Page 53 of The Billionaire

He reached for my chin, his thumb caressing my pouty mouth.

“Like I said in the club, I want to pursue you. And I want to pursue you this week. Be with me?”

I felt so conflicted about throwing caution to the wind; it went against every fiber in my personality—a revolving theme—I knew I had this choice again to make. Stay or leave. Explore or play it safe.

I could stay with him. I could quiet the analyzing McKenzie and for once, live.

I chewed my thumb and thought of the contrary; if I went home and sat in class all next week and beyond, I’d be a sitting robot. There physically, but somewhere else mentally. I knew if I said no, for the rest of my life, I knew I would always wonder “what if”. I knew that as well as I knew my name was McKenzie.

But this…seemed so, up in the air. We were practically strangers.

Oh, but he knows you like no one else does.

This thought made me melt.

I stared at his sexy face and my stomach did somersaults. I couldn’t deny him. I couldn’t deny the gravitational pull I felt towards him. I knew that with all my heart.

But even so, the words came out, “I can’t.” I shot him my most empathetic face. Then before the words left a tunnel in one of my neuron pathways in my brain, I uttered them, “Besides if something happened, and by chance, you did pull a few strings, they’d know. They’d think—”

“Learn not to care.”

I let out a sigh. He was warming me up. Oh he was.

“One second,” He ran his hand through his hair and reached for his buzzing phone and answered a man named Jackson.

I watched him walk away and downed the rest of my mimosa looking out at the sea. I breathed in deeply and tried to ignore the stabbing pain of anxiety. I needed to call Shelly.

She picked up on the first ring.

“Dammit McKenzie! I was worried sick when I didn’t hear from you.”

“Look. Sorry.” I said breathlessly.

“Shit. What’s wrong with you? You sound awful.”

“I’m not. I’m not. Look.” I sighed dramatically.“ I’m in Maui. I rode in a private jet. I joined the mile high club. He’s packed a bag just for me in a Louis Vuitton suitcase. I have La Mere products. I have—”

“Wait. Stop. Right. There. You are shitting me. You’re so damn lucky. And you called to brag and rub it in my face?” Her voice was a high screech as she teased.

“It’s the opposite. This role isn’t me. This is you. I don’t think I can—”

“Oh, no. No, you don’t McKenzie Kane! The heart can’t help who it falls in love with. Don’t be prejudiced against him just because he has money.”

“But what if I can’t, I mean…I barely know him. Look, I see him wrapping up his phone call. Bottom line, he wants me to stay with him for a week. A week! And with med school…this is just so crazy. I don’t know if I should.”

“Ugh,” she led out a dramatic sigh. “I can’t believe this is happening to you! This is every girl’s dream! Oh my gosh, you have to tell me everything you did to snag him. Where did you meet him again? At some club? Because I found some sort of invitation at the bottom of a stack of papers and it said—” She what? Oh no! I was just about to tell her to ignore it but I saw him walking back towards me.

“Hey, I gotta go. I just needed to tell someone. And that invitation was a joke by one of my classmates.”

“Well, grow some. Man up. Take a risk. And do fill me in all times possible so I can vicariously live through you, you lucky bitch!”

I let out a big sigh and laughed as I hung up the phone and tried to act as normal as possible.

“Sorry about that. So, anyway. Where were we? Oh, I saw you sneak a little phone call. Did you phone your boyfriend? Tell him he’s been replaced and you’re never coming home again?”

I laughed. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” I smiled.

“Well that’s the good thing about not knowing each other very well. We have so much to learn, don’t we? And right now it’s looking like so little time unless you decide to forgo studying for the next week and well, study us.” He winked as he tickled my wrists with feather kisses.

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