Page 71 of Playboy Billionaire

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.”

“Sure you are,” he said, his voice sounding sleepy.

“Goodnight, Griffin.” She wasn’t even sure that he heard her softly spoken, “Sweet dreams.”

32

When they were at cruising altitude Penelope fished her phone out of her bag. She had forgotten to turn it on until now and saw that she had six missed calls. She frowned as she read a text message from Stew. “Griffin look at this,” she said, passing him her phone.

“Shit.”

Stew: Why aren’t you answering my calls? Heads up, here’s a snapshot from TMZ. Some upstanding citizen must have submitted it. WTF? What is going on with you two? There are at least a half dozen reporters camped out at the Butler. Call me!

“I probably should have given him some warning that we were involved,” Penelope said, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I feel bad.”

“I was on the same page as you were. I felt like it was better to keep our personal lives to ourselves for as long as possible,” Griffin said, resting his warm palm on her thigh.

She pinched the screen to enlarge the photograph of them embracing on the safari bus. Then another of them kissing. On the close up zoom of her face, the wig and sunglasses hadn’t been enough of a disguise. Her breath caught seeing how happy she looked.

Griffin chuckled over the headline,Has Benters replaced Winoah?“They’re creative I’ll give them that.”

“It is going to be a shit show from here on out. I’m not kidding.”

“But the Carolinas are off the beaten path.”

“It won’t matter now that there’s something juicy worth stalking over. The tabloids have been pushing the Noah and Penelope reunited narrative, but this will be even more salacious. All of us on the same film. A triad. Perfect storm.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“It’s not your fault. It comes with the territory. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s about to get messy. You may as well have a taste of it sooner rather than later. Kiss your privacy goodbye.”

“What can we do?”

“Nothing but lay low and make no public comments.”

“Do you think Stew is pissed?” he asked.

“His nose is probably bent out of shape because we left him out, but this can only help the film. It’s free publicity. He’ll be happy about that.”

Penelope dreaded the fallout from this. Griffin had no idea what he was now caught up in. With everything she knew about him, he was going to hate this loss of freedom. His life had just been split open like a pair of tight pants. After all this time, it was a part of her life, but she’d never gotten used to it. In fact, she hated it. How could she expect him to stick by her or this budding relationship with all the baggage attached?

“Griff, I’m the one that’s sorry. I won’t blame you if you decide that it’s all too much.”

Griffin reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, “Let’s take it as it comes. I’m not worried.”

Her lips twisted, “You’re too innocent to be worried.” She had no doubt that he thought he understood what was about to happen, but she knew differently.

“Don’t let this ruin your mood. I’m going to focus on the positive.”

She sat there for a moment before responding. “Griffin, no matter what happens, I want you to know that I had the best time I’ve ever had in my life with you.”

His voice was husky as he responded, “There is so much more I want to share with you. Don’t give up on us so easily Pen.”

She stretched up and planted a soft kiss on his cheek. “I’ll work on that.”

“I’ll text Stewart and have him send a car to the airport for us. I’ll call ahead now and get clearance. They can drive right up to our plane after we land,” Griffin said.

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