Page 13 of From West, With Regret (NYC Billionaires #2)

“Our house never felt like home,” I admit. “All the way up until the very end.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” I look down at my drawings and slide one out from under the drawing of the building next to Heath’s old apartment.

The sketch is one I made when I first moved to Boston.

Before I met Heath. It’s of a leaf I’d found at the base of a tree in the park.

Dry, cracked, and shaped like the birthmark imprinted on my left hand.

I trace the curve of the leaf. I remember thinking this dead leaf lived more of a life than I had.

“I’m sorry,” West says beside me, pulling me back from my rabbit hole. “I got us off track. I’d love to see more of your drawings.”

The corners of my mouth curl as I look up at him, relieved. Art is my safe space. The one bright place I can rely on in a world of black. “Okay.”

I spend the next twenty minutes showing West every single one of my drawings, avoiding the ones tucked into the back pocket. The ones I keep for myself. The ones drawn from the few flashing memories that have haunted me since I came home from the hospital after the accident.

Keeping those concealed, I start with the few I have out.

I tell him the story behind each one, explaining what compels me to draw certain things.

He asks me what I did back in Boston, and I tell him how my art career evolved over the years.

I tell him about art school and how my adoptive parents disapproved simply because they were afraid of my future financial security.

If they were still alive, I bet they would have loved Heath simply for the number of digits and commas in his bank account.

When I finish showing West the last drawing, I close my portfolio and leave the talk of the past I do remember behind.

Without a word, he slips off his stool beside me and walks around the bar to dig through a drawer underneath the register.

He stands with a small roll of black electrical tape and, from the other side of the bar, reaches over to grab my portfolio.

He spins it around and tears off a piece, covering the exposed, sharp edge.

I study the tattoos covering his arms. He doesn’t look like a typical billionaire.

Usually, men of his status walk around dripping with arrogance.

But West almost seems as if he doesn’t want to flaunt his wealth.

When I first met him, he let me believe he was just a regular bartender.

Not the billionaire owner of bars all over the city.

I eye him skeptically. “I don’t need this job.”

“I know you don’t.”

“Then, why are you doing this?” I finally ask what has plagued me ever since he offered me the job at Heath’s funeral. “I told you how miserable I was being married to Heath. I said horrible things about your brother.”

“My brother was a horrible human being.” He deadpans. “What you said was nothing in comparison to the person he was.”

I’m taken aback by his brutal honesty.

I wasn’t expecting that.

I want to press him on it, but he still hasn’t looked at me, his eyes on the task at hand.

“Still.” I shake my head. “You don’t even know me and clearly, I’m not reliable.”

“Reliable in what sense?”

“My panic attacks.”

“You’re human, London,” he says, matter-of-factly, as if he knows I’ll argue against his point. He finally lifts his head, looking directly at me. “You aren’t the first person I’ve known to have a panic attack.”

“No, but I’m almost certain I’m the first person you’ve known with amnesia.”

“Amnesia doesn’t scare me.”

“Does anything scare you?” I tease.

“Only a few things.” His mouth twitches.

Heat pools in my belly, and my legs tingle from the weight of his stare as he uses the tips of his fingers to spin my portfolio back around.

I run my bandaged finger over the tape. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

His voice slips over my body like velvet. It warms me in places that have been left cold for I don’t know how long. The heaviness and weight in the aftermath of my panic attack is left far behind us. Now, we’re simply just us.

“You’re talented, London. You may not need me, but I need you.”

His words are like stones landing at the pit of my stomach.

Heart racing, I tamp down my adrenaline. “What are you looking for me to create?”

He pauses before looking over my shoulder. “My bartender Lewis said the art on these walls doesn’t fit the theme of this bar. He mentioned needing artwork that spoke to the history of the city. Ones that tell a story.”

I twist on my stool and look over my shoulder to take in each existing piece before turning back around. “I can do that.”

“I didn’t have any doubt.”

I lick my lips. “What about pay?”

He lifts his hand and rests his finger on his chin. I can’t help it, my mind wanders. He runs his finger across his chin, then his bottom lip, and all I can think about is wondering what it would feel like to have his finger run up the inside of my thigh, quickly finding my clit and pinching it.

London, stop.

He inhales a deep breath and swipes his tongue across his lip .

Ooh, what would it feel like to have his tongue lick my clit?

Dammit, London. Cut. It. Out.

I shiver and rest my elbow on the edge of the bar to massage the back of my neck.

I chalk up my illicit imagination to the fact that I haven’t been touched in months.

Not since shortly after Heath and I got married.

When your husband constantly threatens you and causes you to live in fear, you lose all desire for him.

Over the months, my sense of safety around him deteriorated, my appetite to touch Heath becoming nonexistent.

West has reignited a feeling inside me, and that is terrifying to admit.

He drops his hand and bends, resting his forearms on the bar. His face is closer to me now, and his scent surrounds me: fresh leather and mint.

“What do you think I should pay you?” He raises his brows, eyes widening with playfulness.

I scrunch my nose. “I don’t know. Feels kind of weird since we’re sort of family.”

“Are we?” He cocks his head. “Is that how you think of me?”

I don’t take offense to it. I never considered myself a part of the Hall family. I think back to West’s pool confession and remember he isn’t a Hall, either. There’s more to his story. The divide between Heath and West is massive. One that gives our feelings about the Halls credence.

My sense of never fitting in with them is as justified as West’s.

“I guess not,” I admit.

He pushes off the bar and walks around the end, crossing back over to my side.

He stands beside the stool he was sitting in earlier and grips the edge.

Lifting his gaze from my portfolio, he flicks his eyes to mine, staring into my soul.

“Now that we have that settled…” His voice deepens.

“Before we get to the matter of payment, I want to make something very, very clear.”

A chill prickles down the back of my neck. My lips part as a sharp breath passes through them. West’s scent is stronger, and the heat from his body wraps around me. I squeeze my thighs together.

“Heath was never my brother.”

His stare is unwavering, and he may as well have cut me open. I’m vulnerable, and one would think I would bolt in the opposite direction.

But one truth remains.

I’ve never felt safer than I do with West. I’ve never felt more myself than around him. Like he sees a part of me I didn’t know existed. Or one that I forgot existed.

It’s impossible. But is it?

I lean into the feeling, reading between the lines of West’s very pointed statement.

Heath was never his brother.

Just like my marriage to Heath wasn’t a real marriage. Heath didn’t love me. He didn’t worship the ground I walked on. He didn’t cherish me.

Not the way I deserved. And truthfully, it wasn’t just me. It was West, too.