Page 41 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

He comes in a bit closer. I can barely breathe. “And I guarantee you, I’ll know.” Again he points at the door. “Now.”

I whisper a faint “Aye, aye, Bluebeard” and head toward the door and out into the hall. He closes it behind us and leads me onward.

“Wow, youreallydon’t want me to know what you’re keeping in those boxes, do you?” I say, trying to sound normal and not mystified and strangely excited.

“You heard the rules,” he grumbles.

“Whatever could be in those boxes…” I say in a singsong way. “Probably not dismembered body parts. You’d need to refrigerate or ideally freeze that sort of thing. Maybe strange dolls? Maybe it’s blow-up dolls made to look like that Swiss Miss cartoon girl from the hot chocolate. Hundreds of them, all in their own boxes.”

He stops and turns, gazes down at me, eyes glinting in the low light of the hallway.

I grin, excited and a tiny bit light-headed. “Late at night he creeps into the room and opens one of the boxes,” I say. “He extracts the lucky doll, and in the darkness above the city lights, they begin to cavort, dancing wildly across the floor, man and doll.”

“Are you almost done?” he asks.

“Dude, you have a massive room full of secret boxes. I’ll never be done,” I say. “You know what would guarantee I never look in your secret boxes? Your signature. On a certain set of papers.”

“Let’s go.” He turns and leads me onward. What’s in the boxes? Maybe it’s robotics stuff. But then why the secrecy?

I grit my teeth as we pass a large corner bedroom that is clearly his. “Your forbidden bedroom, I presume?”

He keeps on walking. He passes one door. He passes another.

“Off-limits to my kind?” I continue.

He keeps on.

“The forbidden bedroom where I’m not supposed to go and pester you,” I say.

Punished. Was he being funny? I can’t even tell! It’s just like Benny to be funny in a way where you’re not sure if he’s being funny.

“How will I restrain myself from bounding into your bedroom if I don’t know which room it is?”

“It was my bedroom.” Finally we reach the end of the hall. “This one’s yours.”

He leans back against the doorframe. He’s got this really serious look, but then he points toward his room. “No matter what happens. No matter what—” He puts in a dramatic pause, then, “No matter what state you may get into.” He points at his room, shaking his head ominously.

My jaw nearly drops to the floor. Heisteasing me! “Whatever you say, Billionaire Bluebeard!”

He gives me an unreadable look and right there I’m thinking about it—I go in and surprise him in the middle of the night. He’s sleepy and awkward and instantly consumed with passion, and he pulls me to him, unable to restrain himself, kissing me with those rough-and-tumble lips. His light brown hair is all messy like it used to be. And he maybe says something quintessentially nerdy and Benny-ish, like how entirely vexed he’s been with me stuck in my own room, and he 100.5% needs me now.

I shake the thoughts from my mind and I walk past him into my wife quarters.

I see that my suitcases are already deposited in the corner. “How did these get here? What, do you have a butler or something?” I ask.

“He’s a butler-slash-personal assistant. Mac’s his name. He’s out right now, but he’ll be back.” He pulls out his phone.

“Hold on. So you literally have a butler.”

“Iliterallyhave a butler-slash-personal assistant,” he says.

I grin. Is he a little sensitive about that? Yes! So of course I push it. “Literally a butler!”

“A butler is more focused on household management whereas a personal assistant is more focused on bills and calendars and administrative-type things. It makes sense for some people to combine them. I’m texting you his number. If you need specific food items or toiletries or if you have questions about the operation of things like Wi-Fi and AV stuff, he’ll deal with it.”

“Gloss over it all you want, Poshface. You. Have a butler.” I feel like the old Benny in the courtyard would be horrified by something like this. “A limo, a butler. Give you a little hair gel and you’d be one of those guys who used to pick me up for dates in Vegas.”

Benny regards me with the unreadable expression that is beginning to drive me a little batty, though his jaw looks a bit tighter than normal.

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