“Can you pull off the color pink?”

  “Oh, famously,” he said. “There’s actually a photo shoot in a men’s magazine of me wearing a pink blazer.”

  “Wait, really?”

  He pulled out his phone, fiddled with it for a moment, and then held it out to her.

  Halle stared.

  How had she never noticed how attractive he was?

  It was true that the photo shoot was doing him all kinds of favors. He was lit from an incredibly flattering angle, and the image had clearly been retouched. Someone must have told him that it was a good idea to sit with his legs spread wide like that, an elbow braced on his knee and his fingers raked through his dark blond hair.

  He’s exactly what you’d picture if you imagined a handsome billionaire.

  The pink jacket in question was more of a dusky rose color. Halle thought it served to bring out the gray undertones in his eyes. It had a snug fit, and she could see the lines of his muscles through the cloth. She realized, suddenly, that she had only ever seen him in loose-fitting shirts.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You don’t like it?”

  She swallowed hard and handed the phone back. “No, it’s good,” she said.

  “That’s it? It’s good?”

  She looked up and saw the cocky smile that sometimes amused her and sometimes irritated her. “All right,” she admitted. “It’s really good. You look great here.”

  He nodded as if that was something he’d known all along. “That was a fun day,” he said. “They were doing an article on the best hotel chains on the island of St. Martin.”

  “Why’d they need your picture for that?”

  “Because I’m handsome,” he said, his grin growing wider. “Who wouldn’t take my picture, given the opportunity?”

  “And so humble, too,” she said with a laugh.

  “The article wasn’t really about hotels,” Grayson explained. “I’ve been interviewed enough times to know the difference. They didn’t ask me anything about the hotel industry. It was an article about successful men.”

  “I guess that makes sense, given that it was published in a men’s magazine,” she said. “Did you get to keep the outfit?”

  “I did, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Why? Do you want to see me in it or something?”

  “Wouldn’t mind,” she said. “Just to see if it looks as good in person, or if that’s some kind of editing trick. I’m guessing you look kind of foolish if you wear this in real life.”

  “I don’t look foolish,” he said. “Trust me.”

  “If that’s true, why have I never seen you in it?”

  “You’ve only known me for a few weeks,” Grayson pointed out. “I haven’t worn everything in my wardrobe yet. But I’ll tell you what—if it means that much to you, I’ll wear this jacket on our next flight.”

  “Hey, I don’t care what you wear,” Halle said. “I just think that if I kept a picture on my phone of me modeling clothes, I’d also occasionally want to wear those clothes. Or maybe you’re just not as sure that you can pull off a pink jacket as you claim to be.”

  “I can pull it off,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” she said. She pointed to his cup. “Refill?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Halle ducked out of the conference room and closed the door. As she hurried up to the galley, she was aware that her heart was pounding.

  Why am I so anxious? We were just talking.

  Or had they been just talking?

  Maybe it had been more than that. They had definitely been teasing each other. She couldn’t imagine ever having talked to any of her previous bosses the way she had to Grayson.

  What did he mean by showing me that picture?

  Is he flirting with me?

  And is it possible that I’m flirting back?

  Chapter 9

  Grayson

  “So why are you single?” Halle asked.

  Grayson had sort of been expecting the question. The chemistry between himself and Halle was hard to deny, even though he knew it wasn’t a good idea to go there with an employee. It was natural that she would want to know about his romantic life.

  And he kind of wanted to tell her. It wasn’t something he typically opened up to people about, but she was easy to talk to. Maybe they would be able to have this conversation.

  “It’s hard for me to find dates,” he said.

  Halle rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that about handsome men with their own planes.”

  He couldn’t suppress a small smile. She thinks I’m handsome. He had known that, of course—he’d seen the way she looked at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. But it was still nice to hear her say it.

  He almost asked her to say it again. It was the kind of thing he would have done a month and a half ago. But he’d come to realize that she didn’t always find his confidence charming. Sometimes it annoyed her. And sometimes that was a gamble he was willing to take, but today he actually wanted to have a conversation.

  “I mean, it’s not just about finding women who are willing to go out with me,” he said. “Because you’re right. That’s pretty easy. A couple of months back, for example, I was in Chicago, and I met this woman, and I swear she would have run away from her job and family with me.”

  “After having just met you?” Halle raised her eyebrows. “Love at first sight?”

  “Hardly. No, she just liked that I had a jet,” Grayson said. “I didn’t bother getting a hotel room that night in Chicago. I just slept on the plane. So I brought her back here, and she got a crush on the jet. She liked it a hell of a lot more than she did me.”

  “Ah,” Halle said.

  For a moment, Grayson sensed awkwardness. Should he not have told her about a previous hookup? Was that rude?

  But she asked about my romantic life. And stories like that are all I have.

  There was nothing wrong with what had happened—so why did he feel as if he had done something to upset her?

