Page 94 of Most Eligible Billionaire

“I don’t celebrate my birthday,” he says.

“Why?”

“I just don’t.”

He doesn’t have to say why. I know. Bernadette. God knows how a woman like that did birthdays. “Okay.”

He lifts my hand, still trapped in his, brushes a kiss over each knuckle, then looks into my eyes. “So, FYI, no birthdays. Now that you’re in my life.”

My heart flops upside down in my chest. The air stills. The cacophony of horns outside the window seems to fade.Now that you’re in my life?

I feel stunned. Happy. He considers me to be in his life—not on the other side of enemy lines, but in his life. And he’s in mine. Henry, with his fierce beauty and loyal heart and amazing vision for things, he’s in mine.

I’m ecstatic for a fraction of a second, like I won some kind of lottery.

Until I remember why it could never work with us.

Vonda.

I never want to see hate in his eyes when he learns I'm Vonda. It would pierce me clear through to the bone.

He traces soft circles around my knuckles with a finger. I’m glad he has something to do, because things are turning too dangerous and too beautiful, all at once. And the air between us runs thick and wild. And I want him like mad.

Get away. You can’t have him.

“But your birthday is soon?” I blurt.

“I want nothing to do with it. It’s a thing with me.”

“Fine. Your birthday is just another day,” I say.

“Say it again,” he turns to me, eyes hooded.

“Just. Another. Day.”

Just another day—with one big difference, I decide.

I’ll give him a present he’ll never forget—the papers that transfer Smuckers’s shares of Locke Worldwide to him. It’s a few days short of the twenty-one-day cooling off period, but it’s close, and the papers aren’t technically telling him. I already hired a lawyer to do it. I told him to buy a ream of that thick parchment paper to print the stuff out on it so it would feel more impressively gift-like.

I want everything ready.

But I can’t be in his life anymore. He’s too high profile for me not to be revealed as Vonda.

It’s not just about the hate in his eyes. It’s remotely possible he’d believe me, but it wouldn’t matter even if he did.

My getting outed as Vonda would hurt the people we most want to protect.

The publicity of Vonda would attract my mother’s attention and she’d take Carly back in a heartbeat, use her to squeeze me. Maybe even Henry. Or just use Carly as a meth ticket somehow.

And Vonda O’Neil linked to Henry Locke? So toxic to the trust and stability of the Locke name. To his family he protects. All those people with names he memorizes so carefully. He can’t be linked to Vonda.

I need to stay away from him. Get out of his life and stay out. He’ll love his birthday present. It’ll make him so happy.

I visualize myself getting out of the limo. Walking to my door. Alone. It’s not where this night is going, but things need to take a U-turn.

My heart hurts. I’ve never wanted to be real with somebody like I want to be real with Henry.

Smuckers fusses, and I use it as an excuse to free my hand from Henry’s, like his fussing is this emergency that requires snout-smoothing caresses and a deep gaze into doggie eyes.

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