Page 96 of My Big, Fat, Accidental Billionaire Husband

This is getting too comfortable, too easy. The way her eyes catch the light, the slight tilt of her head when she’s being clever... I’m noticing too many details, cataloging them like they matter, like she matters beyond our arrangement.

I’ve already told myself not to have hope.

So why am I doing this to myself?

“What will you do?” I find myself asking. “After?”

She looks surprised by the question. “Go back to my apartment of course. My job with Christopher. My life.”

“Will it feel the same?”

Her expression softens slightly. “Nothing ever feels the same after change, does it? But that’s not necessarily bad.”

I nod, suddenly aware of how close we’re standing. How natural it feels to share this space with her.

How much I’m going to miss this.

Missher.

Fuck.

Stop it.

Nine days. I almost can’t believe it. That’s all the time we have left, all we ever agreed to. Where did it go? How did it pass so fast?

Getting attached now would be monumentally stupid. I don’t do commitment. I don’t do real relationships. They end in disappointment and pain, in someone getting hurt or abandoned.

Like Nico.

Like everyone I’ve ever cared about.

“Dom?” Tatiana touches my arm lightly. “You went somewhere else just now.”

“Sorry. Just thinking about next steps for the resort.” Another lie.

She nods, not quite believing me but letting it slide. “Speaking of next steps, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the sustainability metrics for the eastern section. Your current projections seem optimistic.”

And just like that, we’re back on safe ground.

Business.

Numbers.

Concrete things I understand, not this nebulous feeling expanding in my chest every time she looks at me.

“Optimistic but achievable,” I counter, grateful for the shift. “The solar array will outperform industry standards if we implement the new panel configuration.”

“If,” she emphasizes. “That’s a pretty significant if.”

“I like to think of it as calculated confidence.”

“So that’s what you call it.” She laughs. “In my spreadsheets, we call those assumptions.”

“Your spreadsheets lack vision.”

“Your vision lacks spreadsheets.”

We’re both smiling now, locked in this ridiculous debate that somehow feels more intimate than sex. This is the danger zone... the easy rapport, the mental connection that keeps deepening despite my best efforts to keep things surface-level.

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