Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“Who was that?” Merritt Locke asked next to me.
I glanced over at the guy who was soon-to-be family. In a month, Locke would be marrying my cousin back home in Midland, Texas. New York royalty officially merging with the King oil dynasty.
A wedding that I still didn’t have a date for.
“That was Whitley Bowen.”
Blake and Locke exchanged a look. They’d been best friends since their Stanford days, when they both were college swimmers. Now, Locke was Olympics bound, the fan favorite. I thought he had a real shot at gold. And Blake was returning to New Mexico were his family ran a ski resort.
“Can’t believe you let a girl like that walk away,” Blake said.
Again.
I didn’t say that out loud, but it was an echo through my mind. I’d let that girl walk away once before and regretted it. I damn well wasn’t doing that again.
I winked at them. “Gentlemen.”
Then, I dashed out of Percy Tower, my lunch plans forgotten as I chased after Whitley. She had a head start. If she wanted to escape me, she could thoroughly disappear into the New York City traffic.
But when I rounded the corner, looking right and left, hoping to catch a glimpse of her lavender hair, I found her with her hand against the building, taking a deep breath. She hadn’t run away at all.
“Whit,” I called, catching up to her.
She jolted. For a split second, we were back in time. Three years ago, when I’d chased after her after the Fashion Week debacle. I wanted to make things right after what happened with Robert. But when I’d slipped outside, looking for the rush of tulle, she’d already sunk into a cab and disappeared from my life forever.
I didn’t regret much in my life, but I regretted everything about that day.
“Hey,” she said, a wide smile hiding any trace of fear from her face. “What are you doing out here?”
“What am I doing out here? Whit, you’re in New York.”
“I am.” She shrugged. Her petite shoulders barely noticeable under the mound of fur. “But weren’t you in a business meeting or luncheon or something?”
“Oh, that? No, Locke is marrying my cousin.”
She arched an eyebrow. Right. She hadn’t been here when Locke moved back to New York. She hadn’t been here for any of it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said in a rush. “What are you doing here? And dressed like this?”
“What? Can’t a girl get dressed up?”
I chuckled. “Sure. Where exactly are you going?”
“I’m meeting English at The Plaza.”
“Dressed like that?”
“What do you have against my outfit, King?”
Not a damn thing. In fact, my first thought was, How long would it take me to get it off? But I couldn’t exactly say that.
“It’s great.”
She gestured up the street. “Can we walk and talk?”
“Yeah. Sure,” I said, falling into step beside her. “I have to get back to work but—”
“Aren’t you the boss?” she teased.
I was heir to the Texas fortune, Dorset & King. My cousins ran the main branch of the oil corporation back home in Midland, where they could handle the day-to-day operations in the field. But I ran the New York division, which meant meeting with investors and business executives and handling the northeast refineries. Since I’d graduated from Harvard and I was friends with Upper East Side business types, I had volunteered. Anything to keep me out of Texas.
“I’m the boss,” I agreed with a grin. This teasing behavior was way easier to handle than anything serious that was threatening to come out of my mouth. We’d always worked like this. Flirting was ninety percent of our personalities. “Now talk, Bowen.”
She pushed her shoulders back. “I’m back.”
“Back?”
“Back, back,” she confirmed. “My old boss, Kevin Varma, poached me from my LA position. He put me up in Percy Tower until I can find a place in the city.”
“You’re moving back.”
She laughed at my flabbergasted expression. “Yeah. I didn’t think I’d ever do it. My clients were pissed when I told them that I’d be leaving, but the money was too good to turn down. Not to mention, Kevin is bringing me on as a partner.”
“Really?” I asked after schooling my features. “You’re going to run the place?”
“Well, Kevin’s in his late seventies. He has three daughters. None of them followed in his footsteps, and he wants to see his practice, which he brought up from literally nothing, continue. For some reason, he sees me as surrogate family. You’d think I just annoyed him.”
“That’s probably why he thinks you’re family.”
She snorted. “Classic, King. Thanks.”
When she smiled up at me, it felt all strangely normal. Like she hadn’t left for three years and put thousands of miles between us.
Then, her smile dimmed, and she faced forward again. We passed Bergdorf on our left and stepped into the square, where The Plaza resided just off of Central Park. It was a trademark location with an enormous fountain at the center of the square, tourists galore, and even a few horse-drawn carriages.