New York Billionaires Series

He runs a hand over his jaw. “Well, I’m going to have to top that.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” he says, holding up my left sleeve and helping me into it. “Judging from the smile on your face, you two had a good time?”

“I did, at least. I think he enjoyed himself but he has that stoic face, you know? It’s difficult to read him. Do you know what he said?”

“Tell me,” Carter says.

“That he’d keep a lookout in the Globe for my articles.” My heart feels like it’s fluttering as I say it. Dean Allen is a legend, working far past his retirement age, with more accolades than one can count. This event is black tie and he’d worn a tweed jacket with a hole near the sleeve.

Declan would have died and gone to heaven, seeing that.

“I’m glad,” Carter says, a small smile on his face.

“Okay, okay, I know I’m fangirling, but I think I just had the best night of my life. God, I have to thank Booker for this. But how? Is it too much to get her flowers?”

Carter laughs, his arm finding mine. “Come on, kid. You’ve had too much champagne.”

“I’ve had exactly the right amount. If I’d had any less, I wouldn’t have dared ask Dean Allen all those questions.”

“Think you can call him just Dean now?”

I shake my head. “No. You don’t end up on first-name basis with a person like that. He’s a bit like you, you know. Not for us normal people.”

Carter snorts. “Well, I’ll address that comment in a bit. How are you getting home?”

I stop our descent down the steps. The New York air is cold, and a faint drizzle hangs in the air. We’re well and truly in fall now. “I’ll go… in that direction,” I say, pointing to the nearby stop.

“You’re taking the subway home,” Carter says.

“Yes. How else would I get there?”

He takes a step back and gives me a once-over, from my black work pumps to my prom dress. It hadn’t looked too out of place in there, but I doubted I’d fooled any fashionistas.

Maybe I should just start rocking tweed blazers too.

“In that?” Carter says. “You’ll be accosted.”

I look down at my chaste dress with a frown. “This was my prom dress.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “Your prom dress,” he repeats quietly. “Really?”

“Yes. I went with Sveinn, an Icelandic exchange student, and we spent most of the night behind the bleachers. I got food poisoning.”

“Wow,” he says, and then has absolutely no comeback.

“Are you speechless? This has to be a first.”

He shakes his head. “There’s just so much to process. So many questions to ask. But first, you’re not taking the subway. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

“You’ve had champagne too,” I point out. “And no one drives in New York.”

“Well, my driver for the night does.”

That shuts me right up. A driver. I’ve never met anyone who has a driver on standby. We walk down the steps in silence, him on his phone, me with my mind spinning. Every time I settle into the idea of being friends with him, despite our differences, they whop up to hit me over the head.

“It’s not a big deal,” Carter says. “Think of it as a taxi driver on retainer. My own Uber, essentially.”This is the property of Nô-velDrama.Org.

He’d read my silence correctly. He does that a lot, I’ve realized. “That doesn’t make it less weird, you know. You don’t have a butler as well?”

“I don’t even know where you’d get a butler in modern-day New York.”

“You can find anything on the internet.”

“Yes, well, I don’t want to hire a middle-aged man who’s watched too much Downton Abbey .” He slides his phone into his pocket and guides us to a spot on the sidewalk. “We’ll be on our way in no time. Now, something you said earlier.”

The wind whips at the loose tendrils of hair I’d artfully framed around my face hours earlier. No doubt they’re out of place, the lipstick smudged, my mascara runny. And I couldn’t care less.

Tonight was everything I’ve ever wanted career-wise.

“Oh no,” I say. “Being quoted is scary. What did I say?”

“That I’m like Dean Allen. Not someone normal people get close to.”

“Oh, that. Well, I stand by it. Great statement. You could put it on a T-shirt.”

His mouth twitches, but it’s not with his usual charming smile. It looks like he’s trying to stop a genuine grin. “You really are drunk.”

“No, and even if I were, it would be very unladylike of you to point it out.”

“Do you mean ungentlemanly?”

“Yes. What did I say?”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re a normal person, and you’re getting to know me.”

“Am I?” I ask. “We’ve texted about all kinds of things, but they’re not real things. All we do is laugh and joke. I like it. I mean, you’re funny, Carter. Some of your texts make me laugh so much my stomach hurts.”

His smile flashes briefly. “Right.”

“But I don’t know who you’re dating, where you grew up, where you live… I don’t know. You’re up here,” I say, raising my hand to the level of his collarbones, before lowering it down to mine. “I’m here. You’re not really for the likes of us normies. Tomorrow you’ll fire an entire department of people again before buying Zanzibar over lunch.”

“Buying Zanzibar,” he repeats. “Well, I usually do my nation-shopping at night.”

“Right. Are there infomercials for that?”

“Too many. I couldn’t sleep one night and accidentally bought the entire Scandinavian peninsula, and I don’t even have the space for it.”