‘Yes. No. What do you expect me to say? I’m in shock. I mean, you haven’t rung or texted me at all. I thought you were finished with me.’
‘It was you who finished with me, Jess.’
Her grimace carried true pain. ‘I did what I thought was right. For both of us. So why have you come, Ben? Please don’t ask me to go back to New York with you and marry you. That would just be cruel. I gave you my reasons for saying no and they haven’t changed.’
‘But you’re wrong there, Jess. Lots of things have changed.’
‘Not really. You’re probably richer than ever now.’ Hadn’t she read somewhere that billionaires earned thousands of dollars a day from their many and varied investments? Or was it thousands every minute?
‘What say we go have a coffee somewhere a little more private and I’ll explain further?’
‘There is nowhere here more private,’ Jess said, waving at the open-plan and rather busy food court. People might not be flocking to the movies on a Monday but, since October had tipped into November, Christmas shopping had begun.
‘I seem to recall there was a small coffee shop down that way on the right,’ Ben said. ‘Come on, let’s go there.’
Jess didn’t say a word as he led her away. She was still trying to work out what could possibly have changed.
The café he was referring to was half-empty with tables and booths to choose from. Ben steered her to the furthest booth where a sign on the back wall said you had to order at the counter.
‘Would you like something to eat with your coffee?’ he asked.
‘No thanks.’
‘Fine. What would you like? Flat white? Latte? A cappuccino?’
‘A flat white,’ she answered. ‘No sugar.’
‘Right.’
Jess tried not to ogle him as he got their coffee, but he looked utterly gorgeous in cream cargo shorts and a black polo shirt. His hair had grown a bit, she noted. It suited him longer. But then, he’d look good no matter what he wore or how long he grew his hair. Fate was very cruel to have her fall in love with a man with so many temptations.
As Jess waited for him to come back with the coffee, she tried to get her head around him suddenly showing up like this. Obviously he thought he could get her to change her mind. And maybe he was right. She’d been so miserable. And she’d missed him so much. Missed his love-making as well. Seeing him again reminded her of what an exciting lover he was. Exciting and dangerous and downright irresistible!
In the end, she looked down at where her hands were twisting nervously in her lap, not glancing up till he put her coffee in front of her, then sat down with his.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely, not really wanting coffee at all. Her stomach was in a mess. But she picked it up and had a small sip before putting it back down again. ‘Now, would you mind telling me what’s going on?’
He looked deep into her eyes. ‘What’s going on is that I still love you, Jess. And, yes, I still want to marry you.’
Oh, God, he was cruel.
‘I don’t doubt that, Ben, since you’re here,’ she replied. ‘But sometimes love isn’t enough.’
He reached over and touched her on the hand. ‘You might change your mind on that when you hear what my love for you has achieved.’
It was hard for Jess to think straight when he was touching her. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, first of all, I’ve come home to Australia to live.’
Her heart leapt. ‘You have?’
‘Yep. I knew you would never live with me in New York so I quit my job, then sold my majority interest in Dad’s company to his partners.’
Jess just stared at him.
‘After that, I used the money from the sale to set up a charity trust fund that gives financial assistance to people affected by natural disasters. We do seem to have a lot of them nowadays. Dad always gave lots of money to whatever disaster relief effort was going on, but he often worried if the money actually made it to where it was meant to go. I took this on board, so I’m the CEO of the fund. I decide when and where the money goes. The capital is safely invested so it should last for yonks. I don’t take a salary or expenses myself, but I had to employ a couple of professional charity workers to oversee the day-to-day transactions and they do get paid. Other than that, all the money earned by the trust will go where it should go.’
Jess could only shake her head at him. ‘You gave all your money away to charity?’
‘Not all of it. Just what I inherited from the sale of Dad’s company. Which, admittedly, was the majority of his estate. I still have his cash account—which was considerable—plus the money from the sale of his real-estate assets. When they’re finally sold, that is. This includes his furnished apartment in New York and another one in Paris. They should bring in about twenty to thirty million each. If you include all the artwork he invested in over the years, you can add several more million. Though, I might donate them to various museums around the world. Yeah, I think I’ll do that. The upshot is I’m still a multi-millionaire, Jess. Just not a billionaire. I knew you wouldn’t marry a billionaire, but there’s nothing attractive about poverty either.’