Billionaire Romance10 min read
"I Asked to Kiss Him — Then I Rewound My Life"
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"I can kiss you, can't I?"
I said it and felt stupid for saying it first.
He smiled once, small and private. "Yes."
I laughed, then whispered, "Your body is amazing. Can I—"
He cut me off with a grin. "Of course you should try."
My face went blank. "What? No—"
"I mean, try learning from me," he said, then pulled me close.
I scrambled, words spilling out in a panic. "Wait, wait—I'm only asking about gym tips. I didn't mean—"
He tightened his arms and mouthed the words I had not heard. "Don't run. You promised you'd be my ears forever."
I wanted to tell him this was different, but my mouth closed. His hands felt like home and like a trap both.
People call Caleb Murray cold. People call him dangerous. They say the man who runs half the city's industry doesn't feel. They are wrong.
He cannot hear a thing, but he reads lips like a book. He sees the tremor in my throat I never admit to anyone. He has always seen me.
I died once thinking I had nothing left to repair. I woke up twenty years younger on a night I had swore would end everything. I woke up with one mark on my chest and a memory that cut like a torn map.
"You won't leave me again," he mouthed that first morning like a command. His jaw was set. The scar at his temple flashed in the light and I remembered dust and smoke and blood.
"No," I said aloud. My voice came out too small.
He reached for my face. His skin was warm. "You asked me last night."
I pushed away with the shame of someone who had been drugged into a mistake once. "I didn't—"
"You asked," he repeated. His lips pressed mine. I tasted salt and the room blurred.
That night and the next day were a loop I already lived. Last life, I left him. I chose a man named Knox Barrett. I chose the wrong crowd. Knox smiled at my weakness and used it. He used my family's name and my trust until I had nothing but open wounds.
This life, I had a list.
"Call him," I said to no one in particular an hour later.
"Who?"
"Knox," I answered. "Call Knox Barrett. Tell him I won't help him. Tell him I mean it."
Caleb's eyes darkened. He pulled the phone out of my hand, thumb on the message. He typed with a calm that stopped my breath.
"I won't answer him," he mouthed.
"Why not?" I blurted.
"Because I don't want him near the life we're building," he said. The word we sounded new in my mouth.
People judge me for smiling too much in front of Caleb.
"Your smile is dangerous," his cousin Charlotte said under her breath at his birthday party.
"I'll take the danger," I told her and held his arm like a flag.
The dinner was a war of eyes. My stepmother, Lucille Lehmann, and my half-sister Guadalupe Corey arrived later, soaked in fake concern. I watched them from the corner of my eye. They had not changed. They still loved rumors more than their own blood.
"Where were you last night?" Guadalupe asked tight, acting sweet.
"In class," I said. "Why?"
"It was said you were in Caleb Murray's room," Lucille said, turning her performance to a full play.
I smiled slow, showing them the single mark on my collarbone. "One mosquito bite."
They both leaned in as if I had confessed a crime.
"High floors are safe," I said softly. "But if mosquitoes fly high enough, they carry gossip too."
Guadalupe blushed and sputtered. Lucille wet her handkerchief for effect. My father, Dalton Youssef, frowned at their show as if he found it petty and indecent.
"I'll get you a car," he said finally. "We shouldn't stay."
I wanted to leave, but this was the moment. I had rehearsed it in the space between my death and my second chance.
"Wait," I said and turned to the doorway where Caleb stood. He had not been rude to say anything, but his eyes held a blade of patience.
He read my lips. "What is it?"
"Tell them I slept over," I said. "Tell them I'm fine and you protected me."
Caleb's jaw moved. He mouthed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I told him. "Say it."
He walked up to the room, reached out and covered my hand. Then he said, firm and clear as anything spoken aloud, "Laney slept here. Nothing happened."
The room fell into a quiet that looked like forgiveness. The women collected their coats and walked out slower than they intended, their smiles brittle as old glass.
After they left, Guadalupe slapped at her own face as if someone else had struck her. "You'll regret this."
"Maybe," I said, "But I won’t be the only one regretting later."
He kissed me then, like apology and promise braided together.
*
"I don't want to cancel the engagement," I said the next morning, lying on his couch like a child.
"Why?" Caleb asked and read my lips.
"Because I'm tired of running," I said. "Because last time, I walked away and everything fell apart."
He watched me like someone watching the weather change. For a minute his whole face composed a map of worry and relief.
"Stay," he mouthed. His lips trembled the way they do when he is about to hand over a fortress key.
So I stayed. I learned to accept the heat of his hand on my waist. I learned what his silence meant: he would be first to act, last to leave.
