Penthouse Prince: A new York City Romance

by Tara Leigh

  If winning is the goal—and winning is always the goal—you do whatever you have to do to win.

  But this mess with Reina has taught me a lesson I never learned in any game. Sometimes, the solution isn’t to hit back. Hitting back—when you’ve misjudged the entire situation—is the absolute worst thing you can do.

  I was wrong with Reina. I lashed out rather than listened. Accused rather than asked.

  But losing her forever is a fate I’m not willing to accept. Right now I’m in the penalty box, and I deserve to be. But I’ll figure a way out.

  Or I’ll go to my fucking grave trying.

  Chapter 22

  @BettencourtBets: Welcome to the new BettencourtBets! Worthy charities will b featured weekly & contributions matched 100%. We’re betting on you!

  Reina

  You are my North Star. The brightest light in my universe. I see you, Reina. Only you, always you. Remember my promise? Come away with me— let’s explore the night sky together.

  All of Tristan’s notes have been heart-wrenching. All of his gifts have been thoughtful. But this one in particular breaks over me like a wave of glass, leaving me shattered.

  I read it once, twice, three times. And then I carefully slip it back inside the box it came with. The one containing a telescope.

  A weekend away, under the stars, sounds wonderful. But all I really need is Tristan. I know that now.

  Celeste is right. I have to forgive Tristan. Not for just him. For me. Because, as much as I’ve tried to deny it, I do still love him. And it hurts too much to keep pretending otherwise.

  I just hope he’ll forgive me.

  What he said was cruel and intentionally hurtful, but at least he said something. Tristan was angry, furious, and he didn’t hold back. He didn’t swallow it down and let it fester. He didn’t lie. And he was at my front door, apologizing, that very same day. Admitting he was wrong.

  Tristan doesn’t hide behind false smiles. With him, what you see is what you get.

  And I had him. Together, we had the kind of happiness I never knew existed.

  And I lost him. I lost everything.

  But I’m going to get him back.

  Every regret I’ve ever had is because of what I didn’t do, what I didn’t say.

  Making the wrong choice isn’t nearly as bad as making no choice at all. Regardless of the outcome, the only thing I won’t do, ever again, is nothing.

  The next morning, I am up before dawn to grab a prime window seat in the coffee shop just across the street from the entrance to Tristan’s building. He is a creature of habit, and never misses his Sunday morning runs. Half an hour later, my heart clenches with love and anxiety as Tristan emerges from the revolving door.

  I watch him go through a few stretches before taking off down the block and then I toss my still full cup in the garbage. I don’t need the caffeine, I’m jittery enough already. My bag is heavy, the strap digging into my shoulder as I cross the street.

  The doorman recognizes me, giving me a cheery smile as I breeze past him to the elevator.

  So far, so good.

  But there is one thing out of my control. One thing that might upend my entire plan. I still have my key, but if Tristan erased my palm print from his security reader—

  Nope. The light turns from blinking red to solid green and I expel a relieved sigh, the door closing behind me. I lean back against it, an echo of memory thudding inside my chest, reminding me of the first time I came to Tristan’s apartment. The first time I ever experienced . . . ecstasy, really.

  God, I’ve missed him. So much.

  Blinking back the damp mist rising in my eyes, I head toward the small utility room tucked just behind the kitchen and the ladder I once saw Tristan use to replace a light bulb in the hallway.

  But along the way, I can’t help noticing the scatter of paper and balled-up, crumpled pages littering his normally pristine dining table.

  Curiosity propels me to take a closer look. One of the pages looks like a shopping list. I smile, running my finger over the scrawled ink. The items I recognize have checkmarks next to them. Shirt. Telescope. Movies. Flowers. French fries . . .

  The unfamiliar ones don’t. Jigsaw puzzle (NYC skyline). Michael Lewis book. Shoes.

  It is a shopping list, for me.

  My hands shake as I carefully open one of the crumpled notes, smoothing out the page.

