Billionaires in Paris: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (10 page)

His phone rings. We both look at who’s calling. Before either of us can say “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain At An Engagement Announcement,” Ian shuts his phone off.

“She’s going to call back at least fifty more times, you know,” I say.

Ian ignores me. “My mom can deal with it. Who I should be calling is my publicist. I’m assuming that’s what you want me to do, right?”

Right. Our publicists. I run mine ragged when I show up in articles like these, but that’s what I’m paying her retainer for. She spends half her life in LA doing damage control for starlets, so why can’t I pay her double to keep the press off my ass? A girl appreciates her privacy!

Ian pats the side of the bed. I sit, waiting for his arm to encircle my torso. When it does, I let out my pent up sigh. “It’s gonna be okay,” he says in that consoling voice of his. “We’ll call our publicists and then go get breakfast. The last thing we should do is go into hiding. Let alone when we’re on vacation, right? By the way,” I’m apparently not allowed to respond, “what’s the ring? Your grandmother’s?”

Oh my God. He read about my mother, didn’t he? Fuck, fuck,
fuck.
Great. Now I can be caught in a lie too. “Um…” I begin. “Yeah, it was my grandmother’s engagement ring. I was trying it on. It’s in my suitcase right now. Not really my tastes.”

“I figured. From those photos it looked like something that would make you gag.”

At least he knows that much about me. One thing I can say about Ian is that he’s observant when it comes to my preferences. He’s the optimal guy for playing “hint hint” with. Too bad I don’t take full advantage of those games.

“Katie.” He puts both hands on my shoulders. Instantly I’m soothed by his gentle, deep voice. “It’s going to be okay. These papers print that kind of junk all the time. They’ve been speculating about you being pregnant ever since we became public.”

“What?”

“All right, that was the wrong thing to say, but my point is that they don’t care about the truth. They care about supposed news and getting blog hits and selling papers. Half my publicist’s job is disseminating official information about us.”

“…Really?” The thought of his publicist spending half his days trolling for news of us and “setting the record straight” every day is both romantic and exhausting to think about.

“Yes. Really.” Ian takes my hand. Even though he’s the one who initiated it, I’m the one clinging to him as if the world is crumbling around me. Shit, I know that sounds really dramatic. But the farther I fall down these rabbit holes, the easier it is for me to lose my mind. I start thinking about everything bad that could possibly happen. So the world thinks I’m getting married. Maybe they’ll forget about it by tomorrow. Maybe they’ll run away with it, and the next thing I know Ian’s getting a phone call from my father asking to have “a talk.” What that talk would entail, I have no idea. “It’s going to be okay. My publicist will tell both
The Daily Social
and other gossip blogs that we’re not engaged. This will blow over before the end of the day.”

I can read the look in his eye.
“Not that I think there’s anything to be worried about, that is. I know you’re a wreck though. I’ll take care of it.”
I don’t need him to share his judgments with his mouth to read them loud and clear in his eyes.

“How is it you always know the right thing to say?”

“I would take the compliment, but half the time I don’t say what I’m thinking, so…”

My arms wrap around him, demanding a hug that will help me start my day. Hey, this guy helped me get through the night, so why wouldn’t he help me through the day, too?

***

Going to breakfast was a bad idea.

“Congratulations on the news,” the barista says with a slight accent. “I saw the article on my phone.”

I take my coffee and croissant with a timid smile. “Thanks. It’s not true.”

I don’t know what the girl’s reaction is. I’ve since turned around and scuttled back to the bistro table where Ian is on the phone with his publicist.

“…It’s her grandmother’s engagement ring, yes, but it doesn’t mean anything. We’re not engaged. Uh huh. That sounds great. Check in with me when it’s confirmed. Mm-bye.”

He puts his phone in his pocket. A bright blue light signals he’s got about forty voicemails from his mother. Caroline will have to find out the truth with the rest of the world. At least she’s not flying out here like she did when she found out we accidentally eloped in Vegas… or as far as I know. We better change hotels!

“You know,” he says after a long, ponderous silence. “It might not be a bad idea to announce we’re engaged at some point. It’s what everyone is expecting, anyway. We don’t have to actually get married. We could say we’re planning on a long engagement and leave it at that.”

The logical side of me sees the sense in it, but I haven’t had my shots of espresso yet, so my brain kinda wants to quit everything. “Then they’ll start speculating on where we’re getting married. What I’ll be wearing. Whether or not I’m taking your last name. Bullshit like that.”

“Katie.” Sometimes I hate hearing my name like that. “They’ve been doing that anyway.”

“Exactly. So what is the point? To lie?”

Ian averts his gaze and pops a piece of our shared croissant into his mouth so he doesn’t have to say anything. I feel terrible. After a night like last night, we shouldn’t be like this. I had felt so free and unconfined by society’s pressures. Weight lifted. Lights changed. Everything was exactly as it should have been.

Then this.

This goes deeper than public misconception. He’s right. It will blow over. He’s also right that we could curb some of the attention by going ahead announcing an engagement. It’s not like we don’t agree that something like that will happen eventually.

Since we got over our initial bullshit and became a public couple, Ian’s been itching to propose to me. I know he has. He’s one of the few men I’ve met who has dreams of marriage and sharing a cute three-bedroom home with our cats and the cleaning lady who comes in every other day. He was one of the most merciless playboys when we started dating. The papers were all in a tizzy when we announced our relationship. We were incompatible! What was a serial sex-machine like him doing with a nice girl like me? (I’ve been good at keeping my previous lifestyle out of the press. Only fellow kinksters know what I’m really like.)

