Page 6 of Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast

Why did Mom need to know if I was bringing someone? I wasn’t going to be staying at my childhood home; Mom wouldn’t need to make extra accommodations.

There was the party; maybe Mom needed to know a head count for that, though knowing her, she was already planning on hundreds of guests.

The only other explanation was that Mom wanted to know if I was dating someone.

Rosabel traipsed past my office window once more. This time, her attention was on her phone. She frowned at whatever she saw. Charity noticed, too—she said something to which Rosie ignored, engrossed by her screen.

My lips twitched. Without thinking, I answered, “Yes. I’m bringing someone special.”

Rosabel would say no, of course. I just had to figure out how to present the idea in a way that she couldn’t possibly refuse.

THREE

rosabel

I hadn’t ever toldanyone. It felt too selfish, too aggrandizing, when the reasons were anything but.

But as I stared at the email on my phone detailing the latest fees for a new treatment to help with Dad’s Alzheimer’s, all of those reasons I kept his illness to myself—the reasons I was pushing through at a job I hated—came crashing back around me.

Dad was sick, and the bills were piling up.

There it was. I wanted so badly to broadcast it to the whole office, to turn back to Charity and tell her where to put her snarky comments about Duncan and me. Because the truth was, Duncan was a jerk. None of his other assistants could stand working so directly with him. In fact, many of them—according to what Charity had just told me as I’d passed her desk—only lasted a month at most before finding a new job.

So of course, because I’d been here for over a year, that meant I was sleeping with the boss.

I couldn’t roll my eyes enough, and frankly, I was fuming inside. If Charity and the others had ANY idea what it was like to watch your father, your shoulder-to-cry-on confidante, your teacher, listening ear, and the rock of your life slowly losehimself as well as his knowledge of you, they wouldn’t be saying what they were.

I wanted a megaphone. I wanted to call everyone to attention like an old schoolmarm and shake them all with the news.

Dad was sick.Thatwas why I was still working at Hawthorne Associates, with a boss whose idea of manners came from the backs of cereal boxes, who had no concept of anything other than money.

Thatwas why I ignored the emails I’d gotten detailing an opening in Westville’s Philharmonic Orchestra; specifically, the flautist’s position. Playing in the pit for plays and performing on stage was my dream. But not only would it require hours of my time—hours I didn’t have to devote to practicing on my own as well as with the group—it wouldn’t pay nearly what I needed. So here I was.

Thatwas also why I avoided the breakroom. Thanks to Charity’s jabs and the stares that continually swiveled in my direction through the wide windows separating the breakroom from the rest of the office, I knew what the women sitting around the tables and enjoying their home-packed lunches were talking about in there.

Me.

They were talking about me. Apparently, whatever Charity had muttered about the length of my employment had made its way around the cubicles like it was a downpour of kerosene on their proverbial fire. And vultures that they were, they ate it up like feed to a hungry chicken.

Like I said, that sounded so aggrandizing, so prideful. Like, oh, look at me; look how much attention I get!

But trust me, their gossip wasn’t something I was proud of. In fact, it disgusted me.

Pocketing my phone, I slid the filing cabinet door shut with my hip and turned toward my office. I needed a moment—or several thousand.

Duncan had given me my own space in here rather than just a cubicle—which obviously meant he was more interested in me than a boss rightly should be. (Another eye roll.) But at least it meant I could avoid overhearing the topic of their conversations.

But solitary enjoyment of said lunch was too good to be true. I’d just closed my door and sat at my desk. I’d been in the middle of reaching for the door of my mini fridge where I’d stashed my spinach and chicken salad—with blueberries, strawberries, and crumbles of feta cheese—when the phone I just pocketed in my pencil skirt buzzed.

Duncan:Coffee.

My breath puffed out in a long, frustrated groan. I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and counted to seven—my lucky number.

The frustration in my blood didn’t dissipate, though.

I wasn’t sure why I felt the freedom to bicker with him. Maybe it was because I wanted to see if at least one of the rumors mongering around the office was true:

That Duncan wouldn’t fire me, no matter what I did. Because he was into me.

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