Young Billionaire’s Dog Runs Into Her at Park. He Apologizes With Coffee, Then Dinner, Then Forever

Chapter 4

They drove north out of the city, and Emma watched the buildings gradually surrender to trees.

Grant had made a playlist for the drive — a mix of indie folk and classic rock that somehow felt like it had been assembled from a shared memory of a life neither of them had lived together before. They sang along badly to the songs they knew, mercilessly mocking each other’s off-key moments, and Emma found herself laughing so hard at one point that she had to wipe tears from her eyes.

After about an hour, Grant turned off the highway and drove down a winding back road lined with old stone walls and reddening maples. A hand-painted sign appeared ahead: APPLE PICKING — OPENING WEEKEND.

Emma turned to stare at him. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I’ve always wanted to go apple picking but never have.”

She’d mentioned it once, in passing, during their dinner. A throwaway comment about fall traditions she’d never gotten around to experiencing, the kind of thing people say to fill space. Grant’s smile widened.

“I pay attention,” he said simply.

The orchard spread across rolling hills, rows of trees heavy with red and golden apples stretching toward the horizon. They bought paper bags at the entrance and wandered between the rows, and Emma felt something loosen in her chest that she hadn’t even realized was wound tight. When was the last time she’d done something purely for fun? Something not tied to a commission, a deadline, a set of numbers that had to prove something to someone?

She couldn’t remember.

Grant was, as it turned out, spectacularly bad at apple picking. He kept reaching for apples that were just out of range, stretching up on his toes to hook them with his fingertips, and half the time he’d snap the branch and send three apples tumbling instead of one. At one point Emma laughed so hard she had to sit down in the grass, watching him wrestle with a particularly defiant branch like it had personally insulted his family.

“I’m providing entertainment value,” he said defensively, but he was laughing too.

They filled their bags past the point of reason — more apples than either of them could possibly eat — and then, on a whim, Emma lay down in the grass between two rows of trees, looking up through the canopy at the sky. Grant lowered himself beside her, close enough that she could smell his clean soap and the faint autumn tang of the orchard.

“This is perfect,” Emma said softly. “Thank you for this.”

Grant turned his head to look at her, and something in his expression made her breath catch. “You’re welcome.”

They stayed like that for a long moment, just looking at each other through the dappled light, and Emma felt the whole world narrow down to the two of them. The distant sounds of other visitors — children shrieking with delight, a tractor rumbling somewhere — faded into soft background noise, like the garble of a radio tuned to the wrong station.

“I should tell you something,” Grant said, and his voice had gone suddenly serious.

Emma’s stomach tightened. Here it was. The red flag, the skeleton, the thing that would ruin it. She’d been waiting for this moment all week, bracing for it.

“Okay,” she said carefully.

“I really like you.” Grant’s eyes searched hers. “Like, really like you. And I know we’ve only known each other for a week, which is insane, but I can’t remember the last time I connected with someone like this. Actually, I don’t think I ever have.”

The wall Emma had built around her heart — the one she’d constructed the night she found her ex kissing someone else, the one she’d reinforced during years of being the black sheep, the one she’d been checking for cracks all evening — shuddered, and then tipped over entirely.

Relief flooded through her, followed immediately by a rush of warmth so intense it nearly scared her.

“I really like you too,” she admitted. “It is crazy. But good crazy.”

Grant reached over and took her hand, lacing their fingers together, and Emma felt the touch all the way through her body, like a struck bell.

They lay there holding hands in an apple orchard like teenagers. And Emma couldn’t remember ever feeling this happy. Couldn’t remember ever feeling this alive.

The moment shattered when a small child ran past, screaming about a spider, followed by a harried mother. They laughed, scrambled up, went back to their bags.

On the drive home, they stopped at a farm stand and bought fresh cider and cider donuts dusted in cinnamon sugar. Grant got powdered sugar all over his face, and Emma took a photo of him that she immediately made her phone background, ignoring his protests. He retaliated by tickling her until she begged for mercy, right in front of the farm stand woman, who just smiled at them like they were the cutest thing she’d seen all month.

That evening, when Grant dropped her off, Emma invited him up to her apartment for the first time.

It was tiny — barely bigger than a hotel room, with her art supplies taking up most of the available space. A folding table doubled as her desk and dining surface. Prints and works-in-progress were pinned to the walls. It was the opposite of impressive, and Emma felt a flash of self-consciousness as Grant stepped inside.

But Grant didn’t seem to notice the size. He moved slowly through the space, studying the illustrations pinned to the walls, the half-finished sketches on her desk, the watercolor of a fox reading a book in a library that was her favorite thing she’d ever made.

“Your work is incredible,” he said, stopping in front of it. “You have so much talent.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, meaning it. Compliments about her art always hit differently than compliments about anything else. “That fox is my favorite. I’ve been commissioned to paint it for a cover, but I gave them the original.”

Grant turned to face her, and abruptly the tiny apartment felt even tinier, the air between them electric.

He stepped closer, slowly, deliberately, giving her every opportunity to move away. Emma stayed exactly where she was.

“Can I kiss you?” Grant asked, low. “For real this time.”

“Yes,” she breathed.

A beat of gravity. Then his lips were on hers.

It was a perfect first kiss — soft and slow and full of promise, like the first page of a book you already know you’ll love. Grant’s hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb tracing her skin, and Emma’s fingers found their way to his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath her palm, matching time with her own.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing hard.

“Wow,” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Grant agreed. “Wow.”

He kissed her again. And again. And by the time he finally left, over an hour later, Emma’s lips felt swollen and her heart felt full, and she stood at the closed door with her fingers pressed to her mouth, smiling like an idiot at absolutely nothing at all.

The next few weeks passed in a haze of happiness.

Emma and Grant fell into an easy rhythm. Coffee together in the mornings, before Emma started work and Grant headed to his hotel. Dinner together most evenings, either at restaurants or at Emma’s place, where Grant turned out to be surprisingly good in the kitchen. Weekend museum visits, meandering walks through the city, a whole Saturday afternoon spent wandering from bookstore to bookstore, talking about everything and nothing.

Emma finally met Zeus properly, spending an afternoon at Grant’s apartment — a spacious loft in Tribeca with floor-to-ceiling windows and furniture that probably cost more than Emma’s car. She tried not to think too hard about what kind of hotel job paid for a place like this.

Zeus remembered her. He greeted her with a full-body wiggle and, mercifully, no tackling this time. Then he brought her every toy he owned, one by one, laying them at her feet like offerings at an altar. Emma fell in love with the ridiculous dog almost as fast as she was falling for his owner.

They went to museums and movies. They cooked disasters in Emma’s tiny kitchen. They talked for hours about the things that mattered — Grant about his mother, and the pressure of living up to his father’s expectations; Emma about her family, about always feeling like the one who didn’t fit, about the fear that she’d never prove them wrong.

The more time they spent together, the more Emma realized how much she’d been missing. Grant understood her — her drive to succeed on her own terms, the way she threw herself into work, the fears that kept her up at night. And Emma understood his dedication to his career, the weight of family legacy, the quiet desire to build something that mattered.

It was the best relationship she’d ever had. The only one that had ever felt real.

And then everything changed in the middle of a beautiful dinner.