Page 28 of A Very Happy Halloween

“Well, go and look it up, then tell the man where to park his truck.”

Eis hung up. That jerk actually hung up on me, and the scaffolding guy checked his watch.

“I haven’t got all day, lady.”

“Just one more minute.”

I typed “Eisen Renner net worth” into the search bar on my phone. Holy crap. Twenty-five million in career winnings, another twenty million in sponsorship deals. Then there was the gym chain he owned, and…oh… Elizabeth Renner is believed to have bequeathed her entire estate to just two of her four grandchildren, siblings Eisen and Edith, leading to infighting in the family. The value of the estate is an estimated three hundred million pounds, with properties in London, Somerset, Paris, Barbados, and New York.

I nearly puked.

“Uh, just park the truck wherever. Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

“I’m all right, love.”

I walked into the house on autopilot and called Eis again.

“Why didn’t you tell me, you absolute twatwaffle?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re wealthy.”

“You didn’t get that from the thirty-seven-room mansion?”

“Well, obviously I knew you had some money, but not that you were obscenely filthy stinking rich.”

“Does it matter? If I thought you were only after my money, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“It’s just… I guess it’s weird.”

“The money doesn’t define me. It just sits there in the background. If it makes you feel better, I could throw all the cash out of my helicopter.”

“You have a helicopter?”

“Technically it’s my dad’s, but I borrow it sometimes.”

Somebody pinch me.

“Throwing cash out of a helicopter seems awfully wasteful. With the way energy bills are going up, wouldn’t it make more sense to burn it in the grate?”

Eis just laughed. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

I sat down hard on the stairs. How was I meant to explain this? Any of this? To my parents, to my sister, to the boys… Only Marissa knew about the original Hand and Flowers incident—not the sordid details of the nature reserve excursion, but that a boy I liked had dumped me by text, and she’d offered to hunt Eis down and kick him in the balls. So that might be awkward. Mum was liable to freak out about his criminal record, Dad would want to know what a man like Eis was doing with a woman like me—which was understandable since I kept asking myself the same question—and the boys had never seen me with anyone but Steven. Alfie would probably be okay with me dating, but I wasn’t sure about Harry. When Mum tried to set me up with one of her friends’ sons a few months ago, he’d overheard and angrily told her that he didn’t want a new dad.

I was still sitting on the stairs when Eis arrived.

“I binned off the meeting. Edie and Bex can cover for me.” He handed me a takeaway cup. “You should lock your front door.”

“Who’s Bex?” I asked numbly.

“My PA. She’s been on maternity leave, but we decided it would work for both of us if she came back part-time. You all right?”

“Just…overwhelmed?”

“It’s okay to feel that way.”

“Really?”

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