  He glanced at her, but her expression didn’t reveal anything.

  “So that’s why I don’t really date, in a nutshell,” he said, hoping to brush past the uncomfortable moment. “Most of the women I meet seem to be interested in lifestyle tourism, not in me. They want to spend time on a private jet, or on one of my boats. It’s hard to find a woman who I can honestly believe would like me without any of that stuff.”

  “I think plenty of women would like you for who you are,” Halle said. “I know I do.”

  Grayson let that hang in the air.

  She flushed. “I mean…well I’m just saying you’re a good person. And I like that about you. As a friend. I mean, as a boss. I mean—oh, God, you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said, letting her off the hook, even though the truth was that he wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. That had definitely sounded like she was saying she liked him as something more than just a boss.

  She’s probably just gotten caught up in this little flirtation we’ve had going on.

  It was definitely inadvisable to flirt with his employee. But Grayson couldn’t deny that he was enjoying it. She was pretty, and because she was so quick-witted, she had great banter. Her sense of humor was almost identical to his. If they had met in different circumstances, he could definitely have seen this going somewhere.

  “I’m sure you’ll find someone,” Halle said. She seemed just as eager as he felt to move on from that uncertain moment.

  He shrugged. “I’m not exactly looking right now. Maybe it’ll happen. Maybe it won’t. I’m not especially hung up on the idea.”

  “That’s healthy,” Halle said. “I wish I could be that calm about it.”

  “Why are you single?” he asked. “That’s the thing I can’t wrap my head around.”

  “I’m never home,” she pointed out. “When would I have time to date?”

  “You’re home sometimes.”

  “Yeah, but not very often. Not enough to see a guy with any kind of regularity,” she said. “I’ve tried online dating, but it’s always a fiasco.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard horror stories about that,” Grayson said. “No good men out there?”

  “I’m beginning to think there aren’t any good men left anywhere,” she said with a light laugh.

  Grayson pointed to a cabinet that was built into the wall of the plane’s lounge area. “Go in that cabinet,” he said. “There’s a bottle of scotch.”

  She got up, went to the cabinet, found the bottle, and pulled it down, along with a highball glass. “Do you want ice with this?”

  “No,” he said. “But get a glass for yourself too. Have a drink with me.”

  “Okay.” She put the bottle down on the table. “You keep trying to get me to drink scotch with you.”

  “I like scotch. And I like sharing the good stuff with people I respect.” He stressed the word.

  She laughed. “I know you respect me now,” she said. “You don’t have to get me liquored up to prove it.”

  “Come on, have a drink with me.”

  “I’m on the job!”

  “As your boss, I say it’s okay. If you want to,” he added, aware that he might be putting some pressure on her. “You don’t have to.”

  “No, I’ll have a drink,” she decided. “We’re still four hours from Oslo. Might as well pass the time.”

  “That’s what I say,” he said.

  He was glad she had chosen to spend the flight to Norway in the lounge with him. On all their previous flights, she’d gone into the galley or her private cabin when she wasn’t busy with attending to his needs. Today, though, she’d remained in the lounge. It was nice to have company for once. It made a welcome change.

  Halle brought down a second glass, and Grayson poured out a measure of scotch for each of them.

  “You don’t need to sit over there, you know,” he said as she moved back toward the chair up against the TV wall. “You can come sit in one of these chairs.”

  “You said those were the guest seats,” she reminded him.

  “Well, you’re having a drink with me, so right now you’re my guest,” he said. “Come on, have a seat.”

  She looked a little hesitant, but she got up and moved back toward him, settling herself in a recliner next to his own. “Thanks,” she said. “This is a nice break.”

  “Do you want to watch TV or something?”

  “Sure. Want me to put it on?”

  “I’ve got it.” He was aware that his behavior was out of the ordinary. Typically, he would have asked her to put the TV on. It wasn’t that he needed that task done for him, but it did feel sort of luxurious to be able to ask to have it done.

  But right now, he didn’t want her doing things for him. He wanted to do things for her.

  He couldn’t quite put his finger on why that was.

  He scrolled through the channels, looking for something that might be interesting to watch, and eventually settled on a nature program about penguins. It looked interesting, but not so interesting that they couldn’t continue to talk over it.

  It had been a while since he had enjoyed talking to anyone as much as he did her.

  “Ooh, penguins,” she said. “I love those little guys. They were always my favorite animal at the zoo when I was growing up.”

  “I’ve never been to a zoo,” Grayson commented.

  Her eyes widened. “You’ve never been to a zoo?”

  He laughed. “You sound like it’s a rite of passage or something.”

  “I’m just…really surprised! You’ve been everywhere!”

  “Yeah, but usually on business,” Grayson pointed out. “I don’t have a lot of business at the zoo.”

  “You could still go. I know you do things for fun sometimes. You’ve made a point of taking me out for a meal in most of the cities we’ve been to.”

