Page 63 of The Billionaire in Her Bed

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Meeting adjourned.

Funny how two little words could make his heart soar.

Eli grabbed Brooke by the hand and dragged her off the stage before she had time to change her mind. Once in the hall, he pushed open the first door he found, which of course, turned out to be a supply closet, this time stocked with glue sticks and markers and pencils as round as his thumb.

“What is it with you and closets?” Brooke rested her perfect ass on a shelf of spiral notebooks. “Do you have a fetish or something?”

Eli willed himself to focus on the speech he’d rehearsed a thousand times on the way to Brooklyn. He had one shot to get this right, and he wasn’t going to waste it. Even if it meant having one of the most important conversations of his life in a closet.

Again.

She gave him a don’t-bullshit-me glare and crossed her arms. “You’ve got five minutes.”

Okay. She wasn’t going to make it easy on him. He couldn’t say that he blamed her.

He braced a hand against the door. “I’m sorry. I was wrong to keep you in the dark about Candy Court.”

She smirked. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I thought I could wait until the sale was a lock. I didn’t want to leave anything up to chance. I’ve lost a few deals recently at the eleventh hour, and I didn’t want that to happen again.”

“So you could make a small fortune turning our building into a haven for yuppies and elitists?”

“At first, yes, that was the plan.” She bristled, and his heart started to pound. He couldn’t afford to lose her now, not when he was just getting to the good part. “But that changed once I moved in and got to know you. All of you.”

“So those drawings out there…”

“They’re the real deal,” he insisted. “The only thing that’s going to change at Candy Court is the name. Well, that and some upgrades. All in keeping with the history and character of the building, of course.”

“No luxury condos?”

“Studio apartments, one bedrooms, maybe a handful of two bedrooms for families. Quality, affordable housing for hard-working, middle-class people. That’s what Hearthstone is going to be all about.”

“What about Momentum?”

“Simon will make sure Momentum keeps doing what it does best. High-end commercial development. Hearthstone’s my baby.”

“You’ve really put a lot of thought into this.”

He took a step toward her, and his spirits lifted when she didn’t flinch. “Did you seriously think I could throw the Feingolds out on the street? Or Charise and her baby? And I’m not about to destroy the rooftop garden we worked so hard on. Chris and David would never speak to me again.”

She lifted one eyebrow, a gesture that was incongruously both imperious and endearing. “Aren’t you leaving someone out?”

“Not just someone.” He reached up to touch her face. “Theone.”

“Not so fast.” She caught his hand and brought it down. “I haven’t forgiven you.”

His heart stuttered. “What do you think it’ll take?”

“Well, let’s see.” She kept hold of his hand, twining her fingers with his, and his heart kick-started into high gear. “You’ve admitted you were wrong.”

“Check.”

“Said you were sorry.”

“Check.”