The Reality of You (24 page)

I was astonished at
his past
and
overwhelmed that he was
telling me all this. Yet I somehow asked, “So how did you end up in Oregon?”

“I
did
plan on Harvard. However, I refused
to ask for
my
money to pay for
college. In addition, I wanted to cut all ties to him. Thus, I decided to go my
own route. I researched reasonably priced colleges, took a bus after
graduation, and simply disappeared. A student loan, a crap job, and a dumpy
apartment later, I became completely free, learned what it was like to be on my
own and earn my own living.”

Now I stared at him
with an open mouth. “So no one ever figured out who you were there?”

“Nope. And though
anger and pride pushed me into it, it was the best thing I could have done.”
His thumb absently rubbed over my knuckles. “I’d grown up expecting to take
over the empire my father and grandfathers had built, but after several years
on my own, I wanted to make my own future, build my own empire. Regardless if
it never equaled theirs, it would be mine.”

I blinked at him
several times, trying to collect my feelings of amazement and confusion. His
past was astounding, actually uplifting, but why share it with me? Reese was
not the type of person to want pity. I couldn’t wrap my head around the why,
yet I could respond to what he’d gone through.

“I’m glad, and
slightly jealous, you’ve found your place in life. But I sincerely wish that
never happened with your grandfather.” I shook my head. “Why did he… Was he
just greedy?”

“He was a cold man,
and even when my parents were alive, my mother was never close to her parents.”
Shaking his head, Reese sneered slightly. “Though my grandfather was a lawyer,
they were always way more pretentious than my family. They liked the money, the
upscale penthouse, the chauffeur, but looking back, I think his motivation
mostly stemmed from the fact he was running for district attorney that year,
and he was losing.”

“He wanted the money
for his campaign,” I stated, despite the fact it was obvious.

“And he got it,” Reese
said, standing, “while I got a new lease on life, learned how to truly live,
and never looked back.” He tugged at my hand. “Come on. All this talk is making
me ravenous.”

Who the heck said
ravenous?

In the kitchen,
Reese poured coffee and mixed milk in mine. He drank it black. Funny, our time
was nearly over, but we were starting to know each other rather well. He set
the coffees down and took the sandwiches from the bag. I sat still, pondering
all he’d told me as it mixed with everything I already knew about him until a
light bulb—yeah, as usual, it’d taken me some time to put the pieces
together—went off in my head.

“You don’t live off
your inheritance!” I blurted.

He paused unwrapping
a sandwich. “I was starting to wonder how many hints I needed to drop.”

I gave him an
annoyed look then inspected his apartment. “You paid for this. That’s why it’s
an investment.” Yes, though slow, I felt rather smart at the moment.

He hid a grin behind
the back of his hand. I ignored it.

“Do you use any of
your inheritance?” I put up my hand in a stop gesture. “You don’t have to
answer that. It just kind of came out.”

Still smiling, he
lowered his hand and reached for his coffee. “I use it for a few things. Like
Paul. There’s no way I could afford him. He’s been with the family so long I
can’t let him go in good conscience. And for taxes and upkeep on the properties
I continue to own.”

“Huh,” I said,
overwhelmed again, sitting next to a billionaire who essentially earned his own
living. “So it sits there?” I put up my hand again. “Don’t—”

“Partly. I’ve sold
several of the smaller companies and passed the money to charity. I’m taking it
slow, finding the right investors. And there are some things I’ll probably
never be able to part with, like the house in South Haven. Too many memories of
my parents there…”

The guilt lined on
his face had me shocked again. “Reese, if you gave away half and kept the
other, I’d be amazed. Yet what you’ve done, what you’ve given up… Even when you
were being an ass in Puerto Rico, I respected your determination, work ethic,
and drive for perfection. But right now, I’m flabbergasted, and seriously, the
respect-o-meter is off the charts. I mean…just, wow.”

Staring at me with
warm eyes, he leaned across the counter, cradled my jaw in his hands, and
kissed me so thoroughly I would have fallen off the stool if he weren’t holding
me up. After, his nose centimeters from mine, he said, “I never took that
shower. You?”

“No.” Though a
little lightheaded with his hands on me, I managed to escape from his grasp and
hop off the kitchen stool. “And I’m feeling kind of dirty,” I said, laughing
and running toward his room, yanking up my shirt.

Half naked himself,
Reese caught up with me in the bathroom. I was yanking down my bra straps when
he said, “Not next weekend, the weekend after, I’m taking you with me to
Toronto. The hotel I stay at there has these showers…” He paused as I became
frozen. “Naomi?”

With my bra strap
stuck in a yank, I could no more than stare at him while the words “weekend
after” echoed in my head. The weekend after was way past three weeks. Stupid,
stupid, stupid me. I’d never considered the three weeks as time in stone. It
wasn’t just the passage of time that woke me up. It was the why he was telling
me about his past that was finally making sense. He wanted me to know and
understand
him
. The realization
warmed me all over.

This wasn’t a fling.

“Naomi?” Reese said
again, his hands pausing in their pants removal.

