Jake

After spending the night together, I leave her wrapped in my shirt the next morning—and nothing else, which proves I have the will-power of a Titan—and head back to work.

We talk every night. On New Year’s Eve, we ring in midnight together—me in New York, her with her friends in Philadelphia, but both of us on the phone, tuning out the world around us.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four—”

“Three, two, one!” I add my voice to hers, low and husky. She’s the only woman in the world I’d do this for, and I’m more than willing. I’m eager to have her countdown in my ear, and there’s a weird pang in my gut that I can’t pull her into my arms to kiss her right now.

It doesn’t matter. She’s kissing me through the phone and it’s crazy adorable.

“Have you ever gone to Times Square on New Year’s?” she asks breathily when she stops. She’s got this eagerness in her voice that really gets to me. She tries to cover it up, and that gets to me, too.

“Not at midnight. It’s an insane crowd of people.”

“And cold.”

“Exactly.” I look around my apartment. The gas fireplace is on. Not cold at all in here. I’ll stretch her out in front of it and take things slow. Four days and counting. “You’re heading home in the morning?”

“First thing.”

“Cats will be happy to see you.”

She laughs. “Yeah. Well, as much as cats do. Larken will be annoyed with me and pretend I don’t exist, but that’s a form of love.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Right?” She giggles, and in the background, voices get louder. “In a minute,” she says, clearly not to me. “I should go do the social thing for the last few minutes of the party since I missed the countdown.”

“Call me when you get home tomorrow?”

“Okay.” She lowers her voice. “Night, Jake.”

The day before she’s due to arrive, I’m in the middle of a presentation by a VP and two of his top project managers on the emergency top-down review at SwiftEx when my phone vibrates three times. Jana’s tone.

It doesn’t go again, so I know it’s just a text message. I take a quick glance at the clock. Ten minutes left. Unless she texts again, I’ll wait until the meeting is over to check it.

I’m not sure how I feel about the itch at the back of my neck, knowing she’s sent me something that I’m not letting myself look at yet.

Women never come before work. That has never been a risk in the past, because I’m single-minded.

Part of me wants to be careful about that.

The rest of me wants to not fucking worry about it.

When they wrap up, I ask two pointed questions about the timeline, because we can always do better.

Then I check my message.

She’s added a flower sticker at the end of the text, but something tells me I’m not going to like this. I wait to call her until I’m in my office. I close the door and stride to the floor-to-ceiling glass window that overlooks the city. It’s dark already and it’s started to snow.

She picks up on the first ring. “Hey.”

“I was in a meeting.”

“That was still pretty fast.” She’s speaking fast, her words rushing together a bit like she’s nervous. “So…”

“So?” I grin.

“Speaking of meetings, mine has been postponed to next week.”

Ah. “So you’re not coming up tomorrow.”

“It’s just that I’ve been away from the cats a lot lately, and…” She groans. “Is this the dorkiest thing you’ve ever heard? I shouldn’t even ask that out loud. I should assume yes, nobody has ever blown you off for cats before, and now you’re like, holy shit, what was I thinking?”

I laugh. “This is the first time I’ve ever dated someone with a cat. Or cats. So yes, first time, but no, not dorky. I like that you care about them. That’s refreshing.”

“What all girls like to hear. Your tea cozy collection is refreshing, Matilda.”

“Matilda?” I laugh. “Is that a crazy cat lady name?”

“Crazy tea cozy lady name. Jana’s a crazy cat lady name.”

Fuck it. I don’t want to wait a week to see her. “Jana’s a crazy sexy name, and I’ll come to you.”

“What? No. That wasn’t what I was angling for.” But she sounds pleased. Yeah, this was the right call. And still she protests. “You’re swamped with work.”

“My work can travel with me. And I own a plane. It’s not a big deal.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Jana?”

“You own a plane?”

“Two of them, actually, but one is currently being leased by a friend. So one at my disposal. And a helicopter if you prefer a noisier ride.”

“I…” She makes a quiet little sound, like an incredulous almost-laugh. “Sure. Okay. I’d love for you to visit. I’ll polish my china.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Jake, I don’t own any china. All of my dishes came from Target—on sale.”

“I hear they have good stuff.”

“This is too weird. Dating a billionaire is kind of crazy.” Another laugh, this one smoother and lighter. “Okay, when do you want to come down?”

I glance at my calendar. No time like the present. “How about this afternoon?”