Page 42 of Grumpy Billionaire Bad Boy

Archer chuckles. "He's going to be pissed."

"What's new?" Ivy says. "He's always mad about something."

"Ivy. What do you do for work?" I fidget with the wrapper of the egg rolls and try to guess what bullshit answer she's going to give me. Will it be as generic as Archer saying he's in tech?

"I'm in PR," she tells me.

"Oh, nice," Grace speaks up. "Who do you work with?"

"I have a few clients, some more labor-intensive than others. Right now, my focus is on August and his companies."

"What does August do?" I pry.

"A plethora of things, really. Essentially, he's a venture capitalist, but it is a bit too broad to narrow down to one specific thing. What about you? What do you do?"

It's not hard to notice Ivy is quickly deflecting the topic of conversation, something her work in public relations has primed her well for.

"Nothing, at the moment since I just relocated." I hate not having some fantastic job to brag about, but it's not a lie that things are a bit up in the air for me right now, so I do the same thing as her and turn the focus on someone else. "What about you, Grace? We talked briefly about work but nothing too in-depth."

"I'm in event planning for the city, mostly charity events."

"What the fuck?" Seven calls out from the bathroom entrance. He snatches his shirt off the ground, throwing it over his shoulder. "Come on, Ivy, let's fucking go."

Ivy rolls her eyes. "Very well, brother." She looks to Archer. "Walk me to the door?"

"Yeah," he says without hesitation. "Of course." Archer hops up and follows her over while Seven approaches the table.

Archer pauses, watching Seven intensely.

"Give me your number," Seven says to Grace. "We can go out sometime."

Slowly, she turns toward him, tilting her head up at his exposed chest. If it weren't for his personality, Seven would beattractive. He has everything working in his favor. The tattoos, the height, those weirdly mismatched eyes, and the dark hair. Even his filed-down teeth add a strange sort of sex appeal. But the second he opens his mouth, every ounce of attraction falls to the wayside.

"I think she said no," I say from my spot still at the table.

"I didn't ask you," he quips back, a bite to his tone.

I stand, ignoring the pain shooting up my cast-covered leg. "I don't care that you didn't ask me. Leave her alone."

Seven looks at me, his stare so penetrating it sends a chill down my spine. "What did you just say to me?"

"You heard me."

Grace immediately stands, putting herself between Seven and me, even though the table is there anyway. "Give me your phone."

Seven's jaw tenses, that little bulge on the side flexing as his nostrils flare slightly. He shifts down, now at Grace’s level, his height drastically different than hers. Is that what Archer and I look like standing next to each other? "Why, so you can give me a fake number?"

Grace pulls her phone out of her back pocket, unlocks the screen, and hands it to him. "There, put your number in."

He hesitates like he's not sure if she's telling the truth, but then decides to take her phone. He pushes a sequence of buttons and a second later, his phone rings and stops. "There." Seven gives me one last deadening glance before returning her cell. "Don't make me come over there and wipe that look off your pretty face," Seven says through gritted teeth, each word a bit blended into the next.

Out of nowhere, Archer appears, gripping Seven's shoulder and shoving him. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You don't talk to her like?—"

But Seven doesn't let him finish, no, he reels back his arm and slams his fist against Archer's face, blood splattering Archer's rug and dining room floor.

I gasp, my feet moving without my brain even catching up.

Archer, red pooling from his nose, doesn't falter when he punches Seven back, a crack that could only be Seven's nose echoing in the space.

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