Billionaires Dollar Series

“He took a fall today!” Skye calls from behind him. “While skiing!”

“It wasn’t all that bad,” Cole says.

“Nothing broken, I hope?”

“Nothing vital at least. Come on, see the place.” I follow him into a large living space. White couches and sheepskin throws make way to a gigantic copper fireplace. The entire north-facing facade is glass, and the view is just as spectacular as I suspected. All of Whistler and the snow-covered mountains beyond.

“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” Skye is sitting on one of the couches, a thick bathrobe around her. She’s cupping a mug in her hands. “There’s a deck, too, with a hot tub. You can head out there now, if you’d like. Relax from your traveling.”

The idea of some peace and quiet and hot water wins. It doesn’t take long to get installed in one of the guest rooms and then I’m making my way out into the cold winter air in nothing but my trunks.

The hot tub is illuminated by underwater spotlights. Steam rises from it into the freezing air, snow melting around it.

Only it’s not empty.

Blair is sitting with her back to me. Only her shoulders and neck are visible above the water-smooth, tan skin. Her wheat-blonde hair is swept up into a messy pile on her head, tendrils hanging down her neck. They curl in the steam.

“You’re back,” she says languidly. “I’ve come up with some new names in the meantime. Before you laugh, let me tell you why I genuinely think Bear could be a cool name. At least as a middle name.”

I walk around the edge of the hot tub. “It’s a good name, if you don’t care about the kid. Are you trying to get them to revoke their offer of being a godparent?”

Blair’s eyes widen as she takes me in. For just a second, I can almost convince myself that a happy welcome is coming.

But then she frowns. “I didn’t hear you arrive.”

“If you were out here the whole time, that would have been impossible, yeah.” I step into the hot, bubbling water. The tub is large enough that there is plenty of distance between us, but it still feels like a bad idea. The past few weeks have put her more squarely in my path than before-sometimes by my own doing.

It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

“I haven’t been here the whole time,” she says. “I’ve been skiing today, too.”

“Hitting the blacks?”

Her eyes drift closed. Two thin black bikini straps rise from below the water to tie around her neck. “No, Cole and I skied the reds today.”

“Skye didn’t?”

“No,” she says. There’s no antagonism in her voice, no anger or frustration. She sounds like does when she’s speaking to her brother or her friends. It’s deceptively easy to think I’m the latter. I shift in the water, not wanting to disturb her.

“Why not?”

“She’s pregnant, you dolt,” Blair says. “She sat out here with me earlier, but could only have her legs in the water. Apparently you can’t go in the hot tub while you’re pregnant, either. Did you know that?”

The subject isn’t overly interesting, but her voice is, warm and confidential. A small lock of blonde hair is curling at her temple.

“No.”

“We googled and made a list,” Blair continues. “You can’t sauna, either. Drink coffee. Eat sushi or certain kinds of cheeses. No rare meat. You shouldn’t wear heels. You can’t drink.”

“The last one seems fairly obvious.”

Her eyes glitter with amusement. “Yes, well, I wanted to add it for good measure. It made the list longer. Comedic effect, you know.”

“You could list all the illegal drugs she can’t take, either, if you want to really hammer the point home.” I glance past her to the snowy mountaintops above us. Cole’s chalet is fairly isolated-no one can see us from here. It’s not gated, but there aren’t exactly any close neighbors, either.

“It’s enough to make me reconsider having kids,” she says. Her voice is jovial, but my eyes flit back to hers regardless.

“You need to find someone to have them with first,” I point out. “Apparently André couldn’t make it?”

She dips lower into the water until only her head and the tips of her shoulders are exposed to the cold air. “No, he couldn’t.”

“What a pity.” I’d wanted to get a good look at the guy.

But Blair doesn’t sound the least bit sad when she says, “Yes, very much so.”

I rest my arms along the edges of the hot tub. The cold air bites at my skin, a sharp contrast to the warm, bubbling water below. It’s the first time we’ve spoken about anything other than work-related topics since the charity event. “So what have you been doing? Torturing these poor souls with never-ending rounds of charades?”

Her eyes narrow into the expression I’m used to. Good. “No,” she says. “I’ve barely even suggested it.”

“Surprising.” I lean my head back against the edge of the tub and glance up at the sky. The sun is starting to set, the clear sky darkening along its infinite edges.

“What did you discuss with Thomas York? At the charity event?”

I resist the urge to groan. “Have you ever had a thought you didn’t speak out loud?” I ask. It’s a nasty question. I don’t look at her to see if the barb struck-the imagined hurt on her face is painful enough.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

“Yes,” she says tartly. “I’m having a lot of thoughts about you right now that I’m not going to speak out loud.”

Looking up at the sky where she can’t see it, I let my lips curl. The hackles are raised. “Restraint. How novel.”

“I show it every day at work,” she says. “Even you can’t tell me I’ve been anything less than perfectly civil.”

“You have,” I admit. And despite myself, I’d found myself missing our spats during the robot-like exchanges we’d had about B. C. Adams. Blair avoided me like the plague, sending all her points through Gina.

Just like I’d asked her to.

“And you can’t tell me I haven’t done my job, because I know I’m doing it well.”

Gina had expressed the same thought to me just yesterday. You said she’d be untrained, sir, but so far her insights have mostly been spot-on.

“We’ll see,” I say. “I still haven’t turned a profit.”

“You will,” she says. “I’ve heard that Bryce Adams is devastated, by the way.”

I tip my head forward to find her staring at me. There’s a flush in her cheeks, from the heat or from the cold, and a challenge in her golden-brown eyes. No one else has her coloring-wheat and honey and chocolate, and not one inch of it fake.

“Have you spoken to him?” I ask.

“No. But our circles overlap.”