Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend (Her Billionaire #1)

Chapter THIRTY-FOUR

(Charlotte)

Matt looked like I’d shot him. Not simply said I was going to go home.

What do you mean?”

“I mean…” My eyes flicked to the candle dripping wax onto the frosting. “You should blow that out and make a wish, before it ruins the whole cake.”

My dodge annoyed him; I could tell by the wrinkle of his brow as he took the plate from me and unceremoniously blew out the candle. “I wish you would tell me what you mean and stop dancing around it. That’s my wish.”

“I told you what I mean. I think I should leave, before things get weird between us.” I picked at my fingernails absently, but didn’t—maybe couldn’t—say anything else.

He blew out a long breath. When he spoke again, there was no anger or disappointment in his voice. I appreciated that; it would have been unfair of him to pout over my leaving. “You can go any time you want to. I can have it all arranged; you could go within an hour.”

“That’s not—”

“Did something happen?” he asked. “At the party last night, did I do something?”

“No! The party was so much fun. Until we came back here and…” Until we came back here and I realized I might not be able to keep this up without ruining everything. But I couldn’t say that. I’d stayed awake for hours after we’d come back, holding him, running my fingers through his hair, soaking up every minute I could because I knew they would be our last. And in that time, I’d tried to find a way to break things off without admitting I was running away.

But I had to go. And there was no way to make him understand why. They never understood why.

“It was fun until I realized that you surrounded yourself with people you’re not close to, on a day that you claim to feel is important. The highlight of your year. But you didn’t know any of those people.” I spread my hands helplessly. It was the truth. Not a kind truth, probably one he was already aware of, but good enough to be my reason to leave.

Because I couldn’t tell him that I had to leave because I loved him too much to eventually let him down.

“I don’t want to fuck my actual friends,” he protested. “That would be weird.”

I mentally thanked him for that clumsy opening. “Exactly. I’m not your ‘actual friend’—”

“That’s not what I meant!”

I knew it wasn’t. I pretended I didn’t. “I don’t want to be your fake friend that you fuck.”

“You want to be friends? Because I can live with that. I can accept that, as long as you stay in my life.” His jaw tightened. His throat moved. “I don’t want to lose you.”

I looked down at my hands, still scratching at my nail beds. “Sure. Fine. I think that would be fine.”

“Now, can I tell you what I want?” he asked, taking a step toward me. I wanted to back away, out of instinct. To protect myself, not from physical violence because I would never expect that from Matt. I had to protect myself from his physical presence. From the aching familiarity of his body that would intoxicate me and induce me to stay, when I knew in my heart this was the best decision for both of us.

But I couldn’t make my feet move.

I tilted my head up to look him in the eyes. His swam with unshed tears. “I want you, Charlotte.”

He snagged me with an arm around my waist and pulled me up tight, crushing his mouth to mine before I could anticipate it. Before I could prevent it.

And then, it was all too late.

His mouth was as good as I’d known it would be, as soft as anything could be. I made a helpless noise, my lips parting beneath his even as my body tensed up to push him away. My hands pressed into his chest, dug through the dark hair there. I rose up on the balls of my feet as his tongue swept against mine.

This. This was what I wanted so badly. Here he was, offering it. No matter how many times we’d fucked, no matter what over-the-top sex we’d gotten into, this was what I truly wanted us to be, and I hated that I couldn’t have it. I wanted to sob aloud at the cruel reality that this wouldn’t be a happy memory. It would haunt me. It would destroy me. But I would destroy him, and I couldn’t let that happen.

It was over too soon, with me disentangling myself and looking up at him through tear-glazed eyes.

“You want me. What does that mean?” I panted, my resolve somehow renewed in the wake of that devastating kiss.

“I want to be with you. All the time.” The confession poured out of him as if kissing me, finally, had broken a seal in his heart. “I don’t want to be a friend who fucks you. I’m in love with you, Charlotte. And I want you to be in love with me too.”

Not the response I was going for when I started the conversation. I hated those words, and I hated how much my entire body sang with endorphins at hearing them.

“I…” My voice came out hoarse. A tear rolled down my cheek. I could tell him that I didn’t love him, but I didn’t want to lie to him. And without a lie loaded and ready to fire, the truth tore its way free. “I don’t know if I can be loved.”

“That’s worse than ‘I don’t love you back,’” he said softly. “That’s so much worse.”

He was right, and it broke me. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t crying, because now I was. Hard.

“Of course, you can be loved.” He said firmly, like he was ordering someone to make it so. “I love you. I’m doing it right now, as hard as I can.”

“But I can’t feel it!” I wished the ground would open up, swallow me whole to spare me the embarrassment I felt. I’d had so much fun with Matt. I wanted to keep being fun, not broken. But eventually, they all found out how broken I was.

Now was as good a time as any. Maybe he wouldn’t be heartbroken if he learned all of this stuff right now.

He stood there, hands opening and closing as though he needed to touch me. And while there was nothing I wanted more than to let him take me in his arms and make me forget my temporary sadness, there was no way he could erase the doubt that lurked in my mind any time someone told me that I was good enough, that I was loved. It sliced like a scalpel through my brain.

I wanted to believe that Matt and I could have something real. I had to protect myself from that wanting. I’d grown up in the shadow of a tremendous responsibility that I was never meant to learn about, and no matter how hard my family had tried to make me forget, to make me feel anything else, I seemed doomed to carry it around with me until I died.