Getting to know him has taught me a lot of things that most people may not know, though. Like how he’s a hopeless romantic who can change his lifestyle at a whim. He once went vegetarian for a girl, for fuck’s sake. I wouldn’t say that Ian is the kind of guy who lets his relationships dictate what kind of life he has, but he’s flexible and open to ideas. We’ve had the kids talk so many times we can recite it. I guess I find it hard to believe that a man who is so open to monogamy and the billionaire version of the white-picket fence with the little lady is okay with having no kids. Did he miss the part where we’re the only heirs in our lines? One day we’ll have to figure something out if we stay together.

Nevertheless, none of that changes the fact I know he’s been thinking about marriage ever since he realized he loves me. I’m wearing a gold band on my right ring finger. So is he. He got them for us as a surprise long ago. They’re basically promise rings. A promise to stay together, or so he says. I know he’s waiting for the day I’ll switch it over to my left hand.

There are lots of reasons I’m averse to getting married, or at least right now in my life. It’s not that I doubt his love and devotion for me. It’s not that I’m worried about protecting my personal assets – that’s why I have a great lawyer. No. I’ve got a shitton of issues I’m still trying to work through. I’ve come a long way since being with Ian. Honestly, I’d go so far as to say that I’ve gone too fast. Sometimes I need to sit back and take a look at the bigger picture surrounding me. I’m in a long term, healthy relationship. I’ve got a career that I’m proud of and a cozy apartment I can escape to when I need my space. I don’t have a lot of close friends, but the ones I have are perfect for me. I know how to kick back and have fun. I know what most of my issues are and am working with both my boyfriend and a therapist I see occasionally to figure them out.

Marriage comes with a ton of baggage, and not merely legal baggage. Ian doesn’t have to worry about most of it. Men aren’t affected by the things I have to face as a woman with a certain image.

If we even pretend to be engaged, not only will it be a lie that doesn’t need to exist, but I would feel so awful for the both of us. It would strain the relationship we do have. Why can’t we keep going slow? Why can’t we enjoy what we have already?

Why can’t people leave us alone?

“Sorry I brought it up,” Ian mumbles.

“You really want to get married, huh?”

This isn’t a conversation we need to be having in public. Most people around us aren’t even speaking English, and it’s loud enough that they can’t hear us anyway. Ian doesn’t look at anyone else as he says, “I don’t want to get married if you don’t.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Why does he have to be so complicated? “I asked if you really wanted to marry me. Take my apprehensions out of the equation. You want to marry me, right?”

His hand touches mine on top of the table. Eat your heart out, paps. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life,” he says, almost too quiet to hear during breakfast at a hotel café. “Marriage or no marriage, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Of course it matters. That question matters to everyone.”

A sharp breath rips through his body. “Fine.” He drops the other piece of croissant he broke off. “You know why I want to at least get engaged? Because then the whole world will know that you’re mine.” He cuts off the words getting ready to fire from my lips. “They’ll also know that I’m yours. It goes both ways.”

I sigh, resigned to him not getting the point. “No, it doesn’t. Not on the macro level.”

We’ve reached this impasse once again. It happens every time the marriage talk comes up. I’d rather talk about kids than this shit.

“One of these days you’ll have to explain that to me again.” Ian pulls out his phone. “I’m going to step out and return a call.”

That’s code for “let’s take a break for a few hours.” It’s better than fighting. Not that I feel good knowing that we were on the verge of a fight. The only thing making me feel any kind of chipper is knowing he’s off to call his mother. Have fun with that, Ian. I’m going back upstairs and decompressing with one of the only things that soothes my soul.

No, not chocolate. No, not porn. Although I’ll give you a hint: it’s closer to one of those things than the other.

Chapter 10

IAN

“Of course I don’t actually think you’re engaged,” my mother backtracks. It’s the middle of the night back home, but she had no problem calling me forty-eight times in the past two hours. Seemed fair to harass her back. “I’m not foolish enough to hold out hope like that.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“After what happened in Las Vegas, I’m ready for you two to have a nice long think about your relationship.”

My mother can be so typical. Which is rich, coming from a woman who purposely got pregnant to bag herself a rich husband. Her master plan of divorcing my father after twenty years of marriage worked greatly in her favor. The alimony he pays her is so outrageous that if we didn’t live in a different era I
would
be more hesitant about getting married myself! “Anyway, don’t know if you saw the ring.”

“That was the other reason I knew something was bullshit. You think I don’t recognize that ring? Her grandmother used to wear it a lot, and I saw it at the clubs when Marilyn used to live here. I’m not dumb. If I had an heirloom like that I would’ve given it to you a long time ago.”

“I doubt I would’ve worn it and gotten papped with it on, though.”

“Besides, that thing is so garish. Olive Chambers had the tackiest taste. When I first married your father, I had the great displeasure of seeing Olive and that gaudy thing everywhere. You would think they would’ve buried it with her…”

My brain checks out. I’m sitting on a bench along a walkway, looking toward the Eiffel Tower and watching the sun continue to rise. I don’t feel great about walking out on Kathryn during breakfast. I need some space, though. Some time to think. Some time to call my mother and listen to her rant about how tacky grandma Olive Chambers was. If I had stayed behind, I would’ve said something stupid and regrettable. At least now I know when that moment is about to happen and I can walk away.

“You need to get Kathryn a simple and classy ring, but not as boring as that gold band. Get her something with embedded diamonds. Give her a little pizzazz while staying in her tastes. If you’re going to make her a Mathers one day, it has to be done on her terms.”

She manages to be both totally off the mark and absolutely right. She’s right that it would have to be on Kathryn’s terms. She’s wrong that I could ever “make her a Mathers.” The only way Kathryn would take my last name is if someone held a gun to her head at the courthouse. Even then, I’m not sure. Being buried as Kathryn Alison might be more important than being alive.