Chapter 17
WELCOME TO NEW ENGLAND
HENSON
Istop in front of the cottage and kill the engine, glancing at the passenger seat where the small bouquet of wildflowers rests. Thoughtful, not predictable. I had them wrapped in parchment paper with a deep green ribbon that reminded me of the sweater Amira was wearing on Christmas Eve.
That night hasn’t left my brain. Probably never will. After she turned down my invitation to spend Christmas Day with me and my family, I offered to go over in the evening—hoping she’d say yes—but I accepted her need to be alone, though my desire for her has only grown in these few days apart.
I grab the flowers, straighten the collar of my black coat, and head up the front steps, giving the door a few sharp knocks.
When it swings open, my heart stutters.
Amira is standing there in a knit dress that hugs her just right, soft waves in her hair, lips tinted pink like she didn’t try too hard but still manages to gut me. She blinks at me, looks at the flowers, then back at me, and I catch the little flicker of oh no in her eyes.
She already knows she’s in trouble. Join the club.
“Wow.” I let my eyes drag down, then up again. “You look beautiful, Mira.”
A blush rises to her cheeks. “Thank you.”
I hold out the bouquet. “These are for you.”
Amira takes them, her fingers brushing mine. “Thank you. You’re really leaning into this date thing, huh?”
“Yup.”
She stares at me, trying not to smile. “Let’s see if you survive the first one.”
First one?
I cock a brow. “So you’re already planning the second?”
Her cheeks flush just enough to give her away. “Don’t get cocky.”
“No promises,” I say with a grin. “But I like that you’re thinking long-term.”
“God,” she mutters. “This is going to be a long night.”
Challenge accepted. “Better buckle up then, Temptress.”
At the car, I open the door for her—because I’m that guy tonight. When she’s settled, I get in and pull away from the cottage with one hand on the wheel and a ridiculous urge to reach over and hold hers with the other. But I don’t.
“Where are we going?” Amira asks after a few minutes, watching the town slip by outside the window.
“You’ll see.”
We drive toward the edge of the marina, where the lights fade and the road narrows, hugging the coastline. After another few minutes, I pull into the small lot of The Buoy Shack, a coastal burger joint that’s been here since I was a kid.
“What is this place?”
I smirk, reaching for the door handle. “Best seafood burgers in the state.” I glance over at her. “You’re not allergic to seafood, are you?”
Amira laughs. “Shouldn’t that have been something you asked before bringing me to a seafood place?”
“I take my chances.”
“Well, lucky for you,” she says, bumping her shoulder lightly against mine, “I don’t have any allergies.”
“Then we’re golden.”
I already know I’m not going to make it through this night without wanting to kiss her again and again. Because Amira looks like summer, sweetness, and trouble wrapped in wool and perfume—and somehow, that smile of hers might actually kill me.
The smell of grilled seafood hits us the second we step up to the ordering window—crispy shrimp, charred lemon, garlic butter. Amira lets out a soft, involuntary hum under her breath, and I grin.
“Told you.”
“Okay, okay. But I’m reserving judgment until after the first bite.” She scans the chalkboard menu with a faux-serious expression. “Though I will say… the atmosphere is very nautical dive meets charmingly-questionable.”
“Welcome to New England,” I joke.
We order a lobster BLT for me, a crab cake burger for her, and grab a seat at one of the picnic tables under the canopy of string lights. The breeze coming off the water is brisk, but Amira simply pulls her coat tighter around her and doesn’t complain.
“So. Why burgers? Why not pull out all the billionaire stops and take me somewhere that serves entrees with gold leaf?”
“Because you don’t strike me as the gold-leaf type. You’d see right through it. Plus, I like this place. I used to come here often growing up.”
“You brought dates here before?”
A slow smile tugs at my mouth. “No. You’re the first.”
“Not even as a teenager?”
“Nope.”
Her eyes narrow a little, trying to decide whether I’m serious.
I am. I’ve never wanted to bring anyone to my favourite places… until her.
There’s a beat of silence between us—comfortable, surprisingly so—until our order is called. I get up, grab our tray, and set it down between us.
“Okay.” I unwrap her burger and hand it over like it’s sacred. “Moment of truth.”
Amira lifts it, inspecting it as a jeweler would with a rare diamond. “Smells amazing.”
“Tastes even better.”
She takes a bite and actually moans. “Holy shit. Okay, you win.”
I laugh. “You’re easy to please.”
She shoots me a look. “Only when it comes to food.”
My eyes drift to her mouth, to the way she licks a spot of sauce from her thumb. I shift in my seat, trying not to make it obvious how fast my brain just flipped out of casual mode.
Focus, Hen.
I clear my throat, reach for my drink, and take a long sip, trying to cool the fire she’s fanning without even knowing it. I need to switch topics quickly before I end up sitting here harder than the goddamn picnic bench.
Tonight is not about sex, even though my body is more than happy to go five rounds if she gives me the green light.
Tonight is about getting to know Amira.
The part of her I haven’t tasted. The one behind the guarded smiles and the sharp comebacks. The woman whose laugh catches me off guard, whose silence somehow says more than most people’s words.
Even if her body calls to me like a sailor to the rocks.
Yeah. I’ve got it bad.
Fuck.
I swore I wouldn’t let this happen again. After everything that went down with Celia, I promised myself I was done with relationships.
Amira is pulling me in, slowly unraveling every reason I had to keep my distance. She isn’t just changing my mind—she’s shifting everything I thought I knew about what I wanted.
And that scares the hell out of me.
I take another bite of my burger, chew, then set it down, my appetite fading. My focus is all over the place.
I shake out my thoughts and glance at Amira again. “So, why events?”
“You mean… Why did I choose this career?”
