Trapped In The Billionaire’s Name

CHAPTER 44

Reina's POV

Friday Nadia came to my apartment uninvited.

This was not unusual. What was unusual was that she brought wine and the expression she wore when something had happened that she needed a witness for.

I let her in. She sat on my couch, poured two glasses without asking, and said, "Theo asked me to dinner."

I sat down. "An actual question."

"Complete sentence. Eye contact. Specific restaurant." She picked up her glass. "He said, and I'm quoting, 'I would like to take you to dinner if that's something you'd want.' " She looked at me. "Who talks like that?"

"Someone who says exactly what he means," I said.

"It was very direct."

"Yes."

"I didn't know what to do with it."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes and then walked away very quickly." She drank. "He nodded. Like I'd confirmed a logistical detail." She paused. "It was somehow the most attractive thing that's ever happened to me and I need you to understand how unsettling that is."

I understood completely. The directness without performance. The particular quality of someone who said the thing and waited for the answer and didn't dress it in anything unnecessary. I'd found it unsettling once too.

"When?" I said.

"Saturday." She looked at me. "He made a reservation."

"Of course he did."

"He's going to be completely prepared and completely himself and I'm going to be — I don't know what I'm going to be." She looked genuinely uncertain, which for Nadia was extraordinary. "He doesn't react to me the way people usually react to me."

"How do people usually react to you?"

"Entertained. Slightly overwhelmed. They laugh and enjoy the chaos." She paused. "Theo just — looks at me. Like I'm something he's trying to understand properly before he says anything."

"That sounds familiar," I said.

She pointed at me. "Don't."

"I'm just noting the pattern."

"The pattern is annoying." She refilled her glass. "How do you handle it? The being looked at like that."

I thought about it honestly. "At first I tried to stay ahead of it," I said. "Kept moving so there was nothing to land on." I paused. "And then I stopped trying and just let him look. And it turned out being known wasn't as dangerous as I'd thought."

Nadia looked at me for a moment. "You're happy," she said.

"Yes."

"Like actually. Not functioning-well happy. Actually, I'm happy."

"Yes," I said.

She sat with that. Then she nodded slowly with the expression of someone confirming a conclusion they'd wanted to be right about for a long time.

"Good," she said. "You deserve it more than anyone I know."

I looked at my glass. The warmth in my chest was familiar now. It had moved in and stopped being a visitor.

Damian came Saturday morning for the neighborhood walk.

He'd found two more streets in Brooklyn and a block in Cobble Hill and he arrived with a list written by hand on actual paper, which I took from him at the door and looked at.

"You made a physical list," I said.

"I think better on paper."

"I know. I've seen you in meetings." I handed it back. "You draw in the margins."

"Buildings," he said. "Mostly structural outlines."

"I know. You did it during the architect meeting. The quiet room corner — you'd already sketched it before the architects revised the drawing."

He looked at me. "You noticed that."

"I notice everything about you," I said. "It's a problem."

He took my coat from the hook and held it out. "It's not a problem," he said.

"It's inconvenient."

"Also not a problem."

I put my coat on and we went out.

The first two streets were fine. Good buildings, reasonable layouts, nothing wrong with either of them except that they felt like locations rather than places. I said so on the second one and Damian looked at the building and then at me and said "yes" with the finality of someone crossing something off.

The Cobble Hill block was different from the moment we turned onto it.

Quieter. Tree-lined in the way that meant the trees had been there for decades and nobody had thought to remove them for development. A mix of brownstones and smaller buildings with the particular variety of a street that had evolved rather than been designed. A coffee shop on the corner with actual residents inside on a Saturday morning.

We walked slowly.

Halfway down the block Damian stopped in front of a brownstone — wider than the ones beside it, four steps up, a garden level with its own entrance. For sale sign in the ground floor window. He looked at it without speaking.

I stood beside him and looked at it properly.

The proportions were good. The light was right — south facing, open aspect, no tall building casting shadow. The garden level meant outdoor space, which I'd never had and had privately wanted for years without telling anyone because wanting things you'd never had felt like a form of complaint.

"The garden," I said quietly.

"I know," he said.

"It faces south."

"Yes."

I looked at the upper floors. The windows were generous. The building had the specific quality of somewhere that had been cared for over time — nothing flashy, just maintained.

"It's too big for one person," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"It's the right size for two."

"Yes," he said again.

I looked at him. He was watching the building with the focused attention he gave things he was seriously considering, but when he felt me looking he turned and his eyes were warm and completely direct.

"We're not deciding today," I said.

"No," he agreed. "We're just looking."

"But this one is different."

"Yes," he said. "It is."

I looked back at the building. The garden, the light, the trees on the street, the coffee shop on the corner where actual people were having actual Saturday mornings.

Something in my chest settled into place with the specific quiet of a decision that hadn't been made yet but was already becoming inevitable.

"Ask the agent to arrange a viewing," I said.

He pulled out his phone immediately. Then stopped. "Now?"

"Why wait?"

He looked at me with something that was past warmth deep and certain and entirely his.