The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,39

with Ethan Parker, I was true to my word. Which was why, several days later—during the weekend, when we both had time for a bit of an adventure—I was opening the front door to my apartment to see Ethan himself on the other side.

“What, no driver here to pick me up?” I joked.

He gave me a sheepish grin. “I told you I’d show you the sights of New York. I wanted to do it personally. And that means picking you up in person, I guess.”

I arched both of my brows—because although I’d been practicing all week, I still hadn’t managed the one-brow thing—and gave him an impressed look.

“Well, color me not only impressed but also flattered,” I replied. “Ethan Parker, all to myself? How will I control my ego?”

He reached out and took my hand, then pulled me through the door and into the hallway. “Somehow, I think you’ll manage,” he whispered against my cheek, his breath moving the hair around my face and tickling my ear.

I gulped and grinned, not having an answer to that—and unwilling to admit to either him or myself exactly what that small exhalation of air had done to my insides.

This is just business, woman, I told myself sternly. Get it together. Don’t be an idiot.

Because only an absolutely stupidest-ever idiot would allow herself to admit that Ethan Parker had any sort of effect on her insides. Especially with the situation we were in. He’d made it obvious from the day after we slept together that this wasn’t personal.

Business only from here on out, I promised myself, curling my hand a bit more in his and walking with him down the shabby hallway of my building toward the elevator.

It turned out, of course, that even Ethan’s “personal” tour of New York did actually include his driver. We settled into the plush back seats of the town car, the man in front of us dressed in an honest-to-God suit with an honest-to-God chauffeur’s hat, and I gave Ethan another disbelieving look.

“So, personal enough to come pick me up at the door, but not to actually drive?”

He returned the look, only this one was a bit more are-you-serious in nature. “Personal enough that I’m riding with you instead of just meeting you there, like I would do with most people. The truth is, I never drive in the city if I don’t have to. I don’t have the patience. I’d end up getting in all sorts of trouble.”

I had to laugh at that one. “You, impatient? This is my shocked face.”

I remembered the way he’d just jumped right at the idea that I should sell him my baby, and then the way he’d jumped right at the idea that I should sell him one of the two babies when he found out there were going to be twin little ones. I remembered how surprised he’d been when he heard that I wanted time to think about it.

If I was the girl who thought long and hard about things before I made any decision, Ethan was the man who followed his gut and went with the first decision he came to. And though it had obviously served him well in business—just look at how big his company had become since he took it over—I wondered how it had done for him in his personal life.

I settled back into the seat, my eyes on the man next to me.

“Don’t you ever find yourself being impatient to… I don’t know, narrow your choices?” I asked. “Like, what if something better comes along? What if you jump at the first thing you see, and it ends up being the wrong thing?”

He pushed his lips out, actually considering the question—or just considering how he was going to answer it.

“If I’m making a decision on something, it’s because I have the right choice at hand,” he finally said. “I don’t just jump at the first thing I see. I jump at the first right thing I see.”

The way he’d said that made me think that he was talking about something big—something significant—but I had no idea what it was.

He took me, of all places, to the Statue of Liberty.

“Um, you do know that I’ve lived in this city my entire life, right?” I asked, staring up at it—and then with distaste at the number of tourists around us. “And that, as a native, I’m allergic to tourists?”

I turned to him, the wind off the water wreaking havoc with my hair, and caught him