Page 102 of The Billionaires

She looks at me like I’ve turned orange. “You actually care about her?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t deserve my answer, but I’m not about to lie about this. “Either way, you shouldn’t have meddled in my affairs.”

Eidith stares at me with a wounded expression. “But you can do so much better than her.”

“Oh?” My voice drips with sarcasm. “Like who?”

“Me,” she says and flushes. “Real. Fake. Either way, it would make a lot more sense.”

I make sure she can see the disdain on my face as I slowly enunciate, “You and I do not make sense. You and I will never happen. Not in a million years. In fact, after today, we will never see each other again.”

She staggers back as I add, “Oh, and it goes without saying, but you’re fucking fired.”

For the rest of the day, I try to get a hold of Juno without much success.

The flower delivery guy tells me she tossed the bouquet at his face. She also trashed the chocolates I sent her, and she refused to sign for the jewelry.

The only gift out of many that she accepted was the fairy castle cactus—but she ordered the delivery lady to, and I quote, “Tell the sender that me taking in this poor, overwatered guy doesn’t mean squat.”

Fine. I just need a more creative way to get her attention.

And I think I have one.

It’s crazy, almost fatally so, but I have a feeling that it might just work.

CHAPTER 39

JUNO

I’m moping on the couch, rewatching my favorite moment in all of fiction—the scene in Encanto when Isabela creates a cactus.

What I’d give for such a power.

Oh, well. I’ll have to settle for the cactuses I’ve got: trusty El Duderino and his new brother, Chateau de Chambord.

Crap. Thinking of the new cactus reminds me of the person who gifted him to me.

Lucius has been extremely persistent over the last three days. There have been calls, voicemails, texts, emails, and various gifts.

If I’m honest with myself, he’s beginning to wear me down, but I have to be strong. The thing he most likely wants is to convince me to keep the fake relationship going, and that’s not something I?—

My phone rings. Is it Lucius again? Is he like the devil—think of him and he calls you?

But no.

It’s Pearl, my friend—not Lucius’s kinky grandmother.

“Hey,” I say, trying not to sound as depressed as I feel. “What’s up?”

“I just got a call from your insane billionaire squeeze,” she says.

“What?”

“I said I got a call from one Lucius Warren,” she says exaggeratingly loudly. “Imagine my surprise.”

I jump to my feet. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Yeah. He mentioned that as the reason for reaching out to me. Sounds like you two had a fight—and you didn’t tell me a thing about it.”

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