Page 66 of The Billionaire Experience

“I practically met Brody under false pretenses.”

“Ohh, do tell!”

“He bought the house I grew up in, but he didn’t know that when he hired me. I might have met a billionaire before without knowing it, but I’ve never been in the company of one so often. Brody is so accessible and open and…”

“Drop-dead sexy?” Chloe filled in.

“Yeah.” No sense in denying it. His attractiveness was obvious. “I didn’t expect to have sex with him. I was hired to fix up the house.” Reagan put her fingers over her lips and mumbled a quick apology. “I don’t know why I said that. The champagne must’ve gone to my head.”

“I knew I liked you!” Chloe’s eyes sparkled with delight. “I love Zander so much it’s nuts. We met on New Year’s Eve. Online before then, but I had no idea it was him I was talking to until later that night.”

Chloe told the tale of how she’d met Zander online on an app, and then in person. She’d had no idea that his online persona and the man she’d met at the party were one and the same.

“You had sex that night?” Reagan whispered, in awe of Chloe’s gusto. “I’m impressed.”

“It wasn’t like me, but these Crane boys seem to make us all do things we’ve never done before.”

“Preach,” Reagan said, raising her glass.

“Before I knew what was happening, we were spending the night at each other’s apartments and he was asking me to house hunt with him. The first several we looked at were so expensive, I nearly died. I kept arguing that it was too much, but he insisted that eleven million was his baseline.”

Reagan felt oddly justified in having argued about the cost of her dress. “I went through a similar argument while shopping for this.” She gestured to her dress. “Brody wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

“They do that when it comes to money. I have to say, he sounds more domesticated than the way Zander described him. He said his middle brother was an adventurer. Maybe moving to the suburbs changed him.”

Or maybe moving to the suburbs had merely changed him temporarily. Reagan kept that thought to herself.

Chloe continued chatting about her potential plan for the closet. Reagan nodded along, half listening, half contemplating her date. If she and Brody were temporary, did that mean she had more to worry about…or less?

They rejoined the party and stepped into an uproar when the front door opened, and in walked an incredibly attractive man in a sleek navy blue suit.

“Holy shit.” Chloe grabbed onto Reagan’s arm. “I can’t believe he’s here.”

“Who?”

“Dante Crane.”

Reagan saw the family resemblance. Dante was around Brody’s height but younger by a few years. And less cheery. He accepted pats on the back and hugs from his siblings and cousins, his mouth a stoic flat line.

“He flew in from LA. There was some debate about whether or not he would show up.”

Jaylyn hopped up and down before throwing herself into her brother’s arms for a hug. He caught her against him, the first hint of a smile appearing. He looked a lot like Brody in that moment—if he swapped the mustache for a clean-shaven face.

When Chloe greeted him, Dante gave a tilt of his head in acknowledgment rather than offer a hug. Brody sidled up next to Reagan, sliding his arm around her waist. She was grateful to have him there when Dante turned his attention to her and gave her a rigid nod.

“Ignore the stick up Dante’s ass. It takes him a minute to relax,” Brody told her.

“There are a lot of Cranes here,” Reagan muttered. “Each of you in a different font. That must be Eli.” Eli, bearded like Tag but dark-haired, shook Dante’s hand. Eli’s tattoos were visible beneath the rolled sleeves of a button-down shirt. Like his brothers and cousins, he was striking.

“The charity ball I invited you to in New York is raising money for Refurbs for Vets, a charity that retrofits houses with ramps and wider hallways for injured soldiers and Marines.”

“Is that event going to be as intense as this one?”

“Times ten. There’ll be city slickers there with about fifty times the money the Cranes have.”

She gulped audibly.

“It’s a facade, wealth,” he told her. “And more commonplace than you’d think.”

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