Page 47 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

SOMETIMES IT RAINS

Axel

Done.

Well, almost .

It’s December, I’m in Big Cup with Hazel, and I just finished writing the best words in our way overdue Ten Park Avenue installment.

I smile slyly at the clever partner in crime across from me, who’s waiting. Just waiting.

She knows what’s next. She wants it. She’s practically going to pounce on the laptop screen.

So I drag it out a little more, like a dick, taking my sweet time studying the screen. Just to taunt her.

Finally, she relents. “Axel! Just do it. Write the two best words, and then show it to me. Now .”

Ha. I knew she’d break first. Acting all blasé, I say, “Fine.”

Then I type The End , and I share the final scene with her.

She dives right in, and if that isn’t the sexiest she’s ever looked, I don’t know what is. Smiling, cackling, rapt. It’s gorgeous, watching her read.

When she reaches the final words, she draws a deep breath, and gasps. Then reaches across the table and kisses me. “We did it,” she says when she breaks the kiss.

We sure did.

It wasn’t easy. We butted heads a few times, disagreed on some moments, and fought ruthlessly over whether Lacey would bang her head on the headboard during a particularly athletic sex scene—I shocked Hazel by saying no, she shocked me by saying yes—but in the end we found our way through.

We wrote and rewrote and compromised, and we made each other better together.

Poor Lacey though. She wound up with a goose egg the next day. But hey, that was the price she paid for three orgasms.

After we polish the final scene—translation: Hazel adds a line here or there but finds zero, count ’em, zero grammatical errors—we take off into the chilly New York day.

“So, should we celebrate finishing our book by going to a billionaire’s party tonight?” she asks. Then bumps her elbow with mine. “Confession: I’m going to be taking notes all night long on what his Fifth Avenue penthouse looks like. I’ve only ever written them. I’ve never seen one.”

“Me too. And it better be grander than my imagination. Though I can imagine a lot,” I say.

“I’m still kind of surprised we were invited.”

“Baby, he likes us. We’re the reason he’s having this engagement party.”

She smiles. “Maybe we are.” Then she waggles an eyebrow. “And I get to see you in a suit tonight.”

I roll my eyes. “You do love a man in a suit.”

“Correction—I love you in a suit.”

“How do you know? You’ve never seen me in a suit.”

It’s her turn to roll her eyes. “Some things you just know.”

J. Hudson Bettencourt

I wasn’t supposed to be on the train the day I met Amy Chandler six months ago. But that’s how it goes with so many of life’s moments.

They were never supposed to be on the schedule. Your flight is canceled, your car won’t start, the snow keeps you in a cabin.

At the time, these beats certainly don’t seem like moments. They seem like inconveniences. Annoying flat tires that threaten to ruin your day.

That was how I felt that evening in Nice.

I’d been in the French city, meeting with a new green energy company I’d invested in, and I was slated to catch a flight to London.

I had a meeting the next day with the JHB executive board, based in London, where I’d lived for the last few years as my holdings expanded in Europe.

But as I checked out of the hotel in Nice, my flight alert flashed on my phone. There was rain in London.

Well, what else was new? That city was always home to a gray storm.

This time, though, there was so much goddamn rain, so much infernal thunder and lightning, that the airport shut down.

All flights were canceled.

But man can’t rely on one mode of transportation, one source of fuel. That’s the foundation my business was built on. I’d simply go to London another way.

I headed to the train station in Nice instead, planning to catch the midnight train to Paris, then transfer to a London railway. But when I walked into the station and stood under the departure board checking the times, my attention strayed to a woman with chestnut hair.

She walked past me, chatting amiably with a group of tourists, perhaps. Three other women wearing T-shirts that said Book Besties . My gaze stayed on the brunette. She was tall, with lush hair cinched back in a ponytail, and the most inviting smile I’d ever seen.

Her smile was warm, real, and also…intriguing.

When the three women excused themselves for the restroom, the brunette headed toward the departure board and craned her neck to check the times.

“I’ve only double-checked the departure twenty times, but I can’t seem to stop,” she said, then shrugged. “You never know when they might switch times.”

“A train line that switches departures capriciously? I might have something to say about that,” I said, and I had a lot to say about it in fact. Efficiency was the cornerstone of my clean energy business.

