The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,55

I give you plausible deniability? What if, instead…”

I racked my brain, trying desperately to put my thoughts into words. Trying to find a way to explain what I knew in my gut would work.

“What if we don’t agree to go our separate ways? What if we… What if we raise these babies together, as a team, rather than trying to do it separately?”

It wasn’t the full story. Not by a long shot. But it was a step. If she would agree to that, I would have my foot in the door. And I could work on getting the rest of me through when the time was right.

Even better, I could see that she was actually thinking about it. Considering what it might mean.

“Raise them together?” she whispered. “Like, instead of splitting them up? Still see each other all the time?”

I nodded. “And I could still give you the money. I could still make sure you were safe,” I added quickly—because I knew that was important. “Plus, I would be there every day, making sure you stayed safe. I would be there to catch you if you fell.”

She frowned in thought for a moment, her eyes shifting back and forth in what I now recognized as her going through the possibilities. Her considering all the angles and organizing them into a pros and cons list. Probably even writing them down in her head to keep them organized.

Her seeing whether they fit into her ultimate plan.

I held my breath, hoping they did.

When her eyes came back up to me, though, I knew what she was going to say before she even said it.

“Let me think about it,” she said.

Okay, so not the answer I’d been hoping for. But also not the worst thing. A foot in the door, and all that.

I squeezed her hand once. “Think about it,” I agreed. “But actually think about it, okay? Don’t just tell me you’re going to.”

She smiled in agreement… and then turned around again and settled into a position where she was leaning up against me, my arm around her. I leaned my cheek against the top of her head, drinking her in and enjoying the moment for everything that it could be.

Until I fell asleep half an hour later. Because we were definitely already an old married couple. I just needed her to figure that out.

Chapter 31

Bella

I slumped into my seat at work, and I wasn’t even sorry about it. I’d just come from a magical, Christmas-filled weekend in the Hamptons with Ethan—we’d literally just arrived back in town at two that morning—and I was both exhausted and floating at the same time.

If there was one thing I definitely didn’t want to be doing, it was sitting at my desk at work, getting ready for yet another interview about how I was the up-and-coming future partner at the firm, and how my role in taking Harmon-e down a peg or two had led to that.

And there were a lot of reasons for that hesitation. The biggest, of course, was that I’d just spent the weekend going to the farmer’s market and cooking spaghetti in the enormous kitchen of that lovely house. Buying more books than I could read in a year and then having Ethan tell me that he’d buy the entire store for me if I asked for it.

It was a line I hadn’t been expecting. A line that I hadn’t known how to answer. Except my body had known exactly what it wanted—and it had acted without bothering to ask my brain whether it should or not. And that had led to a wonderful afternoon in the bedroom, and then days of cooking, laughing, and making love to the man I’d sworn I wasn’t going to get close to.

The man I now knew I was in love with.

Which had definitely not been part of the plan. Especially since I was now being asked—again—to talk about how I’d beaten him in court. How I’d come in all David-versus-Goliath and taken him down, in the name of my client.

And that was something no one would ever believe if they knew that I was friends with him. If they thought I’d started—I gulped—dating him after the court case was finished. The moment people knew that, they’d think he’d let me off easy. They’d think he’d given his lawyer orders to throw the case.

They’d think I had paid for that win with my body. Either before the fact or after.

And that was something I just couldn’t