I was going to
faint. Or let out a whoop. Or tackle him. And it wasn’t just because he was
removing his pants.

His expression
turned speculative the longer I stood frozen.

Oh shit. I didn’t
want to destroy the moment with my previous assumptions and Kara’s
brainwashing. I needed to get myself together. Fast.

I finally unfroze,
letting go of the bra strap. The thing snapped hard enough to leave a welt. I
ignored the sting. “Toronto?” I said in a tone that conveyed excitement,
because I really, really was excited.
This
wasn’t a fling!
“I love Toronto!” I said, tackling him.

We crashed into the
tiled wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him—more like
devoured his mouth in my excitement.

When we came up for
air, Reese said, “Well hell, we need to go to Toronto at least once a month.”

Chapter 27

Later
that afternoon, the Brooklyn Bridge, with its massive arches and cables against
the backdrop of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, loomed in the distance as I ran with
Kara in the park. Well, more like jogged at an excruciating slow pace. My
roommate had never been much for exercise. I could get her to the gym on a
weekend afternoon—never in the morning prior to work. Since I’d moved here,
we’d run together a total of three times. It was a warm, sunny spring day, and
when I’d suggested a run, even Kara hadn’t been able to refuse. And yeah,
caught in a natural high after this morning with Reese, from major realizations
and
awesome sex, I needed to get rid
of the copious amounts of energy bottled inside of me.

As we rounded the
trail, running under newly sprouted trees, I dredged up enough courage to say
what had been on my mind since Paul dropped me off at the apartment hours ago.
“I need to find a new job. Soon.” Now that Reese and I were real, my
working—even in a roundabout way—for him and hiding it had to stop. I wanted to
come clean, but once I had another job. At least that was what I’d been telling
myself.

Gasping for breath,
Kara glanced at me, her blond ponytail swishing and her forehead wrinkling.
“Why?”

“It isn’t a fling,
Kara.” I didn’t need to elaborate. She knew I was referring to Reese. “We’re”—a
smile escaped me—“pretty much in a relationship.”

She stared at me,
her expression wild and stunned. Unfortunately, staring at me, she veered away
from the path and right into a tree with a thud. Fortunately, she hadn’t been
moving that fast, and I caught her bouncing back from the tree before she hit
the ground.

Holding her under
the arms, I asked, “You okay?”

A jogger, who’d
probably also witnessed Kara’s whap into the tree, paused next to us and waited
to be a Good Samaritan if needed.

It took a few
seconds, but Kara yanked away from me and twisted around, her face furious. “Am
I okay? No! What the heck, Naomi? You can’t be serious! You can’t think you’re
going to have a relationship with
him
!”

After making wide
eyes at my roommate, the lone jogger quickly moved on.

I’d hoped Kara’s
accepting my decision last weekend was authentic. So much for hope. Though I
reined aggravation in, my expression stayed stern as I crossed my arms. “I
don’t think. I am in a relationship with him.”

Kara slapped her
forehead. “Oh no! You’ve really fallen for him!” She rubbed the skin between
her eyebrows. “I knew this would happen.”

I held in an
irritated sigh. “He’s taking me to Toronto in two weeks. That’s way more than a
month of dating.”

After looking
stunned again, she let out a stream of air. “Okay, fine. You beat the
three-week mark. Yet the man has never, ever been serious about a woman. Don’t
tell me his record doesn’t have you worried.”

“No. Not anymore. I
was
blinded by his past and the crap you
were always shoving in my face so much that I didn’t understand what was
happening between us until this morning.
We’re getting close, Kara. It happened without me realizing it, but it’s
simply become me wanting to be with him and him wanting to be with me.”

She frowned. “Good
sex does not mean some lofty romantic connection.”

“My heart may be
weak willed, but I’m not an idiot,” I snapped.

“I don’t think
you’re an idiot. I think… I just—”

“What, Kara? Reese
dates tons of fabulous women, so there’s no way he’d fall for
me
?”

“I didn’t—”

“You don’t have to.
And I get it. But unbelievably, I do believe he’s falling for me.”

As she stared at me,
her mouth twisted as if she were stopping words from escaping.

“Are you two coming
or what?” someone who sounded a lot like Avery yelled in the distance.

Both of our heads
whipped to the voice. Avery stood with her hands on her hips farther down the
path, giving us a questioning look. We’d both forgotten that we were supposed
to meet her and Jules for lunch at a place under the bridge. That we’d both
forgotten with the bridge over our heads attested to the fact that our
conversation had put us in our own little incensed world. We glared at one
another, both of us upset, then began walking toward our friend.

Avery peered back
and forth between us until we stepped up to her. “What has you two looking like
pissed-off teenagers?”

“Nothing,” I said in
an irate tone.

“Nothing,” Kara
echoed in the same tone.

Avery took one more
look between us then shrugged. “Well, come on. Jules is saving us a table. The
weather has people out in droves.”
 

