“The doctor said if I didn't stop, I might have six months.” He leans against the bathroom counter, arms crossed. “Not six months to make a change. Six months to live.”
The words hit like a punch to the chest. “Six months.”
“Give or take. Heart attack, stroke, or full cardiac arrest. Take your pick.” His voice is matter of fact, but I can see the tension in his broad shoulders. “So yes, Jennifer. This is serious. This is me trying not to die before I'm forty.”
I don't know what to say. Or how to process the idea that this man- this vibrant and strong and so intensely alive man- was that close to death. And even that I might have missed out on knowing him. I still might.
“The rest,” I manage to force out from between numb lips. “The healthy eating, the yoga…”
“Doctor's orders. Thirty minutes of movement daily. Mediterranean diet. No screens before nine a.m. or after eight p.m. Eight hours of sleep minimum. Stress management techniques.” He ticks them off on his fingers like items on a to-do list. “And these pills, twice a day, probably for the rest of my life.”
“I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I didn't know it was that bad.”
His smile is tight and humorless. “You weren't supposed to.” He pushes off from the counter, moves past me back into the bedroom. “It's not exactly first date conversation. 'Hi, I'm Seth. I'm a billionaire who almost died from being a workaholic.’”
I follow him, watching as he pulls a clean shirt from the drawer. My head is full to bursting with everything, and yet my heart is pounding from the word ‘date’. “Is that what lunch yesterday was? A date?”
He pauses with his shirt in hand and turns to look at me. His blue eyes clear and assessing. “Do you want it to be?”
My breath catches. “I don't know. Maybe?”
“Then maybe it was.” He tosses the shirt onto the bed. “I'm not good at this, Jennifer. Dating, relationships, or any of it. I've spent my entire adult life focused on one thing. And now I'm here, trying to learn how to be a person instead of just a CEO.”
I think of his fingers entwined with mine and the warm look in his gaze yesterday. “You're doing okay so far.”
His mouth quirks slightly. “I am?”
“Yeah. The yoga looks good on you.”
He laughs, and the tension breaks. “It's harder than it looks. I'm not naturally flexible.”
“You seemed pretty flexible to me.”
The words come out more suggestive than I intended, and his eyes darken. But before either of us can say anything else, his phone buzzes on the nightstand.
We both look at it. It buzzes again. And again.
“Do you need to get that?” I ask quietly.
“No.” He doesn't move toward it. “It's not an emergency. If it were, they'd call.”
“Are you sure?”
“Jennifer.” He steps closer, and I can smell his skin, clean sweat and that expensive soap he uses. “I'm sure. Whatever it is, my COO can handle it. That's why I pay him an obscene salary.”
The phone stops buzzing and then starts again.
I can see the tension returning to Seth’s shoulders and the way his already firm jaw tightens. His eyes flick to the phone despite himself.
“You want to check it,” I say.
“I want to ignore it.” But he's already moving toward the nightstand, picking up the phone. His thumb hovers over the screen. “I shouldn't. The doctor said-”
“One quick look won't kill you.”
The words are out before I can stop them, and we both freeze.
“Poor choice of words,” I mutter, feeling my face burn with a mixture of embarrassment and horror.
