Page 49 of The Billionaire Experience

He’d absolutely floored her when he’d offered her his guest bedroom on a semi-permanent basis. She honestly hadn’t seen that coming. As a billionaire bachelor, shouldn’t he prefer that women came and went? She was beginning to wonder if she’d categorized him incorrectly.

She reached into the box for a second slice of pizza, justifying that there were so many vegetables on it that it was practically a salad. As she slid it onto one of the paper plates the delivery guy had thoughtfully provided, she paused to sip from her water bottle.

“You look like you want to ask me something.” Brody lifted the pizza box lid and pulled out another slice—his third if she wasn’t mistaken.

“I do?”

“Yeah.” He dropped the lid and rested his elbows on his knees. They’d chosen to eat in the living room, but there was no TV to watch since it was still sitting on the floor and wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam.

“I was going to ask if you’d like me to help you hang the TV.”

“You want to watch TV?”

“At some point, I assume you will. Or else why did you buy a sixty-five-inch screen?” She took a bite from the pointed end of her pizza slice. They’d opted for a hand-tossed rather than a deep dish, which was practically sacrilegious in Chicago, but that’s what Brody, the New Yorker, preferred.

“I was planning to watch a YouTube video to learn how to do it.”

“The main cause of procrastination is lack of know-how. I can help,” she said after swallowing another bite.

“Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

“Shelter myself, apparently.”

On cue, he laughed. “I can relate. Trust me.”

“Says the lifelong renter.”

After swallowing down half of his slice, he continued, “I lived in a house before—with my first serious girlfriend. Lindy and I split up shortly after we moved in. We were young. It was a long time ago.”

“That sounds like Dustin and me, though I can’t blame my poor decisions on youth. After months of feeling like I was living alone in his huge, stuffy mansion, I realized I never should have moved in with him.” She shook off her newfound irritation to ask, “Did you sell the house you and your girlfriend moved into, or did she buy it from you?”

“Neither,” he said after a pause. “I gave it to her.”

She stared at him while he chewed. “Like, for free?”

He nodded.

“Wow.”

“Jaylyn gives me shit because I bought two houses and have never bought one for myself until now.”

“Who’d you buy the other house for?”

“My mom.”

“That’s sweet.” Reagan would buy Ike whatever he wanted if she had money.

“And now I find out the first house I bought myself belonged to you.”

“It was never mine.”

“But Ike would have sold to you instead of me if you’d asked.”

“He would have. But then he couldn’t have moved to his dream retirement home on the golf course. I was in deep with my ex at the time. I trusted him, and he ended up being less interested in starting a life with me than he was securing”—she dropped her voice into a dopey baritone to quote Dustin—“‘a stable job in my field of expertise.’” She caught the tail end of a smile from Brody before continuing, “I wasn’t this embittered when he left. I’m pissed at myself and taking it out on him.”

“Have at it. I’m not going to defend that jackass.”

For whatever reason, that got her. She laughed so hard tears pricked the corners of her lids, which reminded her of earlier, when she’d shed tears not of the happy variety.

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