intertwined hands. He wouldn't be holding my hand if he didn't like me.

This was the first time we were going on an actual date outside of our apartment.

I couldn't help but wonder when the last time he had gone on a real date was.

Was it his girlfriend from college? Or was it with someone last night?

I didn't want to think about last night, but something seemed different about him today.

If he had been on a date, it must have been an awful one, because he was acting like he was as smitten with me as I was with him.

Rory hailed down a taxi and opened up the door for me.

He was being such a gentleman. Did a sweet, nice guy exist somewhere under his player facade?

I didn't need to ask myself that question.

I knew it did. Because I had witnessed him being sweet and nice.

He was all those things on top of being sexy, and that was why I had completely fallen.

He sat down next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "So, what is your friend's name?"

"Becca. And the lucky guy is Jeremy."

"How do you two know each other?"

"We were in a journalism club together in college."

"You really are a huge nerd, aren't you?" He smiled at me.

I shrugged. "I was worried about getting a job after graduating. Journalism club was just something else I could add to my résumé."

"Isn't actual experience better than some club?"

"Yeah, but how was I supposed to get my first job? That's the problem. Everyone wants someone with experience, so it's hard to land your first gig. I was worried. Weren't you? Culinary arts is really competitive, isn't it?"

"It is." He shifted slightly in his seat, but kept his arm around me. "I never actually finished, though."

"Wait, you didn't graduate?" I never would have guessed that. Everything that he had made for me was delicious and he had a really good job.

"Is that a deal breaker for you or something?" His thumb had dipped below one of the straps of my dress. There was something comforting about the way he always wanted his hands on me.

"No, not at all. I was just surprised. Why didn't you finish?"

"I just figured that actual experience was better than being critiqued over some dish I had no desire to ever make again in my life."

"So you just quit? How close were you to being done?"

"I finished two out of four years."

Two years. That was how long he had dated his last girlfriend. That couldn't be a coincidence. "What do you want to do?"

He looked back at me and traced his fingers along the back of my dress. "You know what I want to do," he said in a low voice.

"No, Rory," I laughed. "I mean what do you want to do in the future? Like five years from now what do you want to have accomplished?"

"I don't really like thinking that way. I just want to be happy. And thinking about the future all the time isn't the way to get there." He turned and looked out the window.

The way to get there. So he's not happy now? I wanted to be the one to make him happy. "So what did you do after you dropped out?"

"After crashing in Connor's dorm and driving him crazy, I went to Italy and got a job at this amazing restaurant. I learned way more in those few months than I did in two years at Penn University."

"If you liked it so much, what made you come back to Philly?"

"I loved Italy, but I was homesick. It was more running away from something than actually wanting to be there."

"Your ex?" He was even more like me than I realized. I always wanted to run away from problems too. That was why I had told Connor I was moving out last night. I couldn't help but think that it was bad that we were both flight risks. But being with him was a risk I was more than willing to take.

"Yeah." He scratched the back of his neck. "So what about you, Keira? What's your master plan for five years down the road?"

I'd like to be with you. "Being happy seems like a pretty good goal. That's what I want too." Give me a chance to make you happy. I leaned against his shoulder and was happy when he didn't flinch.