Irresistible Billionaires by Summer Brooks
Logan
Bella was moving to New York.
At first, I’d been shocked. And then I’d chastised myself for being shocked, seeing as this was something she’d been talking about for years. New You was her dream. And even more than that, the Head Designer position was her dream. She would have never been able to get that in San Francisco since Evan was the only Head Designer, and the woman probably wouldn’t retire for another forty years.
Bella couldn’t wait that long.
Even with all of that background knowledge, my first instinct was to be totally shocked. Things had felt like they were just getting started for us, and now she was going to move to New York?
I stood in front of all of those people, slightly shell shocked as I watched Bella walk away, swinging her curvy hips as she went.
“Man, tough break, homie,” some kid, who probably wasn’t any older than seventeen, came up to pat me on the shoulder. “She’s hot, too. For an old woman, ya feel?”
“She’s more than hot,” I muttered, once again proving my theory that I was doing a little more than just crushing on Bella.
The crowd dissipated quickly, having lost their ability to pay attention now that most of the action was over. People always talk about a New York minute and how quickly it flies by, but I personally thought a San Francisco minute went even quicker.
Now that the crowd of onlookers was gone, I headed back toward the parking garage before I realized that Bella had been the one to drive us. I’d given up my car and driver when I’d moved into the condo as an attempt to be a little more normal in life.
And as a way to connect with Bella. She never had gotten used to being driven around all of the time.
Stuck in Union Square, I called an Uber with my phone and debated the entire car ride back.
New York was a six-hour flight. If I purchased a private jet, or at the very least a membership to one, I could cut out all the time it took to stand around airports, waiting to get through security, and then waiting to board.
Icould see Bella in six hours, give or take about fifteen minutes, whenever I wanted. I was determined not to let this New York revelation throw off my plans.
I’d completely step one. Bella and I had kissed, and it had reinforced everything that I already knew.
The two of us were magical together. That kiss had been so heated that it wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest if we’d managed to start a fire when our lips met.
It was, hands down, the best kiss I’d ever had in my life. I didn’t like to say it, because it made me sound like an annoying playboy, but I’d kissed a lot of women.
None of them had ever made me feel the way Bella did. She knew me like no one else ever could, and she saw right through me. She knew in a second how I was feeling on any given day, and always knew the perfect thing to say whenever I was upset.
It was for that reason that I was positively determined not to let a silly thing like a move to New York stand in our way. New York was Bella’s dream, and she was mine.
The Best Friend to Boyfriend plan was in full effect. I had a year to convince her that we needed to be together, no matter how physically far apart we were.
But, as always, I wanted to be an overachiever. Which meant that I vowed to convince her in less time.
That entire afternoon, I tried to get my mind off of Bella. I needed to give her a moment to think about just how amazing that kiss was so that she would hopefully come to the same conclusion that I had already reached.
I’d never been the most patient man, though, and that afternoon proved no different. I fiddled with the T.V. and attempted to play a couple of different video games, but none of them managed to hold my interest. Then, I tried to cook myself a little bit of boxed mac ’n’ cheese for dinner but ended up burning the sauce so horrifically that I accidentally set the fire alarms off.
My neighbors probably didn’t like me all that much.
Finally, I gave in. I’d spent hours with the fancy new curtains closed, trying not to look across the way into Bella's apartment. It was time to give that up and give in to my urges.
So I walked over to the window and ripped the maroon curtains back, letting the sun pour in and also giving myself a perfect view through Bella’s window.
Only her curtains were also closed.
I knew she was home. It was Saturday afternoon, which meant she was probably full swing into her self-care routine at this point. And normally, she loved to let a little bit of Vitamin D pour down on her while she pampered her body.
I knew exactly why her curtains were closed. She didn’t want me peeking inside and watching her.
I should have just left it alone. And I would have if it wasn’t for the blasted memory of our perfect kiss. The way her body had molded to mine, the way her lips were perfect and soft, like pillows.
The way it had seemed so right.
“Your curtains are closed.” I finally texted her. It was lame, and I knew it, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to see her.
I waited for a few minutes, but there was no response. I kept glancing between my phone and the window across the way, waiting for her to see it and respond. Hopefully, she’d open her curtains.
Then, suddenly, the little dots popped up, indicating she was texting me back. My heart leaped into my throat as I eagerly waited for what she was going to say.
Then, the dots disappeared.
“No,” I groaned.