She turned to me, her brown eyes curious and friendly. “I trust you don’t like capricious train lines?”

“In fact, I forbid them,” I said, and that was the truth, though of course she probably had no idea.

She laughed. “Well, glad you have your priorities straight.”

Then she walked away.

That was that.

She was gone. I had no idea what train she was taking. Would she be on one of my trains to London? To Barcelona? Or one of the many others departing in the next hour, fanning out all over Europe?

What did it matter, though? She was simply a woman I had exchanged a few lines with in front of the departure board.

Except as I waited in the station for my train to leave, I replayed that brief exchange too many goddamn times for my own good. We’d barely talked and yet I couldn’t get her out of my head.

There was something about her. Something about that moment.

She could be married.

Uninterested.

Unavailable in a million ways.

Shoving her out of my mind as best I could, I answered a few emails from the board and took a call from my vice chairman.

Then it was time to go—I had a meeting to attend. A job to do. I was headed for the platform to catch the train when someone with a Book Besties shirt scurried past me then darted onto the train on the other side of the tracks.

My pulse raced unexpectedly.

My woman could be on that train. She’d been traveling with the Book Besties.

I gazed at the long line of blue and cream-colored cars.

My skin warmed. Possibilities flickered through my mind.

This was annoying, this reaction to a woman. This reaction to anything that wasn’t business.

But there it was, insistent, under my skin.

This was a moment. Because that was my train. My line. My choice.

And goddamn it, I was making it.

Purposefully, I crossed the platform and boarded the train to Barcelona.

Was I a stalker?

No, I wasn’t a fucking stalker. I was a man who’d spotted an opportunity.

And while I could be patient, I also didn’t let a tantalizing chance pass me by.

I said hello to the JHB Travel Manager, followed the blonde in the T-shirt, then scanned the car for the brunette I’d exchanged words with in the station.

If she was there, I could ask her a simple question.

That was all I wanted to do. Ask.

I headed down the first car, then the second. She was nowhere to be seen. This felt like a fool’s errand. Then I caught sight of chestnut hair and warm brown eyes. She was turning toward her compartment.

I kept going, closing the distance between us, and she stopped with her hand on the doorknob, pausing like she recognized me.

Remembered me.

Letting go of the knob, she stepped into the aisle, tilted her head, studied me.

I was caught up and determined all at once.

When I reached her, I didn’t waste time. I had a question to ask. “I’m J. Hudson Bettencourt. And it would probably be terribly capricious of me to ask you to dinner tonight, here in the dining car, but if you’re single and available, I’d love to take you out.”

Her smile was my answer. “Are you capricious?”

I arched a brow. “Right now, I am.”

She studied me a beat longer, her pretty pink lips parted in curiosity. “I’m single. And what do you know? I very much enjoy dinner.”

I grinned. “I, too, like dinner.”

It was simple. Unexpected. And the start of the best thing that ever happened to me.

I canceled my meeting in London. I had a new mission—get to know Amy. That evening over dinner, I learned more about her. She was clever, lovely, and a little wounded. Impetuously, I asked her if I could travel with her, and she said yes.

But truthfully, the request didn’t feel impetuous. It felt right.

The next night in her compartment, she told me about the end of her marriage, when her husband came out. “We’re still friends,” she explained with a small smile of acceptance. “We still support each other, and I want the best for him, but there was clearly no spark.”

“And how are your kids doing with that? The divorce, that is?” I asked, as we sat on the couch in her compartment. Though, I made a note that we needed new couches. This one felt like a stone.

“They’re young, so they’re doing well. I think. And Sebastian and I really want to make it work for them. I’ve got a very supportive family. I’m close with my brother and my parents, and they help with the kids.”

That warmed my heart. My family was gone, and I was glad she had hers. “That’s good. That you’re close with them, and that the kids are doing well.”

“What about you?”

I laughed. “I don’t have kids.”

“I meant family,” she said, gently correcting me.

I shook my head. “My parents are gone. It’s just me,” I said, and even though I was one man against the world I’d rarely felt lonely. I had too much to do. Too many places to go. Too many things occupying my days.

But I felt lonely at that moment. Because briefly, in my evening with her, I didn’t want to focus solely on the things that occupied my days. The meetings, the deals, the travel.

I just wanted more of this—this connection.

“I’m sorry they’re gone, Jay,” she said.

