Page 33 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

She smiles wickedly.

She wouldn’t.

“Benny? Have you seen it?” Juliana asks me from somewhere in the distance.

I’m boring into Francine’s eyes as the din of the restaurant seems to grow fainter. I can’t believe she’s pushing it like this. But that’s Francine, she always had to be the little rebel.

“I’m much too busy with performances and rehearsals, and Benny’s not a musical theater guy,” she says, swooping in at the last minute for the save. “He would just be sitting there crabbily multitasking in his head.”

“You need to relax more,” Juliana says.

Francine puts her hand over my wrist, beaming at me. “Tell me about it!”

My gaze lowers to where her hand rests upon mine, the point where skin meets skin like a ghost at the table.

Eight

Francine

Benny is barely settledinto his plush limo seat next to me when he and Aaron start grumbling in business-speak over a melodic background of Velvet Underground, another of Benny’s moody favorites, played dutifully by his Pandora station.

“Seriously, how is a social dinner the first we hear about some pretty major objections?” Benny says as the limo slides like a sleek fish through the honking and chaotic Saturday night traffic.

Aaron grumbles back, something about his point person not having full access.

It’s so Benny to be angry about not knowing something. Benny’s one of those guys who likes to know what’s happening at every moment. If he ever had his appendix out, you know he’d demand a local anesthetic so that he could stay awake and monitor every move the doctors make, whereas I would be like, send me to La-la Land, the faster the better!

They’re analyzing the dispositions of the Brazilians and discussing the attitude of the Texans. And then Dave Matthews Band comes on.

I bite my lip and wait for him to notice.

It doesn’t take long. “What the fuck!” Benny exclaims mid-sentence. He leans in and stabs the console screen with excessive speed and force.Stab! Stab! Stab! A million thumbs-down!

It’s his old abrupt movement style, and it does something to me, just seeing it. Maybe it’s thedéjà vuof it, but my heart beats a little bit faster.

“What the fuck!” he says again.

“Clearly it’s a sign,” I say. “The powers that be are angry that you’re dragging me around like this.”

He mumbles something about algorithms and returns to his conversation with Aaron, now with a furrowed forehead of annoyance above his stylish billionaire glasses.

I sit there innocently, hoping against hope that another Dave Matthews Band song comes on, because that was…exciting. Wonderful, even.

We drop Aaron off at his high-rise.

The door isn’t even closed behind him when Benny turns to me. “You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?”

Whereas my old Benny had a voice that would once in a while drop to a deep timbre, new Benny lives there, with a voice growly and deep. The voice does something to me. What’s more, I’m highly conscious of us being alone in this small, private space. The butterflies in my stomach are doing their own fast tempo ballet, complete with fluttery arabesques.

He drops his tone even deeper. “You think that whole thing was funny?”

“Umm, a little?” I say. “You didn’t?”

“I did not,” he bites out. “And you shouldn’t be taking these kinds of stupid risks, considering you need my signature for that tour of yours to happen. And that thing with the Broadway show? You’re pushing it.”

“What? I’m playing your wife, and as such, I wear interesting fashions and I take a large role in managing your social schedule. You’re just so impossibly grumpy—sometimes it’s good for you to be socialized with other people.”

“I’m not a dog,” he says.

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