Page 4 of Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast

She’d given me an opportunity, really. I could pretend I never got this.

The notion lasted only seconds before my conscience kicked in. If this were any other person, I wouldn’t blink an eye. This time, I couldn’t.

Grandmother had raised me while Mom had been building her career as a fashion designer. She was turningninety-five. Who knew how much time there was left to make things right?

Mom hadn’t said a word about welcoming me to stay in my old room.

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

While Eureka Springs was quaint and quirky, I didn’t want to stay at any of the cutesy B&Bs speckling the town either, not when each location was super old and filled with its own history.

And according to anyone you talked to, several places were haunted by previous owners.

I could handle a ghost or two. What I couldn’t handle was people. Dealing with noisy fellow travelers and their comings and goings didn’t hold much appeal.

I preferred to keep to myself.

With a sniff, I opened my desk drawer. The pamphlet showcasing luxurious lake homes in a mountain cove justoutside of Eureka Springs sounded better and better by the minute.

I’d initially considered buying one of these monsters to hide Rosabel away in after I’d gotten a threatening note about my feelings for her. That note had been in my stack of mail almost two weeks ago, after Maddox and Adelie had apprehended Ulrich Phillips as The Informant who’d been targeting guys from Sigma Phi Rho—or more specifically, the women the fraters had fallen in love with.

It'd had one line:

I know how you feel about her.

The minute I’d read those words, the bottom had dropped out of my world. I’d had no footing, no floor, no balance.

I’d lost it.

I’d checked every camera feed and had the place dusted for fingerprints. I’d even had a meltdown at Maddox’s office (the wall had since been repaired), and I’d gone in search of a place to hide Rosabel away.

But so far, nothing else had happened. Ulrich was behind bars. Life was going on.

Looking at these options again now, with the prospect of going home, why not buy a house on Beaver Lake after all? I’d have my own place. I could visit and fish or simply escape whenever I liked—without my family ever needing to know.

Sure, there would be neighbors, but at least they’d be from my tax bracket.

A lake house retreat, far enough from Eureka Springs that I could come and go without telling my family, yet close enough for a visit to my hometown…

Another idea struck.

Google at hand, I searched for The Painted Lady house. It’d been the cause of all the familial mayhem in the first place, but I’d always been a dab hand at investments—more so than mydad or grandfather. If I could purchase the house and offer it as a gift to Grandmother, the gesture could soften the older woman toward me.

Grandmother hadn’t contacted me since the argument, and I hadn’t tried talking to her, either. I couldn’t go back to Arkansas without some kind of plan.

Argument or no, I couldn’t live with myself knowing I’d had the chance to make things right and didn’t take it.

That settled it. I would go back.

But I had a phone call to make first.

My hands shook. I skimmed through my contacts, but Beverly Hawthorne wasn’t one of them. Of course, not. I’d deleted Mom from my phone. My computer, too.

Rosabel glided past my office window. She paused at one of the cubicles and shook her head at something Charity, the receptionist, said before both women parted in opposite directions.

What if I did have Mom’s number after all?

I strode out, ignoring the stirring hum of conversation, clicking computer keys, and the way people looked away to avoid eye contact, and entered Rosabel’s office.

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