For the first time since I’d kissed her, I wondered if I'd really ruined it between the two of us. Guilt washed over me until I remembered step five in my plan: all or nothing.
I’d told myself that I wanted my relationship with Bella to become romantic, or I didn’t want her at all. If the kiss this morning had really scared her off, then I’d just finished steps two through four much faster than I anticipated.
Suddenly, a glare to my left caught my eye. I whipped around to see Bella standing in front of her window with her cell phone in hand. The little device had been catching the sunlight, flashing bright beams into my eyes.
Sure enough, Bella was in full-on self-care mode. She had her fluffy white bathrobe on and had tied her red hair back with a bright purple headband. There was an oily white sheet mask on her face, but she pulled it off as she looked over at me. It left her pale skin soft and dewy. A sudden, desperate need to run my hands across her cheeks came over me, so I balled them into tight fists at my side.
I wanted to text her all about my grand plans for when she moved to New York. But I had the foresight to realize that probably wasn't the best plan right now.
I needed to wait until the right moment when I knew I wouldn’t scare her away with all that talk of the future. If there was one thing I’d learned about Bella over the last two years, it was that she hated talking about the future unless it pertained to her career. All other topics were off-limits unless she brought them up.
I’d keep up with my plan and make her fall in love with me. Inevitably, she’d have to bring up the whole cross country relationship issue, at which point, I would tell her all about how I’d already solved it.
This would work.
I gave Bella a soft smile and a little wave, gauging to see whether or not she’d return it.
To my surprise, she did. The wave was half-hearted in comparison to her usual greeting, but I could see a little smile cross her face, even when she was trying to look like she was mad at me.
I bent my head and texted her again.
“Do you hate me?”
She looked at her phone and rolled her eyes when she received my text. Then, she bent down and yanked the window up so we could talk. Surprised, I followed suit, pulling the pane of glass up.
A soft breeze crept in, bringing with it the smell of flowers and summer.
“Of course I don’t hate you, Logan,” she called out. “I could never hate you.”
“Not even if I switched all of your clothes out for trash bags?” I asked with a shit-eating grin.
“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” she laughed.
I loved her laugh. I’d never taken much time to appreciate it before, but it sounded like wind chimes. Soft and subtle, but musical.
“Fine,” I shrugged. “I’ll do it one day when you’re not home, and we’ll see how you feel then.”
I was rewarded for my juvenile humor with another soft laugh. Bella sighed and leaned against the frame of her window, gazing out at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“That managed thought we were about to have sex in his store, you know?” She chuckled. “What do you think he would have done if we’d actually tried?”
“Are you saying we might have?” I asked, latching onto her words.
Bella’s emerald eyes went wide, as they always did when I said something so outrageous, she could hardly believe her ears. But this time, I could see a slight blush creep into her cheeks, letting me know that she wasn’t as shocked as she tried to make it seem.
“Come on, Logan, you heard me back there,” she sighed. “I’m getting that promotion. I’ll be in New York in a year. And from there, who knows?”
Yes, but I have a plan to solve all of that, I thought.
I didn’t say it out loud, though, and just shrugged, like it was really no big deal.
“Alright, fine,” I replied. “Then how about a movie night tonight? You can come over, we’ll rent the new Marvel movie, and it’ll be just like old times.”
Bella pursed her plump pink lips, the one I'd been miraculously kissing just a few hours ago, and squinted her eyes as she considered.
“I won’t make you try out a mattress. Scout’s honor,” I promised.
Bella rolled her eyes and tried to stifle a laugh, but I could tell I'd already won her over. My quick-witted charm was very hard to resist.
“Fine,” she relented. “But you have to put extra butter on the popcorn. Got it?”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust, but Bella knew she was getting her way.
“I might throw up, but I’ll do it, just for you,” I told her grandly.
“Oh, how kind,” she laughed. “Let me change, and I’ll come over.”
Bella disappeared from the window and headed into her bedroom. The moment she was out of my sight, I spun back into my apartment and shoved my fist in the air.
“Yes!” I grinned.
Bella may not have been ready to admit it to me, or even herself yet, but she liked me back. The fact that she was willing to come over here for a movie night after that spectacle in Union Square told me that.
I dashed into the kitchen and rolled my trusty popcorn maker out of the kitchen, setting it up with the most buttery kernels I could find. Then, just for good measure, I popped some salted butter into the microwave.
Bella was coming over. Let phase two of my master plan begin.