Page 2 of Stuck With the Billionaire Grump

Still, I’m definitely being ridiculous. Josie and Elijah are only down the street. They can visit all the time, and I can visit them. After the honeymoon, that is. The day after the wedding, they’re setting off on a lovely, month-long trip to the Mediterranean. All organized and booked by me, of course. I’ll be able to handle Montgomery Events in her absence thanks to the few part-time staff members we’ve hired recently. Luckily, Elijah doesn’t have to worry about missing work, since his position as the high school’s data science teacher doesn’t require him to be around until September.

Not that he really needs to work. Elijah, who is kind of a genius, designed and sold some extremely important software in his early twenties, and now he’s a billionaire. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, or even by interacting with him. He’s humble and thoughtful and incredibly frugal.

All I know is that Josie and Elijah’s future children are going to have basically bottomless trust funds. Lucky little things.

“I think this one is yours,” Josie muses, holding up a battered novel with a shirtless man on the cover. He’s wearing breeches and a cowboy hat and is embracing a beautiful redhead wearing a dress that’s flowing in some fictitious prairie breeze.

“Definitely not,” I insist.

“No, I seem to remember you reading this one and telling me you thoroughly enjoyed it.”

“Even if that were true, it’s stillyours. You’re definitely the one who dug it out of the bottom of a dusty box at a random yard sale.”

“Suit yourself.” Josie giggles, dropping it into the box.

Josie loves old stuff. Historical fiction, vintage clothes, nostalgic memorabilia. Memories are very important to her, and I can hardly blame her for it. If I spent the majority of my life madly in love with my soulmate, I’d have pleasant feelings about the past, too.

My memories aren’t quite that rosy, but that’s alright. I’m not a fan of dwelling on the dark stuff. It’s much more interesting to focus on the good things in life. Like the fact that my cousin, best friend, and business partner is getting married to the love of her life in a matter of days.

I’ve never been in love, but it seems like quite the roller-coaster. Even though Josie and Elijah have been thick as thieves since birth—because they were literally born less than a day apart—it wasn’t always rainbows and sunshine for them. They broke up after high school when Elijah decided to go to Caltech and Josie wanted to stay closer to home for college. For years, Elijah had practically disappeared off the face of the earth.

Then, last summer, he reappeared for their ten-year high school reunion. Nobody expected him to show up, but there he was. And despite the fact that Elijah had been married and widowed in the time that he spent away from our hometown, it was obvious that he never stopped caring for Josie.

In the end, it took less than a month for them to fall back in love with each other.

Blah, blah, blah. True love. Kindred spirits. Destiny and fate.

All that stuff.

They probably would’ve gotten married as early as last autumn, but Elijah insisted that he wanted to give Josie the wedding of her dreams. Which means that we needed to wait for a chance to reserve Blakeley Manor, the most beautiful historic mansion on the Cape, for the event. The waiting list is months long even for something as routine as a charity gala or luncheon.

Of course, it helps that Mr. Linden, the custodian of the estate, has a soft spot for Elijah.

“I’m going to have to think of something to put on these shelves,” I murmur as I start filling up a second box with more books. “They’ll look weird if they’re empty.”

“Maybe you can start collecting knick-knacks.”

“Like the old maid I’m destined to become?”

Josie sighs. “Lu! That’s not what I meant at all.”

I nudge her with my elbow to let her know that I’m just kidding. Except we both know that the joke is halfway true.

I might be a social butterfly, but I don’t date much. My defense is that I just don’t have the patience for it. All those endless, shallow, getting-to-know-you questions, the tedious back-and-forth, and the unspoken rules you’re supposed to know how to follow… only for it to simply not work out a month later and you’re forced to start the cycle all over again…

I’m just not interested in it.

I’d much rather focus on planning Josie’s wedding, growing Montgomery Events, and keeping up with friendships—not romances.

“Knock, knock!” calls a voice from the entryway. A moment later, thethudof the screen door echoes throughout the room and Josie lets out a happy sigh as she goes running toward the entryway.

I don’t have to look to know that Elijah has stopped by.

“You don’t have to knock,” Josie reprimands him adoringly.

“Well, I have to announce my presence somehow,” he murmurs back, just as adoringly.

I wrinkle my nose at the sound of their lips smacking together and then reach for another book.

---