BREATHE: A Billionaire Romance, Part 2 (8 page)

His suite never looked so good.

It was nearly nine that night by the time we finally made it back to his penthouse apartment. The good thing was, though, that the longer we sat in traffic the more of his strength he seemed to return. I knew he had to be exhausted though. It was a long day, I was sure.

His stepbrother of a doctor wouldn’t let me stay in the treatment area when he was getting pumped full of more treatment drugs, and I wasn’t exactly sure why. I assumed it was because I wasn’t family, but because I wasn’t allowed back there, I had no idea what all he had to go through.

So I had no idea how much of a toll it really took on him.

He never let it show that he was tired.

He hardly ever showed any sort of vulnerability in fact.

Yet, I knew he had to be worn out…and that thought was almost proven to be fact as soon as we closed the front door behind us. He moaned in excitement and immediately kicked off his shoes and looked around slowly, determined, but with hesitancy in his movements.

He used the wall as leverage as he continued to look around.

I wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, but whatever it was, I assumed he found it when I heard him sigh, disappointedly. Still using the wall to hold himself up, he pulled off his jacket and set it on the hardwood floor.

I watched him as his body instinctively walked towards his bar cart to pour himself a glass of whiskey just like he usually did. But only, he didn’t go for the whiskey. He went for a bottle of wine—which was uncorked and placed in what looked to be a bucket of melted ice.

“Uncorked?” I asked, watching him grab the bottle from the bucket along with two glasses.

“This was a really good year,” he said and sighed again, gesturing towards the gorgeous dark bottle. “I thought we’d be home a lot sooner,” he tried to explain, “so it’s a little under-chilled.” He handed me a glass. “Or over-chilled, depending on how you look at it.”

I smiled. That was a cute way to look at it. The ice had melted, and the wine, which had been chilled, heated back up to room temperature.

“Let’s sit on the couch and drink a little bit of it.” I smiled, reassuring him. Truthfully, I would rather have warm wine with him than cold wine with anyone else.

I knew that now. And it scared me.

He grinned at me and grabbed my hand, leading me to the couch. Although he would have never admitted to it, and although he never would have purposely showed it, I could tell that he was tired.

I was, too.

I sighed, as I cuddled up next to him. My eyes closed, tears welling up as my emotions came flooding in.

I knew what the emotions were…

And I didn’t like it. In fact, I wanted to slap myself with everything that I was worth.

I told myself not to fall for him. I told myself not to get close. Yet, as I lay there, atop his overly comfortable plush couch, with him right next to me sipping on a glass of wine, I knew that I had.

I had gotten way too close.

I had fallen in love with Derek Sholts.

I had fallen in love with a dying man.

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