Tell Me You're Mine (The British Billionaires #1) - J. S. Scott Page 0,31
practiced corporate law in Los Angeles, but my mother had encouraged me to apply to one of the most prestigious law firms in New York. She’d fought her battle with cancer alone so I wouldn’t feel like I had to come back to California, not telling me about her diagnosis until she knew she was going to lose that fight.
I sighed. I couldn’t have a do-over. Regrets wouldn’t bring her back. And if I’d done everything differently, I wouldn’t have the memories of all the times Mom had come to the East Coast to see me.
We’d traveled from New York to Maine. Every time she came to the East Coast, we found a new place to visit, a new adventure. Those road trips had been some of the happiest times of my entire life.
“I know time is supposed to make her death easier, but it hasn’t taken away how much I miss her,” I admitted to Kylie.
Maybe the acute pain was gone, but the ache and emptiness were almost as bad.
Kylie shot me an empathetic look. “It hasn’t been that long, Nic. She was your mom, and your only immediate family. It’s going to take time.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“How about we grab Macy and do a girl’s weekend soon?” Kylie suggested.
Okay, maybe it wouldn’t exactly be a road trip, but spending time with my two best friends was always an adventure, too.
I smiled at her. “I’m game. As long as we stay away from the clubs, and you promise not to drink tequila. Last time we all went out, you were dancing on the bar.”
Macy and I had slowly talked Kylie down from the bartop, and gotten her home to her bed.
None of us had ever suggested going to a nightclub again.
Honestly, it wasn’t like I didn’t know that Kylie was way beyond that kind of behavior now. That incident had happened soon after she’d become single again, and she hadn’t been in a good place back then.
Kylie scoffed. “One time. I got on the bar one single time, and you’re never going to let me forget it. That was a decade ago, Nic.”
“Nope. I won’t stop talking about it,” I agreed. “If I’d done that, you’d be reminding me of it on a daily basis for the rest of my life. Admit it. You’d love to have something like that to tease me about forever.”
Kylie smirked. “You’re probably right. It kind of sucks that you’ve never done anything even remotely inappropriate. Well, except for kissing a stranger on an airplane,” she reminded me. “Believe me, I’ll never stop giving you a hard time about that one since it’s the only dirt I have on you.”
“I know,” I said with a chuckle. “But I was under the influence at the time, just like you were a decade ago.”
She rolled up the empty wrapper from her sandwich. “So are you really feeling better about kissing Mr. Orgasm? I know you, Nic. Are you telling me the truth when you’re insisting that you’ve just blown the whole thing off?”
“No,” I said immediately. Dammit! Kylie did know me way too well. “You’re right about the kiss just being a kiss, but I feel like an idiot when I think about the way he was trying to console me about bombing a presentation with his damn company. What kind of guy does that sort of thing?”
“Let’s see,” Kylie pondered. “I’d say he’s either really twisted or really desperate. He’s either a psycho who enjoys sick little mind games, OR…he liked you and didn’t want you to know it was his company that gave you the we’ll-call-you-later brush-off.”
I preferred the second explanation. “Are you certain the guy you saw getting into that car at the airport was Damian Lancaster?”
She raised her brows. “Nicole Ashworth, don’t try to tell me that you didn’t look that picture up for yourself last night.”
I had, and she knew it. “Maybe the guy has a doppelganger?”
Hell, maybe I was grasping at straws, but I didn’t want the man I’d shared an intimate kiss with to be the owner of Lancaster International. For me, that kiss had been real…
“Right. And that doppelganger just happens to be named Damian, too?” Kylie asked wryly.
“Okay. It was him,” I conceded. I had found the scandalous picture of him, and the more serious picture of him on the Lancaster International website. “But why in the hell would he be taking a flight in business class on his own airline, for God’s sake? He must have