Page 166 of The Billionaires

“It’s not my parents, plural,” I say instead. “It’s my mother who drives the philanthropy. Speaking of my parents—they’re coming here. Angela too. With her actual boyfriend. Who isn’t me.”

“Har har. But wow. That’s so exciting.”

“Spoken like someone from a normal family.”

She nearly chokes on her mashed potatoes. “You think my family is normal? On our last beach trip, my mom shaved my dad’s chest hair into the shape of a bra. As in, he walked around looking like he was wearing a bikini made out bear fur.”

I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “A few years back, my dad’s best friend had a hangover and requested a Tylenol. As a prank, my dad gave him this special four-hundred-dollar pill instead, one that makes excrement look like it’s made of gold.” Her eyes widen, so I go on. “And if that’s not enough, my mother built an ER in my parents’ home.”

“Wait,” Lilly says, sounding faux shocked. “You don’t have an ER on this estate?”

Now I’m full-on grinning. “You’re right. That’s a horrible oversight on my part. If I were to have a heart attack, I’d have to go to the same hospital as the hoi polloi.”

She arches one of her mighty eyebrows. “Hoi polloi?”

“It means the masses.” Or the proletariat, as her comrades would call it.

She shudders theatrically. “Oh, no. You mean the filthy wretches that dwell in the ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine percent? You wouldn’t want to mix with the likes of them.”

“This might be a good segue for something that we’re doing this afternoon,” I say. Initially, I was going to send her to do this by herself, but now I’m in the mood to join for some reason.

“Are we mainlining caviar?” she asks. “Or turning poop into diamonds?”

I shake my head. “We’re going to the zoo.”

“Oh. But what about all the hoi polloi there?”

“Not going to be a problem today,” I say. “I booked the whole place.”

She gapes at me. “Why?”

I gesture at the dog—who is, as always, sitting under foot and silently willing one of us to drop a morsel from our plates. “You said he needs to socialize with animals.”

“Animals that he could meet in real life, like a cat or a squirrel. Not lions.”

I shrug. “I figure if he’s okay with a lion, he’ll be calm if he meets a cat. And if he’s cool with seeing a capybara, no other rodent will frighten him, be it a squirrel or a New York rat.”

She slowly shakes her head. “Fine, but why book the whole place?”

I narrow my eyes. “How can we control the situation if the regular patrons are there?”

“I guess that makes some warped kind of sense... in a universe where you’re trying to spend as much money as possible.”

“Should we not go?” Even asking the question makes me feel disappointed for some reason.

“Can you get a refund?” she asks.

“Of course not. The place is already empty.”

“In that case.” She looks down at Colossus with a toothy grin. “We’re headed to the zoo.”

CHAPTER 22

LILLY

As I dress and apply makeup for the zoo trip, I catch myself feeling overly excited—like I’m prepping for a date.

What the hell? Is it because I learned that Bruce is single? Or because he shared his dating woes with me—assuming you could even consider what he told me “woes?”

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