  “That’s different. We have to eat,” he said. “But the zoo…it’s just not something I’ve ever thought about.”

  “Your parents didn’t take you when you were a kid?”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding? They didn’t even take me to school. I had a nanny for that. I was lucky if I saw my parents once a week when I was growing up.”

  “And your nanny never took you to the zoo?”

  “No, we never got to do anything I wanted to do,” he said. “School, tutoring, music lessons, language lessons. That was about it for me.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a childhood,” Halle said.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Grayson said. “And at the time, it was all I knew. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve started to realize I missed out on some fun.”

  “And now you’re missing out on dating, too,” Halle said.

  Grayson knew she hadn’t meant that unkindly, but he was surprised by how much it hurt. He couldn’t fault her. She was right. And he was the one who had been telling stories about his romantic misadventures as if they were jokes.

  But right now, none of it felt like a joke.

  Maybe it was the fact that they had been talking about the childhood he’d missed out on, but he suddenly felt extremely nostalgic for paths not taken.

  He’d devoted his life to his business. And he had a lot to show for it. But he was lonely, too.

  Maybe he should have left the business world when he was younger. Painting hadn’t been the right way to go, but there were other careers out there. Could he have carved out a different life for himself?

  But that was impossible to imagine. He could see himself without money, but he really was passionate about his hotels. He was doing what he wanted to be doing.

  It was just a shame that the work he had chosen had put a wedge between him and romance.

  But choosing a different path wouldn’t necessarily have solved that problem. After all, Halle seemed to be in the same situation, and she hadn’t taken his path through life at all. Maybe it was a common problem. Maybe finding love was actually the rarer outcome.

  “You okay?” Halle asked.

  She was looking at him quizzically, and Grayson realized that he had been staring off into space for a considerable length of time.

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

  “Want to share?”

  “No,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Just boring things. Nothing worth talking about.”

  He raised his glass, hoping to distract her from any potential follow up questions. “How about a toast?” he asked.

  “A toast to what?”

  “To new adventures.”

  She nodded, raising her glass to clink against his. “I can get behind that,” she said. “To new adventures.”

  Grayson managed to put his thoughts aside for the remainder of the flight. It was nice to spend time with Halle—more time than he ever had before, in fact.

  But when they had landed and gone their separate ways, his worries returned with a vengeance.

  His childhood might have been privileged, but it hadn’t been filled with love. He imagined Halle as a young child being taken to the zoo by loving parents. He’d never had anything like that.

  And now his adulthood was shaping up to be completely devoid of love too.

  His success was worth a great deal to him. But had he paid too high a price?

  Was he destined to never know real love?

  Chapter 10

  Halle

  Oslo was just as Grayson had described it, Halle thought—an absolutely beautiful city.

  She sat on the balcony of her hotel room with her feet propped up on the wicker ottoman. From here, off in the distance, she could see the shape of a tall ski jump. She could only imagine how much more massive it would look from up close, and she found herself wondering whether Grayson had the same view from his room.

  I’ll bet if there was only one room with a view of the ski jump, he would give it to me, she thought. It was the kind of thing he would do. Grayson had surprised her by being much less selfish than she had imagined. Of course, there was something self-important about wanting to be the person who exposed her to everything new and exciting in the world—but it wasn’t as bad as wanting to keep all the best things for himself.

  She’d set up her laptop on the balcony table, and now she opened her video chat app. It was late evening here in Norway, which meant it would be early afternoon back at home. It wasn’t always possible to call her father when she was out of the country, but today it was.

  He answered quickly, and Halle was glad—but it also made her a little worried. “Were you just sitting around in front of your computer, Dad?” she asked as his image resolved on the screen.

  “That’s it? No hello for your old man?”

  “Hello,” she said. “Now, tell me you’ve gotten out of the house today, please.”

  “You worry too much, you know,” he said with a grin. “I just came back from the pet store, as it turns out.”

  “Buying more fish?”

  “A tiger barb and an angelfish,” he said. “I’ll send you some pictures in your email. They’re really good-looking.”

  “That aquarium must be fantastic now,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s been two whole weeks since I’ve seen it.”

  “Will you be able to stop by the house next time you’re in town?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “I’ll make it a point to.”

  “So where are you tonight?” he asked.

  “Dad, you know where I am,” Halle said. “I’m in Norway.”

  “Oh, that’s right, Norway,” he said. “You’ll have to forgive an old man. It’s just so hard to keep up with your jet-setting life these days!”

  She laughed. “I always email you my itinerary.”

  “Well, true enough, so you do,” he said. “And it’s very appreciated. You know, my friend Warren tells me he hasn’t heard from his daughter in two months.”

  “That’ll never be us,” Halle promised. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dad.”

  Her father was quiet for a moment. “You know I appreciate everything you do for me, Halle.”