Page 334 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

“Stand up,” I tell her as I get to the table.

She looks up at me with those doe eyes, saying, “What’s the matter? You seem upset.”

“Have you been spreading lies about me around town?” I ask.

“No,” she says. She glances at her friends and then back at me.

I ask, “Oh, so you never said I’m the reason Zach hasn’t hired anybody in town?”

“I knew you’d just freak out about this like you freak out about everything else,” she says.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I ask. “I blamed Zach for the way people around here act toward me since he and I first started dating.”

“I don’t know what he ever saw in you anyway,” Naomi answers in a deceptively cheerful voice. “Iwas the homecoming queen.Iwas the one voted ‘most likely to be a fashion model if she ever leaves Mulholland.’ Still, a billionaire businessman comes to town for the first time in, I don’t know,ever,and you’re the one he spots through the window.”

“So that’s what it is then?” I ask. “It’s jealousy?”

“Oh please,” Naomi says. “Should I be jealous of the fact you sit behind a counter all day and never sell anything or should I be jealous that when you won the dating lottery, you couldn’t keep it together?”

“Really?” I ask. “You’re doing this?”

“Doing what?” she smirks.

That superior look goes away rather quickly when my fist crashes into her cheekbone.

“Ow,” I say, clutching my hand as Naomi staggers to keep her balance. “Ow.”

I don’t know what kind of response I was expecting, but I’m hardly prepared when Naomi punches back. Half a second later, everything around me is blurry, and I’m just trying to land more blows than Naomi.

It’s funny, I always had her pegged as a slapper, but when the dumb beast wants to, she can pack a wallop.

* * *

I’m standingin front of the mirror in my bathroom, grabbing the tube of antibiotic cream and squeezing a dab onto my index finger.

“When you’re done with that,” Naomi mutters, “I think I’m going to need some, too.”

It’s not that I’m any less mad at her. Every time she leans a bit too far in my direction, all I want to do is give her an elbow to the face.

This is just how it goes when you have a sister.

I take what I need and pass it over to her. “How could you do that to me?” I ask. “I’ve always been in your corner, even when you didn’t get into the college you wanted, and you said you needed to stay with me for a couple of weeks.”

“Why would you bring that up now?” she asks.

“That was nine years ago, Naomi,” I tell her.

She makes a sound at me, but with her fat lip, I can’t tell if it’s a stifled laugh or a stifled sob. “It’s taken me awhile to find myself,” she says.

“Honestly,” I say, “why’d you do it?”

“Do you know what it’s like to be the most popular girl in school and then graduate?” she asks. “People remember you, but that popularity turns into something else pretty quick if you’re not careful.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask.

She sighs and dabs under her black left eye with some foundation. “You think I live such a comfortable life, but it’s hell being me sometimes,” she says. “Do you know what it’s like to get stuff all the time and know you didn’t earn any of it?”

A certain Fifth Avenue shopping trip comes to mind, but I keep that to myself. I wonder what he’s going to do with all that stuff I left behind.

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