The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,41

statue.

“Everyone will have to walk about a hundred and sixty-two steps more if they want to go all the way up to the viewing platform on the crown,” the tour guide said in a monotone voice, like he’d already used this line five hundred times too many. “This elevator will only take you to the top of the pedestal.”

“Is it worth going all the way to the top?” one of the other visitors asked.

The guide shrugged. “The view is pretty much the same from both points, but if you want to go all the way to the top, you’re going to have to brave the stairs.”

It made sense, I guessed. You were up so high at that point that it didn’t seem like you would see much more if you went a bit higher. Still…

I glanced up at Ethan, a question on my face, and saw him grinning down at me, his eyes laughing.

Right, then. Because it seemed that Ethan and I agreed on one thing: As long as we were up there, we were going to go all the way. Regardless of the extra stairs we’d have to climb.

Chapter 23

Ethan

“Holy cow,” Bella breathed, staring out at the view from the top of the crown.

We were the only people up there—the only people that had decided the extra stairs were worth it, I guessed—and I was secretly glad that no one else had made the climb. Because it gave me a chance to watch her watching the view. A chance to really see her without having to worry about the hundreds of other people shoving and jostling and talking and laughing and chatting on their phones and trying to move past you, like they always were everywhere in New York.

In this city, it was nearly impossible to get a moment to yourself. So, being up here at what felt like the top of the freaking world, in something that was at least close to silence and so far away from the ground, with this woman who seemed to have a string tied right to some part of me that I still hadn’t identified? Yeah, it was pretty amazing, actually.

Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be thinking things like that. I didn’t have time to think things like that. I didn’t have time a for a relationship, or all the million and one complications that went with it. I barely had time to do my job.

But I hadn’t let that stop me. Because I was a man with a plan, and that plan was to get to know her better so that we could figure out whether or not we could share the kids we were about to have.

I didn’t make long-term plans like that often, preferring to take every challenge as it came and make my decisions based on what was best at the time. It was an approach that had served me well so far—but this thing with Bella… it felt like it needed something more solid. Something more well-thought-out. It also hadn’t escaped my attention that getting to know her better would probably give me some insight into what our kids might be like. Which was, you know, important.

See? Totally business. That was the only reason I was at the top of the Statue of Liberty, staring at Bella Mayfair as she stared out at the view, appreciating the way the sun turned her blond hair to something like spun gold and brought out the undertone of copper in her dark brown eyes.

Totally business. That whole noticing-how-she-looked thing? It was just that I wanted to know what our kids might look like. That was it. I was totally in control, here.

Totally in control.

I jerked my gaze around to the view that had her so enthralled, and had to catch my own breath.

“Holy cow is right,” I said, staring at the view I hadn’t seen since I was about five years old—and therefore didn’t really remember.

Yes, the city was enormous, and many of those skyscrapers were taller than the statue we were standing on. But we were so far from the city that everything looked like a miniature. Tiny, perfect replicas of the buildings, with toy cars zooming in between them and people who were little more than smudges walking around.

On the other side of the statue, I could see nothing but water, stretching off into the distance like it never ended. There were more smudges there, of boats, I assumed, but they were so indistinct that it was