  Reina, you shine brighter than any star but—

  It cuts off mid-sentence.

  I pick up another balled note.

  I promised to take you star-gazing and I always keep my—

  I open another note, and another. Sentence fragments, all of them. Evidence of how much effort Tristan puts into each gift he’s sent me, each written thought.

  I’m surprised, though I know I shouldn’t be. Tristan once asked me, “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re worth making an effort for?”

  And now, it’s time for me to do something special for him.

  By the time I hear the lock turn in his door, I’m waiting in the front hall with a Bloody Mary in each hand. The blackout shades that normally hide in concealed pockets at the edge of the ceiling have all been lowered, but the apartment isn’t dark. Incandescent stars shine from the ceiling and walls. Glowing planets, suspended from invisible threads, spin and sway. And a lantern sits on the rug, beside a basket filled with muffins and pastries.

  Tristan’s eyes round when he sees me. “Reina.” My name is barely a breath. An adorable frown tugs at his brows, as if he thinks I might be an exercised-induced mirage.

  I extend one of the glasses in his direction. “I brought brunch.” He takes it, his fingers brushing over mine and sending an electric charge racing through my veins. Feeling giddy and nervous, I step aside, gesturing at his apartment. What if this is all too much? What if—

  “You brought more than that.” His breath ghosts over my lips, making them tingle from the memory of a thousand kisses. “You brought an entire galaxy. Come here.” And then he sets both of our drinks on the console table and wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. Tristan is warm, his sweat-slick skin glistening from his run.

  “I guess I brought gravity, too,” I say, laughing lightly. Even sweaty, he smells so good. Like grass after it rains.

  “You are my gravity. The one force I can’t resist.” He kisses my temple, the tip of my nose, my cheeks.

  “Are you sure?” I find myself asking. “You’re Mr. Wonderful and I’m Miss Complicated. Your family has heirlooms, mine has secrets. We’re complete opposites.”

  “Opposites attract,” Tristan murmurs before capturing my mouth in an urgent, possessive kiss, my fingers twisting through his damp hair. But I resist the urge to lose myself in it. I have too much I need to say.

  When we finally come up for air, I bring him into the living room and we sit on the rug, in the nest of pillows I made. “I lied to you, Tristan. About so much. Everything, really. And not just to you. I lied to everyone. Lies that became such a part of my identity they felt almost like the truth to me.”

  “Why?” he asks. “Why didn’t you trust me with the truth? Maybe not in the beginning, but after we got back to New York. After we were spending just about every waking moment together.”

  “I was going to. But then, after what you said about Elise . . . I didn’t want you to think I was a social climber. That I was using you.”

  He rubs at his forehead, smoothing out the creases I’ve put there. “You’re nothing like Elise.”

  I shake my head sadly. “You say that now, but back then?” My words emerge trembling and unsteady, stacking up in the air between us. “Tristan, I’m not like you. I’m the result of a tawdry affair between Van Horne and my mother years ago. I’m their dirty little secret. And frankly, I thought I always would be.”

  “There’s nothing dirty about you, Reina. And Van Horne is a world-class prick.”

  “I was naïve to think I could work on Wall Street without him noticing
. And I hate that I dragged you into my mess.” His eyes drill into mine. “Making a play for Bettencourt was his way of warning me.”

  “Profiting from revenge—it’s classic Van Horne. Except it didn’t work. Polaris outstripped even my own expectations.”

  I smile at Tristan, so proud of his well-deserved success. When the lock-up period expired, investors were practically shoving money at him. “I heard. A billion dollars under management. Pretty impressive.”

  True to form, he deflects the praise. “It’s a team effort.”

  “I miss being on your team.”

  “I miss you, Reina,” he says. “And I didn’t mean a word of what I said in my office that day. I was jealous and cruel and—”

  “I know, I understand.” Those words had hurt like hell, but I forgive Tristan for lashing out at me. If I’d been honest with him from the beginning, it never would have happened. “And I forgive you.”

