The Billionaire's Allure (The Silver Cross Club Book 5) (29 page)

Fierce debate erupted. The group was evenly split between people who loved the chapter and people who thought the method of escape was too clichéd to be enjoyable. Evan leaned back in his chair, grinning, periodically taking notes. I was always impressed with his ability to be completely unfazed by criticism.

Claudia let us go on for a while, but then she raised her hand for silence, and everyone simmered down. “Evan, I hope you’ve been given some food for thought,” she said.

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do. But you’ll all just have to wait and see.”

“Not fair!” Dan said. Like me, he was on Team This Is Awesome.

“All right, all right,” Claudia said, heading off another outburst. “Evan’s had his turn. For the second half of our meeting, we’ll read something from Beth.” She turned to me, smiling warmly. “What do you have for us this evening?”

I drew in a deep breath, and passed my chapter around the circle. “This is something new,” I said. “I just started on it today. So… Well, I’ll just let you guys read it.”

They read, and I chewed on a hangnail. Maybe I was a
little
nervous.

Naida finished reading, then Samuel. Darya finished, and flashed me a quick smile. Claudia waited until everyone was done, and then she said, “I don’t usually provide input during meetings. My role is to serve as moderator, not critic. But in this case, I feel the need to say something.”

I hunched my shoulders, bracing myself.

“Beth, I am so proud of you,” she continued. “This is what I’ve been waiting to see from you. I’m glad that you took our conversation to heart. It’s true that this is less polished than your previous work, but I believe that’s a good thing. I hope you’ll continue in this vein. I know I’m looking forward to seeing what develops.”

Around the circle, people nodded their agreement. Darya smiled at me again, and this time I saw her smile for what it was: not pity, or even reassurance, but pride.

Evan raised his hand. “I know you’re writing literary fiction and not genre fiction, but books can be literary and still engaging,” he said. “And this
is.
I already care about these characters. I demand regular email updates, because I don’t want to have to wait until it’s your turn again.”

Samuel raised his hand and said, in his quiet way, “I agree. This is good work. You’re very talented. That said, the tone of the opening scene contrasts with the rest of the chapter in a way I don’t think you intended…”

It went on like that. I glowed from the praise, and took notes of people’s suggestions. Paolo hated my work—he hated everything—but everyone else liked it and encouraged me to keep going. It was by far the most positive reaction I had ever gotten from the group. I wanted to go home and start on the next chapter right away.

When we were finished, and I was packing up my bag, Darya approached me with Evan at her side. “Beth, we’re going for dinner, if you would like to come,” she said. “Evan promised me that he would tell me what happens in his next chapter.”

I hesitated, thinking of my laptop, and the chapter waiting to be written. “Well…”

“Sneak preview,” Evan said. “Exclusive inside information. Limited time only.”

I looked at them, these people who wanted to be my friends, and decided that my book could wait for a little while. “Dinner sounds great.”

* * *

On Sunday, I woke up mid-morning and decided that I was going to visit Max at his shelter. It was a spontaneous decision, and I realized as I sat on the subway that I had no way of knowing if Max would actually be at the shelter. I figured it was worth a shot. He spent a lot of time there, I knew. And even if he wasn’t there, it would be easy enough for me to walk to his apartment and beard the lion in his den.

It was a sunny day, and some kids were standing around outside the shelter. One of them, smoking a cigarette, gave me a suspicious look and said, “You want something, lady?”

“I’m looking for Max,” I said. The kid’s snide tone irritated me, and I said, “Does he know you’re smoking that cigarette?”

“She definitely knows Max,” another kid said, and flashed a wide grin at me. “He’s inside.”

“Don’t tell her that!” the first kid said, aiming a kick in the snitch’s direction. “She’s going to tell on me!”

“Serves you right,” I said. “Smoking is a terrible habit.” The kid opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with me, but I breezed past him into the building before he could respond.

I immediately felt petty. I wasn’t here to score imaginary points against teenagers.

I imagined telling Max about that interaction. He would just laugh at me, and tell me I had let my temper get the better of me. He knew my faults and loved me anyway.

That was what it was: love. He had never said the words, except in the letter he wrote to me when he was seventeen. But I knew the truth of it.

Or I thought I did, at least.

One of the kids used her key-card to let me in, and I wandered around the building, looking for Max. He wasn’t in his office, which was the first place I looked. He wasn’t in the kitchen, or in the gym, which had sprouted a treadmill and a rowing machine since the last time I’d been there.

Finally, I went into the library, and there he was, sitting at a table with a boy in a hoodie, the two of them bent over an open textbook, pencils in hand.

I watched for a while, leaning in the doorway. Max was dressed casually, in jeans and a worn T-shirt that looked soft to the touch. As much as I liked it when he dressed up, I liked it even better when he wore things that looked like he had dug them out of the back of his closet. Wealthy Businessman Max was still, in many ways, an unknown quantity. I knew
this
Max, the one whose hair fell in his face, whose sneakers were a little bit scuffed.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were working on. They were speaking quietly, and too far away for me to make out more than a single word here and there. It was probably the kid’s physics homework, I decided, when Max tossed an imaginary basketball, his fingers describing a perfect arc. The kid nodded, and typed something into his calculator. Max handed him a wadded-up piece of paper, and the boy aimed it at the trashcan and threw. It went right in, a perfect shot.

I laughed aloud. I couldn’t help it. They both looked over at me, faces mirror images of surprise.

“Sorry,” I said. “Don’t mind me.”

“Beth,” Max said, starting up out of his chair. He paused halfway, and sat back down. The kid looked at him, smirking. Max held a hand in front of the boy’s face. “Beth. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“I dropped by,” I said. “Sorry. You’re busy. I can go wait downstairs.”

