Keeping His Promise (Year of the Billionaire Part 3)

Year of the Billionaire Part 3Keeping His Promise
Just carrying a million dollars around is exhausting. Paying my mother's ransom was a relief but I had too much time to think about Tristan on that ferry ride. He was more than I had dared hope for and less than I deserved.

I underestimated his power and didn't give him nearly enough credit for determination. He had me on his jet again, flying high and wanting him. Consequences be damned.

Who could be prepared for what he had to say? I wasn't going to hold him to the promise he intended to keep. When he opened the heavy door to his heart we both knew it would change what we had. Trouble is, I still didn't have a word for what it is we had.

Our bodies tended to do all the talking. Sometimes, it seemed to me there wasn't much left to say.
Excerpt:
"They have a rare bond," I agreed. I wanted to talk about love. I wanted to talk about the decision I had made on the way back from the pier in the taxi. I wanted to suck up the guts to tell him that I couldn't be happy with him, not in the way I wanted to be happy. The kind of happy my parents had.
"I think wehave a rare bond. Perhaps not the same kind of bond, but unique all the same." Tristan had a way of sensing my thoughts and setting up a pre-emptive argument. Usually, but not always that included an element of seduction. He knew exactly how to use the fact that I found him compellingly irresistible to move us to safer ground. Not that I found sex with him safe. Tristan had shown me time and again that he could get me to expose my most intimate self. He had also demonstrated a talent for taking me to daring heights I could not have anticipated.  
He stretched his legs out in front of him, cat-like, and placed a hand on mine. His skin glowed with our recent days in the sun, tawny as a Siamese. I was emotionally exhausted and the small gesture was comforting. The bond we shared had seen me through my mother's ordeal and I knew I should be grateful for having had Tristan beside me.
I closed my eyes and he held my hand on as Kwan meandered across the river and into the bustle of Manhattan. When we reached Tristan's apartment he offered me a hot bath.
"A good long soak will do you good. I'll pop out for a few moments and pick up some lunch." He practically forced me into his master bathroom and handed me a stack of fluffy towels. "After lunch, if you're up to it, I think we should talk."
Was he reading my mind? Did he know I was going to drop a bombshell on him as soon as I could suck up the courage to say what I had to say?
The steaming water swirled around me when I pressed the button for the Jacuzzi. The bubbles felt marvelous as they tickled away the tension of my morning. I was sad, but in a resigned way. In the kind of way that finally admits the truth. I could--I had to--live without him for sanity's sake.
I slipped my head under the water and listened to the sound of the churning water. There was a part of me that wanted to just stay submerged forever. Suddenly life had become a lot heavier. In France, I had allowed myself to be swept into his world. It was a pretty carefree world, when you got right down to the nut. He immersed himself in pleasure and beauty and, as long as his back wasn't up against the wall, he was carefree.
Carefree didn't seem natural to me. I cared a great deal and about a great many things. I cared about family, about friends, about the direction of my life and, ultimately, I cared about finding the kind of love that walked up the stairs, hand in hand.
Fluffy, thick towels, marble bathtubs with champagne bubbled water, naked walks on foreign beaches, foie gras and leaf wrapped cheese weren't really part of my world. As I dried myself, I thought about how much more I was about a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread and a stroll in Central Park. I was Marjorie and Don Harding's daughter, grounded and ordinary. I had let myself be swept away and I forgave myself, but it was time to get back in control.
Instead of putting on one of the pair of bathrobes that hung on a warming rack near the door, I dressed in my clothes again. Tristan was far too practiced with robes, that much I knew. He was laying food out on the coffee table when I emerged from the bedroom.
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