  His eyes smolder with a light that springs from deep inside his huge heart. “Thank you.”

  For a while we sit quietly, my legs draped over his, my head resting on his chest. “I heard you went to his office,” Tristan says eventually, his voice a throaty grumble in my ear. “Told him to back off.”

  “I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

  “You didn’t have to do that, you know. I would never have let him take Bettencourt.”

  “But it wasn’t really your battle to fight. And it was you who taught me to stand up for myself, to fight for what’s important.”

  “I did?”

  “Mmm-hmm. I had to save my prince, after all.”

  His lips quirk, his dimple flashing at me. “You’re the only one I know who can get into a ring with a bull and emerge not only unscathed, but with his leash in your hands.”

  “Hardly,” I demur. “That bull is never going to be tamed.”

  “How did it feel to finally confront him?”

  A wide grin loops over my lips. “It felt amazing, actually. I’ve only been face to face with him two other times, and the first was when I was still in grade school.”

  “When was the next?”

  “He gave the commencement speech at my graduation. Want to know what his opening line was?”

  “Do I?”

  “Greed is good . . . but generosity is better.”

  “Generosity?” He shoots back. “I guess no one ever told him that charity begins at home.”

  I bristle as blood rushes through my veins, hot and unsettled. “I’m no one’s charity case, Tristan.”

  “Of course not,” he rushes to say, his hand squeezing my knee. “It’s just— If you don’t support the people closest to you, what difference does the rest of it make?”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t want anything from Van Horne other than what I demanded last month. For him to lay off Bettencourt and to tell my siblings about me.” My breath hitches. “About Bryce—”

  “Again, I was an idiot.”

  I nudge him with my elbow. “I won’t argue with that. But you know—”

  “That nothing happened between you? Yes, of course.”

  “I might be a liar, but I’m not a cheater.”

  My words are flippant, but Tristan shifts our positions so that he’s looking straight at me, his gaze steady and true. “You don’t have to lie to me, ever again. You know that, right?”

  “I do,” I promise. “And I won’t. Besides, you know all my secrets now.”

  He threads his fingers into my hair, and pulls my face toward his. “Then they’re not secrets anymore.”

  No more secrets.

  I can’t even imagine a world without them.

  But I’m about to find out.

  And Tristan will be right by my side. “I love you,” I murmur in the second before his mouth descends on mine.

  Tristan

  Reina seals her promise with a kiss, and I can taste the sincerity and conviction on her lips. I kiss her back with every ounce of devotion surging through my veins. Finally, breathless, I pull back just enough to say, “Little thief, I can’t even remember what it’s like not to love you.”

  Her eyelids flutter, bits of gold from each iris twinkling at me. If we live a thousand years, I will never get tired of looking at them. And then I pull back a little more, marveling that she’s here at all. I’m just as dazzled by Reina as the night I saw her smiling at me from across a crowded ballroom. But it’s not merely her beauty that blows me away, it’s everything. Her intelligence, her ambition, her warmth. I love her with my whole heart now, and I know I’ll love her even more tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. I don’t want to let her go.

  Hell, I never want to let her go.

  I wipe away a tear shimmering on her cheek. “I didn’t watch many Disney movies as a kid, but I did have kind of a thing for tangrams.”

  Reina responds with a puzzled look, and shakes her head. “I have no idea what those are.”

  “Completely low tech, but I could play with them for hours. You had a few basic shapes: triangles, squares, parallelograms. And there were cards with designs on them. Could be a house, a robot, maybe a dinosaur. The challenge was to take the basic shapes and turn them into something else entirely.”

  “Sounds kind of familiar.”

  “Before we met, that’s exactly how I felt. Like pieces, rather than a whole. And when we’re together, we make up something different than when we’re apart. Something better. Not perfect. Not complicated. Just better.”

  Reina releases a soft sigh, leaning into me. “You’re crazy.”

  I lifts her chin with my fingertips, plants a soft kiss at the tip of her adorable nose. “Crazy in love— Isn’t that a thing?”

