Page 58 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you already know all of my secrets. And I know yours.”

He chuckled. “I sure do.”

“So, what do you say? Could we be friends?”

“I could think about it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Gabe.”

He chuckled. “What? Friends can't make jokes?”

“I guess you can make jokes. But no jokes about how I look privately. That would be so embarrassing.”

“Hey, I would never joke about that. That's just plain rude.”

I smiled. “Thanks. It means a lot that you would be agreeable here.”

“I don't think I had much of a choice. You sort of ran off at the restaurant.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I was scared. I didn't want what you wanted.”

“I understand that now. Levon sort of shed some light on that.”

I frowned. “During the argument?”

“No, before the argument. We were here at the park some days ago, just reminiscing. He mentioned your resistance to traveling. And by the way it sounds, it would have been a lot.”

“Moving from place to place just doesn't appeal to me. It's too scary. Once you get settled, you end up moving again. I'm not a traveler.”

“I get that. But that's why I thought New York would be fine. You wouldn't be traveling.”

I laughed. “But I'd be settling for a life I didn't want.”

“That's fair. I guess we just had different goals.”

“And that's okay. That just means we can keep our friendship. We don't have to lose all that.”

He nodded. “Well, good. I'm glad.”

He extended his hand and I shook it.

I smiled wide. “I'm glad, too.”

CHAPTER15

Levon

I bootedup my laptop and waited as the screen loaded. While it was still black, I caught my reflection in the monitor, the demeanor on my face the one I always wore when I had just gotten up for the day. I tried to smile but quickly let it fade, noticing the circles under my eyes.

I reached for my coffee mug. “That's what this is for.”

Once my laptop had fully booted up, I scrolled over to my email folder, whistling when I saw the amount of messages sitting in my inbox. There were a dozen or so messages from my boss about a few accounts that needed to be looked over plus additional accounts. I had a good bit of work cut out for me.

I slurped my coffee and hopped to it.

As I zipped through my tasks, I let a smile linger on my lips. I could hear the birds chirping outside my window and I could feel the sun lingering through the glass, spilling over the floor and reaching my desk. I enjoyed my job. It brought me a great deal of joy to accomplish each task with ease and finesse.

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