The Billionaire’s Savior

Chapter 10

Robyn saw Chris slip inside the ballroom of New York City’s Mayoral Office just before she stepped up to the podium, and felt her entire world exhale – pretended her shaking hands were nerves as she delivered her acceptance speech.

The award was for ‘services to the city’. There was a handful of people the Mayor handed them out to every year – firemen, policemen, people who run charities or build houses for the homeless – and now, much to her own surprise, Robyn, for her photography, documenting the side of New York not many saw; soup kitchens and homeless shelters, ordinary people helping others which she’d then published on her blog; with the making of the movie her blog had gone viral. It was fancy and it should be fun but all Robyn cared about, in the designer dress Chris bought for her and her grandmother’s jewelry, was the fact that Chris had been out on his own since that afternoon and was still chasing down locations for the cli*ax scene of the film when she had to head to the event without him an hour ago.

There was something awful about standing in a crowd of shiny, happy people pretending to be shiny and happy too, whilst thinking about your heart running around outside your body with a guy with severe anxiety issues who chose today to venture out on his own; and reintroduce himself to the world. If something happened to him she just did not know what she would do. The idea of Chris out there somewhere, perhaps hurt, perhaps frightened, perhaps worse – whilst she was in here… normally when he left the house, Robyn or Cleo was right there with him talking him through it or at least nearby in case anything happened. Today, it was just him. She usually coordinated with Cleo, and compulsively ate her candy and gauged how worried she should be by whether Cleo remembered to protest or not. She let Pam hold her hand when things got scary.

But Chris had insisted she go to this dumb award ceremony whether he was out or not. No putting her life on hold because of something he should have gotten over by now (his words, not hers), no missing the important stuff because of Chris’s weird stuff.

And Robyn had spent the last hour regretting letting him talk her into attending. She felt sick, she felt wrong, she wanted to call Cleo to ask how it was going but she couldn’t find anywhere private enough.

And then at the last possible second, Chris was there.

His gaze stayed fixed on her from the back of the room the entire time she was stumbling through her speech (the one he helped her write at three in the morning yesterday), his smile bright and warm and genuine like there wasn’t a black eye blooming across his face so large and obvious that she could see it from here.

Robyn could hardly extradite herself from her cluster of well-wishers fast enough – Chris was half way toward her through the throng but she caught his eye and shook her head. Not here. She wanted – needed – him to herself for a moment.

Without nearly enough of a glance around the room to check if he was being observed, he disappeared out the door; Robyn caught the direction of his movement and followed, mumbling something about the bathroom, award still clasped awkwardly in one sweaty hand, purse in the other –

She was in a big old library. Or maybe it was a hall of records or – it was dark and cavernous, with lots of shelves and some big old tables at intervals across the floor, but this was definitely the door she saw flicker open when Chris disappeared –

“Robyn.” Her name melted into a kiss and Robyn threw her arms around him, squeezed tight, dropped the award with a clatter – needed her hands free to touch him.

Chris seemed reassuringly intact, although Robyn had to lean back to check his face, concerned fingers tracing the edges of the heavy bruise on his bronzed cheek.

“Are you okay?” She framed his jaw with her hands.

“Yeah,” he clasped her wrist, turned it inwards to kiss it, “told you not to worry.”

“We’ve talked about you telling me what to do.”

He laughed, and she pulled his face down to her shoulder, holding him close, because she was not ready for him to be laughing about this just yet – she needed to worry, just a little longer; needed to let the fact that he was safe again sink in. He pressed his nose to her neck and she felt the scratch of his stubble.

“What’d they do to my baby?” She murmured into his ear, smoothing his hair, full of the kind of tenderness that’s almost a physical ache in her chest because God – no one should be putting bruises on this sweet man’s beautiful face.

“Nothing they didn’t come to regret,” he replied, still nuzzling at her neck. He squeezed at her a little tighter. “I’m okay, Robyn. I’m sorry I was late.”

Robyn let him pull away from her so she could look into his eyes again. The bruise was impressive, though it’d be gone soon. It might already be fading. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“I nearly missed your – thing,” he pointed at the award where she discarded it on the floor.

Robyn shrugged. “It’s silly. It didn’t matter, not when you’re out there – ”

“Yes it does matter,” Chris intoned, firmly. “You matter, what you do matters, no one gets to devalue that. You’re just as important as I am.”

Robyn snorted. “Well at least whatever happened, you confronted your fears and won?”

“I admit I might have gone looking for trouble; just to see..it felt good to stand my ground and fight.”

He was trying to make her smile and that alone unwound something in her chest, the last coils of tension finally releasing. He was not hurt, not badly, and he was here where she could touch him, more worried for her well-being than for his own.