Page 2 of The Billionaires

I pull up my calendar, open the meeting invite, and repeat the stupid-sounding last name over and over in my head.

Yep. Got it now. I step into my elevator and press the top button: LXXXVIII.

My phone rings.

I frown at it, until I realize it’s Gram calling. Accepting the call, I jab at the “door open” button to make sure the elevator doesn’t close. My grandmother is the only person whose calls I always take, and I don’t want to lose reception and thus needlessly worry her.

“Lucius, pumpkin, how are you doing this beautiful morning?” she asks, and I can picture her dimpled smile on the other end of the line.

“Hungry and late,” I say, not doing a good job of avoiding another accusation of sounding like the Grinch.

“I keep telling you, and you don’t listen: you need a good woman to take care of you.”

Sure. I’ll add “find good woman” to my to-do list, right after “get a hole in the head.”

“How’s your back?” I ask in lieu of a reply.

Gram pulled a muscle while opening a jar of peach jam the other week, which prompted me to fire her home attendant and replace her with a burly bodyguard. His job involves opening all future jars in Gram’s house in addition to looking after her.

“Oh, much better.” With a chuckle, she adds, “Turns out Aleksy was a masseuse back in Poland.”

I take a thoughtful sip from my water bottle as I process what I’ve just heard. The bodyguard got handsy with my grandmother? Do I need to fire him or raise his salary?

“Wait, didn’t you say you were late?” Gram asks.

“A little. No big deal.”

“Go,” she says. “Call me after.”

“Will do.”

She hangs up, and I smash the “door close” button.

The doors slowly slide closed—way, way too slowly. This is what you get when you opt for looks over function. The doors are in the Roman style I prefer, but all the adornments make them move slower than a turtle that’s been bitten by a radioactive snail.

Then, when only a tiny opening remains, a dainty, sandal-clad foot with sparkly pink nail polish wedges itself between the doors.

A foot that’s close to perfect—so much so, it serves as another unwelcome reminder of my biology.

The person the foot belongs to is brave. Had this door been designed with efficiency in mind, this maneuver would’ve severed the foot, and the elevator would’ve gone on its way as if nothing had happened. Alas, the engineer I hired was clearly a tree-hugging vegan because the elevator doors open back up, just as slowly as they closed.

I glare at my watch again.

Five minutes late now.

Motherfucking fuck.

I turn my attention back to the foot and prepare to rip into its owner.

CHAPTER 2

JUNO

I step into the building and pause my audiobook—Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. So far, the book is great, but to my disappointment, it’s about a human girl and not a cactus as the title would imply.

As I take in the lobby, my eyes grow wide. The place looks modern on the outside, but it’s like an Ancient Roman museum on the inside.

I readjust my dress—not that it will help me blend in. The suits I see around here likely cost more than I make in a year. Worse yet, the chilly air roughens the skin on my arms, making me realize that my outfit, a yellow summer dress I got on sale at TJMaxx, is a failure on a practical level as well, as it’s doing a poor job of protecting me from the overzealous AC. My sandals aren’t helping either.

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