Claimed by the Millionaire: The Wealthy Frenchman's Proposition

“It’s realistic, Sheri. Hell, if you were to admit it, you see things the same way.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Even though you won’t leave your little brownstone?” he asked.

“That’s different. I don’t see relationships as temporary. I see them as unbalanced.”

“I’m not following.”

Sheri crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Tristan. His eyes were misty gray today because of the shirt he had on. He was so handsome, sometimes she worried that he’d wake up to the fact that there were a million gorgeous women in the world who’d gladly be his pretend fiancée and do whatever he asked of them.

“My reality and that brownstone are tied together. I see relationships as unbalanced because I’ve always been the one to care more than everyone else. And in the end, they’ve all left me behind.”

Tristan didn’t say anything and she felt like an idiot for revealing what she had.

“I’m going to run down and get Maurice.”

She walked out of the office and down the hall, trying to pretend that nothing had changed, but knowing that everything had.

At the end of the day Tristan was tired. Sheri had made excuses to be away from her desk for most of the afternoon and he’d let her. There was work to do and he didn’t need the distraction that she presented.

But in the back of his mind all he thought about was what she’d said about people leaving.

He thought in terms of temporary because his life had always been in constant change. The only thing he really counted on was his friendship with Gui and Christos.

And even that was changing, with Christos’s marriage. He was happy for his friend, but at the same time concerned for him. Christos had never allowed himself to love a woman before, not the way he was in love with Ava. Tristan hoped they had a lifetime together, but his experience had taught him that they probably wouldn’t.

There was a knock on his door.

“Enter.”

The door opened to reveal Sheri. “I need your signature on these papers before I leave for the night.”

She was all business. Until this afternoon, he hadn’t realized how much of her personality she hid when she was in the office. It was only because of the last three weeks, when he’d seen so much more of her, that he now knew that.

She handed him a folder and he opened it up. He glanced at the papers and realized he wasn’t reading them, so he closed the folder and pushed it aside.

“Please have a seat, Sheri.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes. I have decided that I can’t allow you to continue living in Brooklyn. I have arranged for you to move into my place immediately.”

She shook her head. “We’ve had this discussion.”

“Exactly the problem. You need to be living with me.” The engagement was working exactly as he’d hoped it would. The tabloid press was being very kind to Sheri and everyone he knew was excited for him. For the first time since Cecile had died, he felt as if his life was on the right path. He wasn’t just running and trying to keep distance between himself and his life. And Sheri had given that to him.

And their conversation earlier had made him realize that he hadn’t done the same for her. And that was not acceptable to him. Though he would never admit it, he liked the feelings she evoked in him. He knew they couldn’t be love, because they felt nothing like the emotions he’d had for Cecile. But he did care for Sheri, and her happiness was important to him.

She nibbled on her lower lip. “What did I say that made you think that I’d agree to this?”

“It was what you did not say. Our engagement has given you a chance to change things about yourself. And I realized today that they were all surface changes. You need to move out of that brownstone if you are ever going to see yourself in a different light.”

“Tristan—”

“No, listen to me. I know what it is like to be stuck in one place.”

“That’s a complete lie. You never stand still. How could you possibly know what I’m like?”

“That’s precisely why I know. I have been always focused on the future to keep from dwelling on the past. Whereas you just stay there, stuck in time.”

“I’m not sure you’re qualified to be talking to me like this.”

“Qualified?”

“Yes, qualified. You don’t really know me all that well.”

“I know you intimately, ma petite.”

“So did two other men and they didn’t have a clue about what made me tick.”

He hated the thought of anyone else having been with her. She was his. He didn’t know exactly when he’d started thinking of her in those terms. But he did now. He wanted to tell her that he’d be the last man to know her intimately.

Where the hell had that thought come from?

“Those men weren’t me. And I’m not taking no for an answer on this.”

She stood up and walked over to him. She pushed her finger into his chest. “You’re being a bully.”

“No, I’m not. I’m being a man and taking charge.”

“This is the twenty-first century, in case you’d forgotten. A time of compromise and ‘working things out.’ Women don’t need a man to take charge,” she said. The flash of temper in those big brown eyes of hers made him hard.

He was so tempted to lean down and kiss her. But she lifted her hand and put two fingers over his lips. “No, Tristan.”

“No?”

“Don’t kiss me, because then we’ll be making love and I’ll find myself living with you.”

“I do not see the problem. You like making love with me, and you are going to be living with me either way.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to live you.”

“Give me one good reason why.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist and took two steps back from him. “I…well, let me just say that I have a really good reason and leave it at that.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and arched one eyebrow at her. “That might work if you had plied me with sex, but since you declined…I’m feeling stubborn.”