Page 75 of The Billionaire's Second Chance

“I didn’t seduce Elena, and I didn’t pay off the janitor,” he admitted. “I just told the principal I wanted to do some coursework here after hours.”

“And she let you?” I asked. “Just like that?”

“Of course,” he said, grinning that same cocky, irritating grin he always had. “I’mCharlie fucking Martin.”

My laughter echoed brightly in the quiet as he smiled at me, his expression impossibly fond: warm green eyes sparking at me and a crooked smile that I’d kissed every inch of.

He was so handsome; here, his skin glowing with recent exertion even in the low light. In the mornings, when I woke up at his apartment, and in the evenings, when I came home to dinner on the table–made by the chef he’d hired since neither of us could cook and neither of us wanted to learn–and he asked me about my authors and I asked him about his students. At night, when I’d curled into his side, passed him a manuscript and closed my eyes to better listen to him recounting chance encounters in coffee shops, one-night stands, eyes meeting across crowded rooms. Skipped heartbeats and caught breaths, and his steady heartbeat against my cheek.

And he was charming–even Ava, the only other person to have seen my tears, had warmed to him after watching him drag me from the office atpreciselysix on multiple occasions with a wink and a series of increasingly outlandish reasons I was needed at homeimmediately.

Andrich–richer than anyone I knew–in love. So much love, all of it for me.

And I’d never been accused of being generous.

I tipped my head back, my eyes fluttering closed, and Charlie’s lips pressed a smile against mine.

I’d found, in fact, that I could be very,verygreedy.

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