Silently, we both
followed her into the restaurant. Freshly baked bread and seafood hit my nose
the second we entered the place. Avery had been trying to get us all here for
months. She loved finding little places that served gourmet food on paper
products. Jules had stated several times that she’d never understand Avery’s
aversion to china, and if the food were that good, then it would come on real
plates. Given that I’d eat almost anything, neither argument made sense to me.
China or not, good food was good food.

Avery ordered some
crazy combo that came with a little of everything. Still silent, both Kara and
I helped her lug the trays through the crowd to Jules waiting in a corner
booth. Amid seafood sandwiches, pickles, and chips, Jules told us about her
latest fashion show woes while Avery kept asking everyone about how awesome the
food was. Both Kara and I listened, nodded, and ate.

Sometime after the
horror story of lipstick on a five-thousand-dollar gown, Jules asked me how
things were going with Reese. I felt Kara tense beside me and instantly grew
furious at her reaction. Then I truly considered the question and warm emotions
overrode my anger.

I set my bottled
root beer down. “Things are going fantastic. He wants to take me to Toronto in
a couple of weeks.”

“Oh, you lucky
girl,” Avery said in a gleeful tone through a mouthful of lobster salad.

“You’re getting
serious with him then?” Jules asked.

Funny—not—how Jules
considered me getting serious, not Reese. “He’s fun and sweet and sexy… Perhaps
a bit demanding, but nothing like the gossip portrays him,” I said, resisting a
glare at Kara. It felt exciting to talk about him and let my feelings show
without receiving condemnation.

“And rich as sin,”
Jules added.

I shrugged. “He’s
not… We don’t… We just watched the soccer game and goofed around and talked in
his apartment over the weekend.” I didn’t know how to explain Reese without
disclosing his personal past, so I tried to explain how we were together, how
it was perfect without any of the things his billions could buy. “We simply
like being together,” I said with a smile I couldn’t contain. “He’s getting me
hooked on old movies. And wine—I’m starting to love wine. He actually thinks
I’m funny.” My tone became more excited with each thing I told them. “Neither
of us can cook, so after…ah—a shower and a bought breakfast, we decided that we
should take some lessons together. He has this awesome gourmet kitchen and…”

Jules’s and Avery’s
wide, astonished eyes ceased my descriptions. I refused to look at Kara sitting
next to me, especially as a warm giddiness bubbled up inside me.

Getting control of
her eyelids first, Jules said, “You’re falling in love with him.”

I stared down at my
hands curled in the lap of my sweatpants. When I glanced up, my gaze met the
anticipation in theirs. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Kara’s gasp rang out
next to me while Avery put her chin in her hand and sighed. “I wish I could fall
in love again every day.”

Jules rolled her
eyes. “And I wish I could have falling-in-love sex every day.” Her attention
shifted to Kara. “Why are
you
so
quiet?”

“I-I’m worried.
Okay? I’m…glad that Naomi is happy, but you didn’t see her after the accident,
after James broke their engagement.” Kara drew a deep breath “She was
completely broken in both body and mind. I never want to see her like that
again.”

Part of me was
infuriated and hurt that Kara compared what Reese and I shared to the past, and
another part of me understood her worry. I’d never want to see her like that.

Jules rolled her
French manicured nails on the table. “So she’s never supposed to date again?”

Kara smacked her
hand on the table. “No, she’s supposed to date widely with safe guys who won’t
rip her heart out.”

“Safe?” Jules
scoffed . “What man is safe? Kara, you’re being unrealistic, but for the last
time, let Naomi make her own choices.”

Yo, bitches!
Okay, I was getting tired of the
conversation going on like I wasn’t sitting in the booth with them. “Hey,
ladies, I’m right here. And I get it.” I glared at Kara. “But the argument is
null. I’m in too deep. So this discussion is pointless.”

Kara’s jaw
tightened, Jules raised her waxed eyebrows, and Avery sighed dreamily.

I grabbed a tray of
trash and scooted out of the booth. “Let’s see if that ice cream place is
open.”

Following me, Kara
mumbled, “Like my ass needs ice cream after the consumption of mayonnaise and
carbs.”

“You can get
sorbet,” Avery said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yes, get
something
to sweeten your disposition,”
Jules added.
 

Kara gave them both
the evil eye before stomping outside.

Avery and Jules
headed to the bathroom. I slowly made my way outside, dreading meeting up with
my roommate. Five steps out the door, Kara came and pulled me to the side of
the walkway.

Facing me, she drew
in a deep breath. “Look, Naomi, I’m sorry for being negative,” she said in a
tight tone as if the words were being forced out. “I’ll try not to worry so
much, and…and if things don’t work out, I’ll be there for you, okay?”

I hated that she’d
added the last part—things were working out perfectly!—but if we were heading
back to truce land, I was taking it. “And you’ll help me find a new job?”

She nodded. “I’ll
find you a new job.”

“Thank you,” I
practically sang as the heavy weight that had been lingering on me all day
finally released. The job thing seemed to be the one wrinkle between Reese and
me. Once that was fixed, everything would be flawless between us.