He protected me the way a man protects land he knows will be his.
"Let's go shopping," I said one afternoon. He blinked.
"I will take you," he read my doubt. "If you want."
I smiled. "I do."
We walked through a store full of light and pale fabrics. He let me choose. He let me laugh and he bought no less than I asked. It felt like stealing pearls from the sea and giving them back to me with reverence.
"You look good," he said once.
"Do I scare them?" I asked.
"No," he whispered, and then, because he wanted me to know, he kissed me in the middle of the aisle.
The world, as far as I could see, undid itself into a softer place.
*
They tested me though.
At a charity banquet at the Murray estate, a woman in the crowd — Barbara Johansson — tripped and fell near me. She cried like a wounded bird and pointed at me as if I'd done violence.
"She pushed me!" Barbara wailed. The crowd swelled like tide to listen. I knew the trick; I had lived enough to see desperate people act desperate to be seen.
"Call the recording," I said quietly.
"Why?" Lucille asked.
"Because if she lies, the cameras will speak."
I walked to the security desk like a woman crossing to claim her name. "Play from ten minutes ago," I asked.
They played the footage. It showed Barbara staggering alone, a wine glass on the floor, her hands touching her shoulder and then her own forehead as if testing for pain.
"She hit herself," I said. "She staged it."
The room snapped. Faces peeled and turned like paper. People murmured. Barbara shrieked and then clung to her lie. Caleb stepped forward like an anchored ship.
"Remove her," he said with a voice shaped to end things.
They took Barbara away. She kicked and screamed. I wanted to say more, but he pulled me close and covered my hand like a shield.
I learned that proof can be a weapon too. I learned to use it.
*
"Why are you helping me with this?" I asked him one night when the city slept around us in a sullen hush.
His fingers traced my wrist. "Because I saw you once in a photo and worried. Because you are stubborn and loud and soft. And because you are mine."
"What does that mean?" I said.
"It means," he breathed, "I won't let anyone break you."
We kissed again. He tasted of salt and a promise not to be abandoned.
Not everyone accepted our peace. Knox Barrett tried to call me a week later, his voice like old money and new arrogance in one.
"Laney, I need help," he said. "We can fix this."
"Why would I help the man who let me die?" I typed back, fingers steady.
"You don't understand," he begged over dinner with his men later. He sounded small.
I didn't answer. Instead I walked into the press the next day and made a quiet announcement: "If anyone helps Knox Barrett now, they help a man who caused suffering and will lose my friendship and the Murray group's favor."
The effect was quick and clean. Sponsors withdrew. Bankers shunned his calls. Knox tried to charm, to plead, to get onto his knees before social media, but no one would lift a hand for a man marked.
When finally Knox showed at the city square years later, hands open and empty, I felt nothing but a chill. He stopped at my table. "Laney—"
"No," I said. "You have me on an old account."
He fell apart behind the wind of a door that closed.
I did not gloat. I had no love for cruel endings. I had love for my own life. Knox was left with nothing but the memory of what he had built on my goodwill.
*
There were other fights. My stepmother tried to smear me in the press. Guadalupe tried to pull at my skirts in public and then lied she had been hurt. I recorded every whisper, every small betrayal.
"You never should have been kind to them," Caleb said once.
"They needed kindness before," I said. "Now they need consequences."
He nodded. "We will give them what they deserve."
He was good with that. He could break a man with a look and bulldoze a contract with a single nod. He carved mistakes from those who harmed me, precise and surgical.
But I did not let him do all the work. I learned to move statements, to call reporters, to publish evidence. I found my own voice and used it loud. They stopped hurting me.
"How are we doing this?" I asked during one late night at the office when I sat with his financials open and his name on every line.
He smiled like he never had before. "Together," he said. "You read lips and read people. I hear with my eyes. We balance."
We did. We argued. We kissed. We kept score on who cooked and who cleaned his office. He let me keep my single space on campus. I kept my hand on his back at all times.
"Marry me properly," he said one evening, his voice flat. The words looked like prayer.
"I thought we were married in all but a name," I said.
He bent and kissed my collarbone where the mosquito mark used to be and then suddenly, impulsive like a boy, he took out a small pistol he kept cleaned like a cross.
"I named this after you," he said, and on the grip someone had carved a tiny "L".
"You named your gun after me?" I laughed.
"It is for protection," he said seriously. "And it has your mark on it."
That night, I knew how much he guarded me. He had more than wealth; he had an army of people who bowed to him for safety, and he gave it to me without a second thought.
*
"Will you forgive me?" Jade Cain asked, lips trembling months later when she tried to crawl back into my life.
