Page 34 of Saved By the Billionaire

She nodded, but there was a heavy feeling in her stomach that she didn’t like. A sense that she’d shown more of herself than she’d intended and he’d seen way beyond it anyway.

“You don’t have to babysit me, you know,” she said, later that day, with Roman working from the dining table and Kate curled up on the sofa, watching a recording of a Broadway musical.

He glanced from her to the television, something shifting on his features. “I like being here.”

With me? The question formed but thankfully she stopped herself from asking it, just in time. Because to ask it would be to risk him laughing at her, telling her of course that’s not what he meant, and Kate didn’t want to hear the rejection. They’d already crossed a thousand lines that morning; she had broken so many of her own rules.

“Do you like musicals?” he asked, after several more minutes had elapsed. She glanced over at him.

“I’ve never been in person,” she admitted. “Not to a Broadway show or any show.”

His features didn’t shift.

“We didn’t all grow up like this,” she teased.

“This was not my childhood.” It was straying dangerously close to an area of discussion she could tell he didn’t want to indulge, to an area of discussion that was only acceptable if the NDA covered it. Perhaps even then, he would prefer not to go there?

“My sister was a singer.” The words seemed almost dragged from him. “She knew all the words to these songs.” He nodded towards the TV, where a whole chorus of performers was belting out a famous song, but there was nostalgia on his face, that suggested he was no longer in the living room of his palatial sky home, but rather, somewhere back in time.

“Does she still sing?”

His eyes shifted to hers, his features taut. Silence hung between them, heavy and all-consuming. “No.”

Kate waited, but he didn’t say anything else. Eventually, she turned her attention back to the musical. But frustration at his reticence was building inside of her. She reached for the remote and turned off the show, then angled her body towards his. “What was your childhood like, then?”

He glanced up at her, from the papers he’d apparently refocused his attention on. But there was something a little practiced about it, something forced, so she wondered if he was pretending interest with his work rather than actually working?

“Shall we go over the paperwork?” he prompted, a tight smile on his lips.

She compressed her own. “Is it some kind of state secret?”

“It’s private.”

“Did you rob a bank for your thirteenth birthday? Is that where all this comes from?”

His eyes bore into hers, his jaw set in an imposing square line. “No.”

She laughed then, a soft sound. “I give up, Roman. You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She ground her teeth, hating that. Hating that he’d done this before, with so many women. Hating how little she knew about him, and how much she wanted him.

That night, he worked late, one ear trained on Kate’s room, so the second she cried out in fear, he was there, slipping into the sheets beside her and wrapping one arm protectively around her body, pulling her back against him and whispering that she was safe. Reassuring and promising her, quietening her fears, her nightmares, until the sound of soft breathing filled the apartment.

And for the first time in years, he drifted off to sleep and stayed that way for more than an hour at a time. It was unheard of for Roman. He woke disorientated and confused, the heaviness of his rest an unknown phenomenon for a man who had long ago accepted insomnia in his life.

It was still early; Kate was asleep against him, her body shifting with each rhythmic movement of her breathing, and he lay there, allowing himself to relax into this. A secret gift to himself—a moment of unguardedness. A moment of simply existing, and not overthinking. He drifted off to sleep again, years of exhaustion having taken their toll.

Next time he woke, Kate had turned in the circle of his arms and was watching him. “What are they like?”

He frowned, not following. Her eyes dropped to his shoulder and lingered there. “Who?”

“The women you sleep with.”

She’d asked him this the day before, but conversation had moved on. “I don’t know, Kate.” Frustration made the words clipped. “I couldn’t possibly distil it into a single word.”

“Like Tia?”