Trillion(25)

“Have you always been this way?” he asks.

“What way?”

“So guarded?”

I sniff. “I don’t think I’m that guarded. You got me here, didn’t you?”

I’ve become quite skilled at the Queen of Denial thing in my adult years, at answering questions with other questions so I can steer conversations.

His gaze drags over me. “Look at the way you’re sitting. Legs drawn in against your chest, arms wrapped around your knees. That’s a protective stance. You’re afraid of something.”

My arms ache from hugging my legs too tight. He isn’t wrong about the way I’m seated. I let go and stretch my legs out.

“Feel better?” he asks, hazel eyes glinting.

“Somewhat.” My shoulders ache with tension, as does my middle. I never know what’s going to come out of his mouth next, so my body instinctively braces itself around him.

“Take a deep breath,” he says. “And then let it all go.”

“So you’re a yoga guru?” I ask. I’m not meditating with him. I’m not going to let him make me malleable and pliable and drunk on relaxation. “In addition to all the other things you are?”

“What else am I?” His perfect dark brows angle in. My breath hitches. In daylight he’s a work of art, but in the soft light of this room, he’s stunning. If he were some random guy at a bar buying me a drink and looking for a hook-up, I’d probably go home with him, have a good time, and call a late-night Uber when it’s over.

But this is wildly different.

“CEO of everything …” I roll my eyes, teasing. Though it’s pretty much the truth. There’s hardly an industry he’s yet to conquer. He owns a little bit of everything, all over the world.

“Fair enough.” He doesn’t deny it.

His gaze lingers on me a while longer, and out of nowhere he rises, extending his hand toward mine.

“Shall we go?” he asks. “There’s something else I want to show you.”

I allow him to help me up, a jolt of invisible electricity sparking the instant our palms connect, and he leads me out of his sanctuary.

I let go once we’re in the hall. I don’t want to give him the wrong idea. Just because he’s opening up to me and giving me an up-close-and-personal tour of his intimate life doesn’t mean I’m going to magically change my mind about his offer.

Following Trey through hallways and down an additional set of stairs, we find ourselves outside his manse, following a bluestone path that leads to an iron gate accented with massive trimmed hedges easily a story tall. Once inside, the overwhelming scent of blooming roses surrounds me.

“This was my mother’s,” he says. “This is where she went to get away from it all. She pruned every bush by hand. Personally. No one else was allowed in.” He reaches for a tender pink bud, a late bloomer compared to the rest. “The gardeners have kept it exactly as she left it. We haven’t added or removed a single plant.”

I’m tempted to touch the soft petals of a nearby white rose, but I stop myself. Everything around me is sacred, and I want to respect that.

“So sweet of you to keep it all intact in her memory.”

I read a biography about his parents once, long before I worked for Westcott Corp. It was assigned reading in high school. My English teacher was obsessed with Edie and Pierce, their history, their love story, their tragic and untimely demise.

From what I remember, Trey was fifteen when they passed.

I was fifteen the first time my mother got sick. Without my father in the picture, I’d spent many nights lying awake in bed imagining what it would be like to be orphaned, like him. At least I had my sister, I always told myself. Together we’d figure it out.

Trey had no one except a staff of butlers and gardeners and caretakers.

He must have been so lonely …

I walk the gardens, the never-ending rose bushes creating a maze-like path akin to something out of The Secret Garden. For the tiniest sliver of a second, I picture children running through here. A little girl in a white dress. Giggling. Hiding. Squealing with joy when she’s found. But I quickly shake the thought away, carrying on along the path. From the corner of my eye, I spot Trey a few steps behind. Watching.

He thinks he’s making progress with me, I’m sure.

“Would you like to see more?” he asks when the path veers back to where we started.

I read once that the Westcott mansion has nearly two hundred rooms and nearly twenty-thousand square feet. A full tour would take days.

“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “I’m sure you’re anxious to get back to the office …”

“Clearly you don’t know me very well. When I give my time and attention to something, I give it fully. I’ve set aside this time for you, Sophie. I cleared my schedule for you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel special?” I’m teasing. Sort of.

“You don’t need anyone to make you feel special,” he says as we walk toward one of the many doors on the back of the stone palace. “And you know this or you wouldn’t have turned down my offer.”

It’s more complicated than that.

“I don’t want to be married to someone I don’t love,” I say. “And I would never bring children into a loveless marriage. Not for all the money in the world. It’s not right.”