She had once lured me toward a ruin I could not see, whispering about Knox Barrett, pushing me into his arms and into poison. She thought I would not remember.
"Why should I?" I asked.
"Because you saved me once," she said. "You were noble."
"I was foolish once," I said. "I used to believe you. Now I don't."
I played the video she never expected would be used. At a company event, the footage rolled: Jade exchanging fingertips with Knox's men, sliding envelopes and whispering orders. The room ferried in a cold light when the truth aired.
People went quiet. Jade's face crumpled like paper. She tried to deny she had ever tried to drug me. She shook her head and pointed fingers but the camera had teeth.
"You knew," I said. "You chose money over me."
Her face changed to panic and then regret. "Laney—"
"Stop," I said. "You were my friend one lifetime and you stabbed me. I will not pretend."
She left the city within a week. Knox's calls followed her out like small animals fleeing fire.
*
We continued to care for each other in small ways.
"Do you remember the tea?" I asked one late afternoon, pulling a small wooden box from my bag.
He smiled, recognizing the ribbon. "Your father's gift."
"His tea," I said. "He told me once that a house with good tea can weather any storm."
"Then let's drink it together," he said. He kissed the top of my hand and put the kettle on.
We drank and watched the rain line the city like a slow gray poem. I had known fear and cruelty. I had also known comfort. I chose comfort.
I chose him.
The final face-slapping came weeks later when my father, Dalton Youssef, stood up and announced at a city council gala that he would partner with the Murray group to build a public hospital wing. The room erupted into claps. Lucille and Guadalupe turned thin as paper.
"You did this?" Lucille hissed at me privately.
"I did," I said. "For the first time, my family's name will mean help and not a rumor."
They could not look me in the eyes. They had to learn another way: respect, or at least the public idea of it.
Knox tried public apology tours. He gave interviews. He reached out again. No one paid him any mind.
One night, years later, he tried to step into the Murray building lobby with a press crew and arrays of lawyers. Security ushered him out gently but firmly.
"You were always good at falling," I told him as I watched him leave.
His face twisted. "You ruined me."
"No," I said. "You ruined yourself."
He left and the door closed and I felt no triumph. I felt the clean weight of justice and the light of the life I had chosen.
*
We had our fights, like any pair who learn to share air. I called him stubborn and he said the same. He told me not to play with danger; I told him sometimes danger tasted like wine and I liked it.
"Promise me you won't go on dangerous errands alone," he once insisted, his fingers gripping my wrist.
"I promise," I replied.
He let me keep my promise. He let me grow.
On the third year of us, on his birthday, I carried the old wooden tea box to his office.
"Open it." I said.
He smiled. "You keep giving me tea."
"No," I said and slid my hand in his coat. I pressed a small crane folded from the first page of his ledger into his palm. My finger brushed the "L" on his gun. "This is our life now."
He looked at me with eyes that said everything: fear, desire, claim.
"Will you still stay?" I asked.
He kissed me then, slow and fierce as if saying yes with his mouth and his heart at once. "I am yours, Laney."
I put my forehead against his and felt the steady beat of a man who had chosen to care. Outside, the city moved with its old rhythms. Inside, we built a place that was nothing like the ruins of my last life.
We fixed what we could.
We got the hospital done. The press wrote that it was a philanthropic triumph and a steadying hand in a turbulent market. Families lined up to thank us.
We kept each other honest. We argued fiercely in the night and made up with clumsy dances in the kitchen. Sometimes the past came back like rain on dry stone, but we covered the leaks.
"Do you ever worry you'll lose me again?" he asked one winter, reading my lips like a lover reads a map.
"No," I said. "Not now."
He looked at me and his face softened into a private world. "Good," he mouthed. "Because I will make sure."
He lifted the tea box, placed it on his desk, and there on top he pulled the little crane I had made. Between us it was a small shrine of two people who decided to stay.
When I close my eyes at night, I see that grain of carved 'L' on the gun and the way his lips barely move when he reads my fear. I wake up and put my hand on his chest and feel that he is there, breathing, awake, constant.
This time I did not flee when I hurt. This time I learned how to fight back, how to expose, how to hold my own and accept love that was real.
"Drink with me," he whispers in the dark, and I say yes.
We drink our tea and listen to the city breathe. We are not perfect. We are better.
And when the world asked me to be soft or to be hard, I chose to build. I built a life that would have been worth saving the first time.
I am Laney Schaefer. He is Caleb Murray. We are more than rumor or ruin.
We are a quiet war and a soft home, and in the end, that is all I ever wanted.
The End
— Thank you for reading —