I should hide.
I should turn my phone off, move to a remote island, and reinvent myself as a woman who never met a billionaire.
Instead, I look at my reflection in a shop window.
Red lips.
Soft hair.
A nervous wreck barely held together by caffeine and denial.
I whisper to myself:
“You’re going. Aren’t you?”
I am.
I absolutely am.
CHAPTER 14
Jaxon
I’m at the café ten minutes early.
Which is already out of character. I don’t do early. I barely tolerate on time.
But here I am, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled, coffee untouched, my leg bouncing with a kind of impatience I’ve never felt in my life.
I check my phone.
No message.
I don’t need one. She’s coming. I know she is.
I take a slow breath and look toward the door, and…
There she is.
Ruby walks in like she’s trying to convince herself she belongs here, when she’s the only thing in the room that feels like it makes sense.
She’s wearing a soft sweater and fitted trousers, nothing overly dramatic or intentionally seductive, but on her? It’s lethal. Themorning light catches her hair, softening the edges. She looks tired, like she didn’t sleep.
Good. I didn’t either.
She steps inside, hugging her bag to her chest, scanning the room like she’s searching for an escape route.
Her eyes land on me.
Everything in her goes still.
Everything in me does too.
She hesitates for a second, the kind of hesitation that lives between fear and want, then walks toward me.
I stand before she reaches the table.
Her eyes flick down my body, then snap away quickly, as if she didn’t just check me out at 8:45 in the morning.