  She laughs, a musical collection of notes that hang in the air. “It’s a song.”

  “Well, now it’s our song.”

  Epilogue

  @BettencourtBets: We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this update from our favorite Bettencourt couple . . .

  ONE YEAR LATER

  Reina

  Turns out I’m not exactly broken. More like dilapidated. The walls I built around my heart, using what I thought were iron bolts and impenetrable steel plates, turned out to be nothing more than wobbly panels of poster board, held together with scotch tape, tacky glue, and the occasional sticker.

  Falling for Tristan James Xavier Bettencourt IV scared the bejeezus out of me. It’s no wonder, really. He crushed all my rigged-up defenses like the Big Bad Wolf did to the straw houses of the Three Little Pigs. Except that Tristan isn’t bad. He is the best man I’ve ever known.

  A year and a half ago, I thought personal relationships were a threat to my single-minded pursuit of a career on Wall Street. I believed financial success was some kind of yardstick I could use to measure my worth. And I was absolutely certain that the lies I told everyone, including myself, were harmless.

  Catching sight of the Bettencourt logo on Tristan’s wall was horrifying . . . And finding myself face-to-face with him on the first day of my dream job was even worse. I thought kissing Tristan was the biggest mistake of my life, one I’d compounded by going home with him.

  How can a smart girl be so dumb?

  Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. I mean, how could I know what I was looking for until I found it?

  Tristan and I have spent the past year weaving together the disparate threads that make us whole into something else. Something stronger. More resilient. United.

  When the derivatives-focused fund I was working at imploded in spectacular fashion—it happens sometimes—Tristan lured me back to Bettencourt. But I insisted on one condition— that I spend six months working out of the London office. I needed to be sure our relationship was more than just lust and infatuation. The distance was hard, but it forced us to talk more than we ever would have if we were both in New York, where our disagreements always seemed to be settled in the bedroom. Or couch. Or kitchen table. Or office supply closet.

  We met up ever
y chance we could, often at his family’s estate in Bermuda (where we are now) but also in cities all over Europe. We talked on the phone. We wrote long, rambling emails and fun, flirty text exchanges. We FaceTimed . . . both with and without our clothes on. We got to know each other on an entirely different level.

  And because of that, when Tristan asked me to move in with him after those six months were up, I said yes.

  Tristan’s shadow passes over me a second before he appears at my side, a piña colada in his hand, a lecherous grin on his face, and the most delicious question I’ve ever heard on his lips. “How about we head back to our room for a couple’s massage, followed by couple’s activity of our own?”

  This man has grabbed hold of my heart and now keeps it safely in his grasp. Tristan’s solid footing has changed the trajectory of my life, made me less volatile, more comfortable in my own skin. It sounds ridiculously corny but it’s the truth—Tristan’s love has made me whole. And I love him with every breath in my body.

  “It’s official,” I say, taking a sip and letting my senses absorb the absolute perfection of the moment—an icy drink in hand, my toes wriggling in the pink Bermuda sand, the sun beating down on skin protected by half a bottle of SPF 70 sunscreen Tristan rubbed into every exposed inch this morning. Just a few feet away the sun-dappled turquoise sea churns and shimmies, waves tumbling onto the shore. And then I grab his outstretched hand and stand up. “You really are Mr. Wonderful.”

  We clink glasses, his containing a locally brewed beer rather than my girly concoction. “Anything for the birthday girl.”

  I am twenty-five today, and I can’t remember ever being a happier. We arrived last night, and are of course staying at the beachfront estate originally purchased by Tristan’s grandfather. The massive Colonial is painted the same milky pink found inside the seashells scattered across the beach. The gardens are glorious, bursting with citrus trees, tropical flowers, and hummingbirds that sing all day. And it’s staffed by a small, practically invisible army. Food simply appears. Beds are magically made. Clothes are washed, sorted, and put away before I can unzip my suitcase.