“It’s cool, miss,” the boy said, gathering his things. “It was just this one problem giving me trouble. I understand it now. I can do the rest on my own.” I still felt bad for interrupting, but the kid was grinning and looking back and forth between me and Max. “She’s really pretty,” he said to Max in what I assumed was supposed to be a whisper.

Max rolled his eyes. “Get out, Terrell.”

The kid went, still grinning.

“Sorry about that,” Max said, leaning back in his chair. “The kids are overly invested in my love life, or perceived lack thereof.”

“Surrounded by matchmakers?” I asked. “That sounds like a hard life.” I felt a little shy. I wasn’t sure how to start this conversation. I moved into the room, but I didn’t go to where Max was sitting. I walked around the perimeter, looking at the books on the shelves, trailing my fingers along their bound spines. The titles ran the gamut—everything from mysteries to old pulp novels to self-help books I was sure I had seen on Oprah. Max had probably cleaned out the book sections of a few thrift stores to build this collection.

“Beth, why are you here?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I swallowed. A deep breath, and then the dive. “I missed you,” I said. “I’m tired of being angry with you.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked. His chair scraped across the floor. I turned to face him, finally. He was coming toward me, hands at his sides. I pressed my back against the bookcase behind me and braced myself for whatever would come next. A kiss, or a blow.

Dramatic. I knew Max would never hit me.

He stopped in front of me. His hands flexed. He raised one of them and touched my chin, tipping my head back to meet his eyes. “Beth,” he said. He sounded unsure.

I supposed I had given him plenty of reason for doubt.

“I’m still a little angry,” I said. “But I forgive you. I’m deciding to forgive you. I want to be with you. I want—all of it, babies and—a life together.”

“Beth,” he said again.

My throat ached. I
knew
him: his strong jaw, his kind eyes. He had made some mistakes, but so had I. Mistakes were what made us human.

His hand skimmed down my neck and rested on my shoulder. I felt the words rising in me before I said them, like a bubble of air in a bottle. And then I opened my mouth and there they were, raw and unabashed. “I love you,” I said.

Then I closed my eyes in dismay. Had I really just said that?

“My sweet Bee,” he said. “Elizabeth. You know I adore you beyond reason.”

“You have to say it,” I said. I cracked one eye open to look at him. He didn’t look too upset.

In fact, he was smiling. “Say what?”

“You
know
what,” I said. “You can’t dance around it. You have to say it.”

“Words mean nothing,” he said. “It’s actions that count, right? I’ll buy you a thousand red roses, take you on the tropical vacation of your wildest dreams—”

Now I knew he was tormenting me on purpose. “
Say
it,” I insisted, tugging at the front of his shirt.

He leaned in until his lips were almost brushing against mine. When he spoke, I felt his breath. “I love you.”

I closed the final inch between us and kissed him.

He immediately wrapped me in his arms, warm and strong, and kissed me with his whole heart. The bookcase was digging into my spine, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but being here with him, this man I had chosen, for better or for worse, through thick and thin.

We kissed until a kid came into the library, saw us, yelped “Sorry!” and went out again. I wouldn’t have stopped even then, but I felt Max smiling against my mouth, and I pulled away to see what he found so comical.

“Big Brother is watching,” he said. “I can’t take a breath without having it reported all the way up the food chain.”

“You think you’re at the bottom of the food chain?” I asked. “Max, I’m pretty sure you’re the top predator in this little ecosystem.”

He laughed. “Maybe so. God, I missed you.”

“Yeah,” I said. I buried my face against his neck. “I feel weird.”

“Poor Beth,” he said, stroking my back. “Too many emotions. We’ll deal with them one at a time. Have you spoken with Renzo recently?”

“A few days ago,” I said. “He wants to come out here for a visit. I think he wants to kiss my butt until I stop being mad at him, and have some manly hugs and reconcile with you.”

“Well, that would certainly make me very happy,” he said. “How do you feel about it?”

“Okay, I guess,” I said. “I’m tired of being angry. I want to move on with the rest of my life. I want to work, and take care of my mother, and finish my book.”

“And?” he asked. “Is that all?”

I smiled, my face pressed against his skin. “Why? Do you have any ideas?”

His hand kept moving on my back, slow and steady. “I might have a few.”

EPILOGUE

Max

We got married on a cold and rainy morning in early March, in the chapel of my parents’ church on the Upper East Side, only a few blocks from their apartment. The ceremony was small and intimate, immediate family only—plus Renzo, who had flown out from California to walk Beth down the aisle.

The morning of, I took a cab to the church to meet up with Jack, who was meant to “assist” me while I got ready. I quickly realized that he was going to be no help whatsoever. We had the use of a small sitting room, and Jack sat in a chair by the window and took a silver flask out of his suit jacket.

“My God,” I said, draping my suit—still in its plastic dry cleaner bag—over the back of the sofa. “Does Mother know you have that?”

“Father said I could,” he said. He unscrewed the cap and took a sip, then made a disgusted face. “Nasty.”

“I hope that isn’t his nice Scotch,” I said. “Am I participating in the corruption of a minor? I hope you aren’t planning to get drunk before my wedding. Beth will be very disappointed.”

Jack thought that Beth hung the stars in the sky, and I watched smugly as my barb hit home. He sighed, put the cap back on the flask, and tucked it back inside his jacket. “Fine. But after.”

“You’re twenty,” I said. “I’m not letting you get drunk.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m in college, Max. Are you honestly trying to tell me that you never had a drop of liquor until the day you turned twenty-one?”