Page 129 of Return Billionaire to Sender

“Well, yeah...” Lawrence says.

And suddenly Janice is there. Janice from the second floor. “You’re not going back there,” she says.

“I am,” I say. “I have to.” I head around, marching right back there.

She follows behind. “This is trespassing.”

I burst through one door, and then another. She’s telling me to stop. Which I do when I get to his closed door. I knock. “Malcolm,” I call out.

She has her phone out. “I’m calling security.”

There’s this silence where I think he might ignore me. I imagine security throwing me out into the driving rain before I can get to him.

But then the door is open and he’s standing there, hair unruly, gaze intense.

“I alerted security,” Janice says.

“Un-alert them,” Malcolm says. “It’s okay, I’ve got this.” He waves me in, and I enter the cool, gray world of his office.

I hear the door shut behind me.

I turn, and there he is, leaning back against the doors.

It feels so good to see him—just good, deep down in my heart, though keeping my distance from him is painful. I hate that I can’t go to him, hate that I can’t press a hand to his cheek, press my lips to his.

“I know you’re probably still angry,” I say. “I know what I did was wrong. I was so stupid, Malcolm. I know I should have told you when things changed between us. But I want you to understand a few things, right here and now—”

“Like what? That you’d always dreamed of a place like that building?” he says.

“Well, yeah—”

“And you were home free?” he says, closing the distance between us. “And you could have taken those contracts and signed them? And it all would have been yours, but you gave that up?”

“Umm…” I say, pulse racing.

“Were you going to tell me that you gave up what you most wanted in order to try and make things right with me? Because that’s what I’ve been sitting here realizing.”

“Malcolm—”

My heart pounds as he reaches up and brushes a bit of still-damp hair back behind my ear. “It took a few days of calming down for me to see what was in front of my face. More than a few days, actually. The eviction is rescinded as of today—I need you to know. Not only that, but I sent a courier over—I doubt they’ve gotten there yet. Traffic out there is snarled. Nobody’s getting anywhere.”

“A courier?”

“There were papers involved—signed papers. Hold on—I have copies.”

“Signed papers?” I breathe.

He grabs a sheaf of papers from his desk and presses them into my hands.

“What is this?”

“You know what.”

The condo documents.“Why?” I ask.

“This is what I want for you. No strings attached,” he adds. “This is legal as soon as it gets signed. My signature is already on the set that I sent over. Legal. Un-take-backable.”

36

---