Page 10 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

CHAPTER 5

ELIO

Elio stalked through the halls of what was supposed to be his private retreat, cut off from the rest of the world, the American woman following at his heels. The part of him that was angry, the part with his fist still clenched tight around the legal papers, was arguing the case to just leave her outside and let her try her suicide mission to swim back to the mainland. But the rest of him couldn’t live with that on his conscience. His mother would probably appear on his doorstep, as if summoned by magic, and slap him herself.

“Here,” he said, opening the door to the guest wing, the storm making the halls dark and dreary for so early in the afternoon. “You can stay here until the storm clears enough for a boat to get to the mainland.”

The woman, smiling tightly, gave him a thumbs-up, a literal thumbs-up, and stepped into the entryway to the wing with wide eyes.

“There should be drinks in the refrigerator,” Elio called, not willing to cross the threshold. “There’s a bathroom. I’d offer food, but I’ve got more important things to deal with right now.”

He raised the crumpled and slightly damp papers, and the woman scratched the back of her neck awkwardly.

“Uh, thank you,” she said, and Elio took that as a good enough point to leave her to it. He had a call to make to his lawyer, time zones be damned.

Back in his study, with the windows closed against the raging winds outside that rattled the glass in their frames, he snatched up his cell phone and collapsed into his favorite chair, scowling so hard he was probably going to give himself a headache.

“If you’re calling me at this time,” answered a groggy voice on the other end of the line, “then I’m guessing you got served some rather disappointing papers.”

“What the hell, Marc?” Elio said, immediately rising from his chair and pacing about the room, unable to help himself. “I thought you said if I kept my head down, no one was going to be able to find me here.”

“I said it was your best strategy, but unfortunately, Elio, I am not a magical genie.” The amused undertone in Marc’s voice was only making Elio more irritated by the second.

“Well, it would be better if you were, because now she has to stay here.”

“What? Who? Staying where?”

“You hear that?” Elio asked, holding the phone out to the window.

“Is that a washing machine?” Marc asked.

“It’s a storm that’s hitting the island like some sort of doomsday film. The woman who served me the papers is stuck here until it clears. You know she bribed some random fisherman to bring her out here? She pretended to be some backpacker with a part-time job delivering packages. She hid the papers in a box and annoyed me into taking it from her.”

It was lucky Marc was on a different continent because he started laughing, and Elio could have smacked him.

“It’s not funny,” Elio said, not caring how petulant he sounded. “I’m getting sued over an olive pit for grievous bodily harm. Why are you laughing?”

“Because I’m impressed,” Marc said. “Don’t blame the girl. She was just doing her job, and it sounds like she did a fine job of it too. Get her number and maybe I’ll hire her to serve cases for our firm.”

He chuckled again, immensely amused, and for some reason it was what had Elio deflating a little bit. This whole thing really was ridiculous.

“Yeah, well,” Elio said. “Now she’s staying in the guest wing until it’s safe enough for a boat to get here.”

“I do keep telling you that you need to make more friends,” Marc said, and Elio rolled his eyes. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I didn’t ask her.”

“That’s not very polite of you.”

“I was a bit distracted. And I told her where the drinks were. That’s polite.”

“Listen, kid,” Marc said with a sigh, and Elio knew he was in for a lecture. “I get the frustration, but it was gonna happen sooner or later. The only one you should be mad at is the idiot who choked on an olive like some Saturday morning cartoon. You can’t control these things as much as you might like to. You certainly can’t control the weather. So scan the paperwork, and I’ll get started on it in the morning. Have some faith in me, all right?”

“It might be a bit smudged,” Elio said, smoothing out the papers with one hand on his desk.

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