It was rare people called me by my first name. I was used to Mr. Bettencourt, or just Bettencourt.

“I like the way you say my name.” I was eager to move on from the loneliness. I wanted to feel unlonely. I wanted to focus on her lips, her hair, and her eyes. How her body might feel against mine.

“Do you now?” She licked the corner of her lips. Then whispered, “Jay.”

All seductive and inviting.

I growled, low in my throat.

Her eyes flickered with heat.

Then I reached for her hand, threaded my fingers through hers.

A bolt of heat raced through me. I rose, pulled her up, then tossed a careless glance at the couch.

“I’m not going to kiss you for the first time on that miserable couch,” I said, then lifted a hand to stroke her cheek, her jawline, then the corner of those lips.

She tilted her chin up, then said, “The first time?”

Anticipation thrummed through me. “This won’t be the last time I kiss you, Amy,” I said. Then I captured her lips with mine, and I kissed the stranger who’d caught my eye on the platform.

The stranger who’d driven me to change my plans.

The stranger who was no longer one at all.

I kissed her for a good, long time. Until it was no longer a kiss. It was hands on buttons, then fingers on zippers, then her and me crashing onto the bed.

She climbed onto my lap, wound her hands in my hair, then shuddered. “It’s been…a while.”

Those words were a gift, like she was. And I wanted to treat her with care and also make her feel incredible.

“I’ll take care of you,” I said. “I’ll give you anything you need.”

I took my time, kissed her everywhere, adored her.

Made her moan, sigh, and cry out my name.

And in the morning, I canceled the rest of my plans so I could finish the trip with her. When I told her, she said, “I was hoping you’d want to.”

“I very much want to travel with you,” I said.

In Paris, I took her out when she had a break from her tour group, and over a glass of wine at a sidewalk café by the Seine, she said she’d miss me when she returned to Los Angeles.

Right then, right there, I knew I had to make another change in my life. I wanted more than travel.

After I walked her back to the hotel, I told her I needed a moment alone. I left her and walked solo around the city, pondering.

Could I do this? Could I make this change for her?

I’d lived in London for the last few years. But one night by the river in the City of Light, with the glow of the street lamps and my unrelenting thoughts of Amy my only companions, and I had my answer.

The next night in Copenhagen, I told her I’d move to the U.S. to be with her, splitting my time between Los Angeles and New York, where I managed my U.S. operations.

“If you’ll have me,” I said, feeling wildly vulnerable as I asked her the question of my heart over dinner.

She reached across the table, took my hand. “I think I’ll have you, Jay. I think I’ll have you very much.”

I laughed at the way she teased me. “Oh honey, I’ll be having you .”

She wiggled a brow. “Tonight?”

“Every night we’re together,” I said.

Then I reached for her face, cupped her cheek, and kissed that gorgeous, flirty mouth. When I broke the kiss, I said, “Have I mentioned how glad I am that you led this group of writers and readers on this train trip?”

“Have I mentioned how glad I am that it rained in London?”

“You have, but you can say it again.”

“I love when it rains in London.”

Now, six months later, she’s my fiancée, and tonight she’ll be more. I adjust my black tie, smooth a hand over the lapels of my jacket, then look at the woman behind me in the bedroom of our home in Manhattan.

Ours .

She spends time with me here when she doesn’t have the kids, and sometimes when she has them too. Mostly, I go to Los Angeles to be with her and to work from there.

She’s worth it.

All these changes are worth it.

I’m not lonely anymore.

“You look very marry-able, Mr. Bettencourt.”

I smile. “So do you, Ms. Chandler.”

Hazel

This place is gorgeous. The view is stunning. I feel like I can see all of Manhattan. But I don’t gawk at the city for long.

Because Pachelbel’s Canon is playing, and Amy Chandler is walking toward Jay Bettencourt.

This is not just an engagement party. It’s a surprise wedding.

And after they say I do, and he kisses the bride, he offers a toast that ends with an ode to us. “And I suppose I have Axel and Hazel to thank. If you hadn’t written those books, I might not ever have met the love of my life.”

Then he turns all his attention to his bride, and I turn mine to the guy by my side. “I guess we really do need to write that billionaire train romance,” I say to Axel.

“I’m in.” Then he kisses me and says, “With you, I’m always in.”