Page 1 of Faking It with my Billionaire Grump

1

Tilly

I yank my suitcaseonto the bed and heave a sigh. Gazing around my new living arrangement—my parents’ converted barn—my shoulders slump, and I drop myself right next to the suitcase, trying to ignore the protests of the old mattress.

The décor in this bedroom looks like it’s right out of another century, with swirly wallpaper, a dresser that I swear was handed down from Jane Austen, and, hanging on the walls, ancient pictures surrounded by dull wooden frames.

Dad converted the barn when Grandma May got sick. She passed a few years back, and since then, it’s been left as it was. There’s also that soft whiff of old people. Because they totally have a smell, right?

This is not exactly a lifestyle choice. I mean, who actually wants to move back home at the age of thirty?

Okay. Well, not move back, exactly. More like running away.

My boss thinks I’m taking a two-month sabbatical, but everyone at the office knows the real reason I left the city. He’sfive foot nine with blond hair. But I don’t want to think about him. I need to figure out what I’m going to do next. My living situation is more fluid than the Hudson River, which would be more fluid if it wasn’t filled with so much junk.

Funnily enough, it was only two days ago that I was standing and looking out over the Hudson, contemplating what to do. Apart from throwing myself in, that is. But I eventually made my decision, and now I’m back in Baskington, the tiny town where I grew up, trying to find freedom.

I look around and shake my head.

“Some freedom.”

Most kids can’t wait to move out of their parents’ homes. I was one of them. Yet, here I am, a woman on the cusp of her thirtieth birthday, right back where I started.

My dad’s worried, my mom’s thrilled to have me home, and my friend, Mel, who never left this tiny town, thinks I’m nuts. Her advice, when I called her with my dilemma, was for me to stay in the city. She thinks coming back here is regression, and to be honest, I tend to agree with her. But what choice did I have?

Note to self: don’t give up your apartment and move in with someone who is going to end up being a complete control freak.

“Hello,” Mom’s light and excited voice travels up the open-plan wooden stairs.

“I’m up here,” I say, pushing myself off the bed.

When I get to the ornate railing that Dad carved himself—the only thing stopping me from toppling down into the living area below—I lean on it and gaze down at my smiling mother.

“I made lunch,” she declares.

“Be right there,” I say, trying to figure out how much I really want to tell them.

My mom is a pretty woman who doesn’t look her age at all. Maybe it’s all the country air. Dad always said I inherited my looks from her, and we’ve often been mistaken for sisters. Wehave matching thick chestnut hair, though mine’s far longer, and deep brown eyes. She also blessed me with high cheekbones and a beautiful smile.

Shame I didn’t inherit her ability to choose a good man.

My common sense and intellect, I inherited from Dad. Not that my mom isn’t clever, but Dad and I often lost her in conversations on so many subjects when I was growing up. I suppose you might call her a little ditzy. Loveable, but ditzy.

When I get to the kitchen, Dad’s sitting in his usual scruffy chair in the corner of the dining room. I swear that chair is older than me, but the man will never part with it. Over the years, my parents have saved and updated each part of their house; they don’t believe in credit, but still, that darn chair remains.

When he sees me, he puts his paper down and comes over to me, his arms wide. I hug him back, even though he hugged me for like ten minutes when I first got here. He wraps his strong arms around me, and I feel the muscles move in his back. Running his own carpentry business keeps him fit and strong. Mom always brags that she got the tall, dark, handsome one, and she’s not wrong.

“You okay?” he asks, his brow furrowed, his intelligent eyes searching my face.

“I’m fine, Dad. Really.”

“Of course, she’s fine,” Mom pipes up from the kitchen.

She’s grabbing a bowl and plates and trying to lift a jug of water, but she doesn’t have enough hands.

“I’ll get it,” I offer.

When we finally settle around the dining table, just like the good old days, as Mom calls them, she picks up her role of motherhood as though I’ve never left. Taking the plates, she puts out salad, meat, and bread, then hands me the plate.

---