Billionaire Bachelors : A Contemporary Romance Box Set by Comeau J.P

Author:Comeau, J.P. [Comeau, J.P.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2020-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Two days after that conversation, she agreed to meet for coffee. I worded it as a date, but mentioned that I was “glad we would have a chance to talk”. She made no response to that part of our short exchange.

When I showed up at the coffee shop to find Claudia already sitting in a booth, she greeted me happily enough, but my heart sank when she didn’t get up to give me a hug in a stark contrast to the day I had flown home from London and she had thrown herself at me. I needed an answer, a reason for this inconsistency before it tore me apart.

“The snow is pretty late this year,” I mentioned, trying to start a conversation of some sort.

“Yeah.” Claudia turned to watch the white flakes float gently to the already-covered flower pots outside the window.

Weather might be an overused subject to bring up, but I had expected some kind of a joke about it in return, or maybe a mention of last year’s weather. Nope. Just “yeah”. “Okay,” I said, placing my cup on the table hard enough to splash out a few drops. “What’s up with you? And please don’t say nothing, or that you’re worried what your mom will think. Did I do something? Say something?”

Claudia managed to wipe away the deer-in-the-headlights stare my sudden outburst had startled out of her. “You didn’t do anything, I’ve just been busy lately.”

“Claudia, my security company CEO friend gets busy. But he doesn’t snap at me and then act sulky for days when I happen to call him while he’s working.” That was a bit harsh, but I needed Claudia to understand that I was serious, and I was done beating around the bush and accepting any jokes or half-answers. “Look,” I said more softly, “I just want to know what’s going on. I feel like I deserve that much.”

“You do,” Claudia agreed after a moment, her posture straight and stiff. “I know I haven’t been treating you fairly. I just have a lot on my plate right now, and I feel guilty when I spend time with you instead of trying to sort things out, and… well, I’ll just tell you. I had a financial partner in Paris. He was actually more than a financial partner,” Claudia explained. “We lived together for a while. But something happened, we had a falling out, and I had to buy his share of the business. My mom and I never really recovered from the hit to our finances, and if I don’t find a financial partner soon, I don’t know if our brand has a future in Paris. You called me right after I got home from a meeting with a potential backer that didn’t work out, and I wasn’t in a very good mood. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.”

I hesitated to say what was on my mind, because there was no way Claudia hadn’t thought of it, but I had to anyway.

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