“Yeah. You’ve got this whole polished, no-nonsense boss energy, but I don’t know. There’s something else underneath it. Like you’ve had to fight for that control.”
Her burger stills in her hands.
For a second, I think maybe I’ve pushed too far.
Then she sets it down gently, her gaze narrowing. “You’re observant.”
“I try.”
Amira huffs out a soft laugh, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I got into events because it gave me structure. Deadlines. Clear timelines. A start, a finish. I like knowing what to expect.”
“And people?”
She hesitates. “People are the unpredictable part.”
“But you’re good with them.”
“I’ve had practice.”
I lean forward, elbows resting on the table. “Can I ask something else?”
A wary kind of amusement dances across her face. “You’re going to anyway.”
“What are you running from?”
She goes still. Her jaw works, like she’s deciding whether or not to lie.
“Who says I’m running?”
I offer a small shrug. “You said so yourself, remember? At the airport when you were telling me about our adorable Hallmark story,” I tease.
Amira studies me for a long second with a small smile, then looks away, focusing on a string light above us.
“I think when you spend a long time making yourself small for someone else, you forget how to take up space. So maybe I’m not running. Maybe I’m trying to remember who I was before I stopped being me.”
My chest tightens.
Suddenly, I don’t just want to know her. I want to protect her.
I sit back, swallow hard, and offer the smallest, softest truth I can manage.
“For what it’s worth, I see you.”
When Amira meets my eyes again, something is different.
Her voice comes out soft. “Thank you. I see you, too.”
“I know.” We don’t break eye contact. “So why don’t you give me a chance?”
“Because our lives are so different, Henson.”
“How so?”
“Technically we live in the same city. But I’m a small event planner with a tiny apartment and a closet full of department store sweaters. I don’t have a fancy car, a driver, or savings that can survive a single emergency.”
I smirk.
“What?”
“You’re incredibly dramatic.”
Amira laughs, and it breaks the tension instantly. God, her laugh. It’s pure warmth. I’d give anything to hear that sound on repeat.
“You think I grew up like this?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Not even close.”
She watches me now, curious.
“I’m honestly surprised,” I say, letting the words stretch. “Now that you know who I am, stayed in my childhood home, I figured you would’ve done your homework. Googled me or something.”
She tilts her head, unimpressed. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Most people would be dying to know what the internet has to say.”
“Well, I’m not most people, and I don’t care what the internet says about you.”
That stops me for a second. “You have no idea how nice it is to hear that.”
Amira shrugs, casual as ever. “You’re sitting right in front of me. That’s the version I care about.”
I try to brush her words off with a smirk, but my chest tugs. I’m completely screwed—in the best possible way.
“Well, my parents were good, hard-working people, but money was always tight. Worth and I shared a room until I was almost seventeen. My mom used coupons like they were currency. My dad worked two jobs just to keep the lights on.”
Amira’s expression softens.
“We didn’t have luxuries. We had hustle. And we used that. We built something from the ground up. We made the right investments, took the right risks, worked our asses off. Not a damn thing was handed to us.”
I pause, fingers brushing over the edge of my cup.
“When we could, we paid off our parents’ debt and retired them early. Bought the property near our childhood home and built them a house that didn’t leak every time it rained. We kept the cottage and did some work on it, as it meant so much to us.”
Amira is quiet, her eyes locked on mine.
“But even now, with everything we’ve built, we don’t let ourselves forget where we came from. Ever.”
She exhales, slowly, and I can tell she didn’t expect any of this.
“That’s why I don’t see an issue,” I finish. “You think I care about limelight? About being called a billionaire like it’s a personality trait? I’ve told you already—I don’t give a shit about the money. It’s a perk, not the purpose.”
I can see the tug-of-war in Amira’s eyes. Her fingers toy with the edge of her napkin.
“You barely even know me, Henson. You don’t know my family.” Her gaze dips for a second. “My culture. The things that matter to me. You don’t know where I’ve come from, what I’ve been through. You don’t know how complicated it all is.”
Though her voice is steady, there’s a quiet edge underneath it.
“I just got out of a relationship that made me feel like I had to shrink to fit inside someone else’s world.
That made me second-guess everything about who I am, who I’m allowed to be.
” She pauses, then shrugs. “So no offense, but the last thing I need is someone else thinking I can be swept up in nice dinners and compliments and forget all that.”
I let her words settle. Not just because she needs space to speak them, but because I get it.
“I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking you to let me learn.”
Her lips part, but before she can object, I add, “I don’t need easy. I don’t need a fantasy version of you that fits into my world. I want the real one. The one sitting across from me right now, telling me the truth, not trying to impress anyone.”
Amira doesn’t respond right away, and I know that if she were really trying to push me away, she wouldn’t still be here.
Her gaze lifts, locking on mine.“I want someone who’ll fight for me and choose me—even when it’s inconvenient. Someone who doesn’t just want the version of me that’s dressed up for dinner or planning a perfect party. I want someone who’ll stay when things get messy. When I’m messy.”
Her honesty cuts through the air like a blade, and I feel it deeply.
“I want the same, Amira. In the short time I’ve known you, I’ve felt like I could just be. No performance. No mask. Just me.”
Her brows draw together slightly, though she doesn’t look away.
“That matters more to me than anything,” I continue. “You don’t treat me as a headline or a bank account. You talk to me like I’m a person. Like I’m real.”
I watch her carefully, letting my hand rest on hers.
“I know it hasn’t been long. But being around you makes me want to stop running from the parts of myself I usually keep buried.”
The tension in Amira’s shoulders eases just enough for me to see the part of her that wants to believe me.
And I’ll give her every reason to.
“I don’t know everything about you yet, Mira. But if you let me in, I’ll do my best to be worthy of you.”