And so, in the deepest part of me, I knew that what we had could never be real. I hadn’t earned the right to take up space in the world, or in his heart.

I hugged myself tight. “Matt, I’m not even supposed to be here.”

“Everyone feels that way, sometimes.” There it was. The impulse to minimize my pain.

I scoffed. Or sobbed. The sound could have been both at once. “I’m not supposed to be on this planet. I’m not supposed to have been born.”

He opened my mouth to argue again. We were back on schedule, back on ground I’d already trod before. He wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that wasn’t true. And he would think that somehow, this time was different. That he would be the person I believed.

Instead, he said, “Tell me.”

I hated him for that, because I wanted to tell him. And I couldn’t resist. “I had one purpose. One. And I failed at it before I could even walk. Do you know what that’s like?”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I do know what it means to be born with a purpose already there and waiting for you.”

“But you didn’t fail,” I argued. “You didn’t disappoint anybody.”

“I’ve disappointed plenty of people. I’ve disappointed you, clearly.”

I laughed, a snotty, sniffly laugh that shocked me. Why did he keep saying, doing, the right thing? It made all of this so much harder.

“There’s nothing I can say to heal a wound that’s been festering since you were a kid. Therapists get paid way more to do that,” he went on. “But I love you. And you’re not a disappointment to me. Don’t push me away.”

“I’m not pushing. I’m warning you to run.” I turned and walked to the windows, still hugging myself. It would be easier if I couldn’t see the sincerity in his expression.

“Not a chance.”

I wouldn’t look at him. He couldn’t make me. “You love me now, because I’m part of your running away. You admitted that you came here because you couldn’t deal with…the leg of it all.”

“You think I’m using you as an escape?”

I did. It hadn’t been enough to make me want to leave before, but I was glad to have it in my arsenal now.

My head drooped. “I think that if we weren’t here, in your escapist fantasy, you’d be looking at me a lot differently.”

“Bullshit.” It wasn’t a fierce denial but a matter-of-fact one.

I’d run out of weapons to use against him, and I was dangerously close to losing the fight. I lobbed my flaws at him, hoping one would strike a target that would convince him of my rightness in this. “I’m flaky. I’m moody. I can’t make decisions, and, if I do, my instincts are always terrible. You’d be tired of me in a week. And my heart would be—”

“Broken?” he supplied before I could finish. “Your heart would be broken because you love me too.”

Fuck you. How dare he know that? How dare he use it against me?

How dare he win this?

I couldn’t hold back my sobs anymore. I folded in on myself as though I could compress into a ball of nothing but pain.

He took me in his arms with a hesitancy that implied he expected me to push him away. I didn’t, but I didn’t open myself up to his embrace either. Now that we were here, in this moment, I wanted it to turn out okay. I wanted it to be a happy ending. What if this was the moment it fell apart?

“If you don’t love me, fine. You don’t have to. But I’m not going to stop loving you.” He murmured against the top of my head. “I don’t care whether or not you think you can be loved. I love you, Charlotte. So, either I’m doing the impossible or you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve seen you do the impossible,” I said, a reluctant laugh burbling up my throat. “You got that bear to the wedding, remember?”

“Of course I fucking remember the bear,” he said, resting his hand on the back of my head, cradling me to his chest. “Half my leg meat is missing.”

It was too easy. Too light, suddenly, to be in his arms like I belonged there. “You’re in the business of making people’s fantasies come true.”

“If your fantasy is being loved by someone who will be exceptionally needy and codependent from an emotional standpoint, then today is my lucky day.” He went quiet, but his heart thundered under my ear. “If you don’t want to be here anymore… I’ll leave with you. I just need to know if this is the end or the beginning.”

I looked up at him. My bottom lip wobbled. So did my resolve.

And a solution presented itself, an escape hatch. “One week.”

“A week?”

“One week. In the real world. You and me. We can try it out.” Was I foolishly delaying the inevitable? Yes. I wouldn’t have to do anything to prove myself right in this. But it would be one more week with him.

“You’re giving me a week to, what? Convince you that I love you?” he clarified doubtfully.

“No. You have to do the impossible. You have to convince me that I can be loved. In the real world,” I added. “You can’t whisk me off to Paris or Rome.”

“Right, because a city full of priests screams romance,” he said. “How does a week work? You live in California. I live in New York.”

I shrugged. “I have a feeling my boss is going to be fine with me missing work for another week for this.”

“So, what? You’re moving in with me for a week?” he asked, and though I would have liked to hear some panic in him at the idea, he sounded…enthusiastic.

Oh, Matt. You big optimistic dope.

I nodded. “A normal week. You see what it’s like to live with me, under somewhat normal circumstances, for one week. I guarantee, you won’t love me anymore.”

“I guarantee my love for you isn’t going to go away,” he argued. “What happens at the end of the week? If you’re still unconvinced.”

“We’ll figure that out in seven days, I guess,” I said with a shrug.

“I’m going to ask you for another week,” he warned.

“You’re free to do so.”

“And I’ll ask for another week after that.” His hand slid down my back, pressing me to him harder. “And another after that.”

“You can ask,” I said, before his mouth covered mine again.

He could ask.

And I would say yes.