Power Play (The Billionaire's Club: New Orleans) Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.
    “Raphael—”
    “You’re beautiful, Macy. You always have been, but now … seeing you is like getting struck by lightning. So is kissing you.”
    Flustered, Macy dropped her gaze, concentrating on shaking out her napkin and rearranging her tableware. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “I told you, I’m having lunch.” He smiled at her. “As I said, I’ve never been here before.”
    “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” She shook her head, then gestured around the dining room. “The flowers and the gifts. How were you able to do all of this? You must have run your assistant ragged.”
    “I wouldn’t have my assistant pick out your flowers,” he said, sounding insulted. “That’s my handwriting on each and every card.”
    The warmth that stole through her at the thought that she was somehow special to him irritated her. “A little over the top, don’t you think?”
    “Not at all.” His smile disappeared. “The presents are gifts and trinkets I’ve picked up over the years. I know I shouldn’t have, but I’d see something and think, ‘Macy would like that,’ or ‘That reminds me of the time Macy and I got trapped in the library during a thunderstorm.’ Despite everything, I hoped I’d get to give them to you one day. If I’d known you were in New Orleans, I would have given them to you before now.”
    She didn’t know what to say. “Raffie …”
    “As for the flowers …” He shrugged. “I owe you eight years of flowers. Flowers to congratulate you for finishing culinary school, for opening this restaurant, and opening the bistro. Flowers for eight years of birthdays, Valentine’s Day, and just-because day. Flowers to mark all those special occasions. To show you that I didn’t forget.”
    Her resolve, already flimsy, weakened further. “You don’t owe me anything.”
    That sea-blue gaze bored into her. “Yes I do. I owe you everything, beginning with an apology.”
    Now? He was apologizing now? “You’re eight years too late.”
    “Better late than never.”
    “If I accept your apology, will you leave?”
    He gave her an unrepentant grin. “I said the apology was the beginning.”
    “Do you honestly think an apology is going to fix everything between us?”
    “No. So let’s play a game.”
    She frowned. “What sort of game?”
    “Twenty questions. You ask me a question, I’ll give you an honest answer. Then you’ll answer one of mine, just as honestly.”
    Macy hesitated. As much as she wanted to know, needed to know, what had happened between them, she was afraid. Afraid of Raphael’s answers and the questions he’d ask in return. Still, to have this opportunity after so many years of silence was impossible to resist. “Why didn’t you ask me to stay with you instead of putting me on that plane to Paris?”
    “We were twenty-two, Macy,” he reminded her. “Fresh out of college, and me fresh off my father’s suicide. I was in danger of turning you into a crutch instead of a friend, instead of a lover. It was way more than I should have done and it wasn’t fair to take advantage of our relationship like that.”
    “You didn’t take anything I wasn’t willing to give,” she told him, her voice soft.
    “I know,” he replied, his voice just as soft. “That’s the main reason I let you go. I was fucked up and I knew I would be for a while. I didn’t want to end up like him. Besides, you dreamed about being a chef since middle school. Who was I to keep you from that?” He shook his head. “It was time for me to grow up. So I did. Tried to, anyway. Now it’s my turn to ask a question.”
    He took a sip of water, then speared her with a glance. “What happened with you and the baron dude?”
    She blew out a relieved breath. Out of all the questions he could have asked, that was one of the easier ones. “Karl and I were better as friends than lovers. We got engaged because it was what his mother wanted, and we realized we loved his mother