The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,48

situation. And though I hated to admit it, I wanted to discuss all that with someone who would do a little more for me than Kira had. Someone who would provide a bit of a… softer landing.

I had my phone in my hand and was searching for her number before I’d even properly thought about it, and I barely stopped myself before I hit ‘send’ on the text I’d already typed out.

Need your feedback on something, and could use a break. Are you free? McConnell’s in fifteen?

I dropped the phone like it was on fire and stared at the text, my mouth open in what I was sure was a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. Not a good look on a CEO. Not a good look for a man who was supposed to know exactly what he was doing all the time—and always be in control.

I’d always been that guy. I’d always been the guy who could see the right path, the best way forward. I’d guided the company from making a little over half a million a year to one that was worth billions and had actual, honest-to-God shareholders. And all those shareholders, all the artists, all the employees, counted on me to always have my head on straight and to make the decisions that would do the best thing for the company.

So what the hell was I doing sending a text to a woman I only knew on a vaguely friendly basis, asking for her feedback and saying I needed to get a drink and bounce some ideas off of her?

Because make no mistake. That text I’d just almost sent her? That was a relationship text. That was a text a husband sends a wife in the middle of the day—if they’ve got an insanely good marriage where they still actually want to spend time together—seeing if she wants to get an impromptu lunch. That was a text that you send to someone you’ve given a position of importance in your life.

That wasn’t a text you send a woman you’ve just got a business deal with. And it certainly wasn’t a text you send a woman that you’ll probably never see again after she gives birth to your babies in a few months.

That was a text you send to someone you had feelings for.

And that meant that for the first time in maybe ever, I was in way, way over my head.

Chapter 28

Bella

By the time December rolled around, I was seeing Ethan pretty consistently, and not only on weekends.

We continued to spend Sundays getting brunch and then touring the city, or just going to the park and laying in the same space while I read a book and he answered the billion emails he had to answer every day. And then inevitably going to get ice cream or lunch or coffee (well, tea for me) and then returning to our blanket and laying there for a couple hours more.

And yeah, that sounds like we were in a relationship. I swear we weren’t, though. Nothing ever happened between us. No kissing, and definitely no sex. Yeah, so there was the occasional romantic situation. Him reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear or standing so close behind me when we were in line at a restaurant that I could feel the heat of his body coming off of him. Me reaching out to take his hand when I was having trouble getting up a set of stairs with my newly large belly. The shock of recognition I got every time he showed up at my door, and the answering gleam I saw in his eye.

The fact that I called him now anytime anything went right—or wrong—in the office, just to hear his voice and hear what he’d say. The fact that his support had come to mean more to me than I thought completely fair or rational.

The fact that seeing him on the weekends and on the occasional—okay, twice-weekly—lunches when we could get away from our respective offices made me happy.

So what? None of that meant anything. It couldn’t mean anything. Because we couldn’t be in a relationship. We were lucky we hadn’t been called out on becoming friends already. We were lucky no one in the paparazzi had noticed us hanging out and published a story that dealt with the Josh Lee case—and then my new connection with Ethan Parker and how that might have led to me winning said suit.

We were still operating on the