Page 118 of The Grumpy Billionaire

He kisses my neck in the way that I like, the way I sometimes can’t resist.

“I’m telling you, Hugo, I’m going to wreck your data model if you leave me in there. I’m gonna flip the tables.”

“Do it,” he says, kissing me. “Flip all the tables. My data model can handle it.”

“And then I’m gonna bust a hole in the side and leave.”

We’re laughing, and I wrestle out of his hold and clutch him to me and hold him close, warm and luscious against me.

His body against mine is everything nourishing and good, and I never want to let him go. And I don’t want Charlie to be right.

ChapterForty-Nine

Stella

Kelsey’s friendVicky has a dinner party at this amazingly fancy boutique hotel that she and her husband, Henry, own.

I know most of the women from the apartment building; it seems like everyone’s lived there at some point, and a lot of them are with billionaires. Willow is laughing and trying to do the math on that. I tell them Hugo’s not really like a billionaire. “He thinks money’s boring,” I explain.

“Hah! Don’t tell Wall Street,” Tabitha jokes.

“Right? He only wants to think about math. But…a billionaire. He doesn’t act like one.”

Kelsey snorts. “His limo says otherwise.”

“That’s a town car, and Wulfric supplies it,” I say. “Wulfric’s weirdly protective of Hugo because of this big project he’s working on.”

“The new data model?” Tabitha asks.

“Yeah,” I say, surprised. “How do you know?”

“Because my man, Rex, is very curious about that data model. Very curious,” Tabitha says. “You know everybody’s holding their breath, waiting to see what he comes up with. Rex joked that if you got drunk and started talking about Hugo’s ideas, I was supposed to record it. Which, no.”

“Guys,” I say.

Hugo’s working from home tonight. I brought him donuts this morning and discovered he’d been up a full twenty-four hours. He told me that he made what he termed a minor breakthrough that’s “more of an iteration.” He was very glum about it. I pointed out that it’s at least progress, but an iteration is apparently not progress to Hugo. Nothing short of a brilliant game changer will be progress to Hugo.

“And Wulfric Pierce?” Tabitha says, breaking me out of my reverie. “Rex has lots of feelings about that guy.”

“What kinds of feelings?” I ask.

“Intensely negative man feelings,” Tabitha says as we watch Mia set out two blue and orange boxes. “Poor Lola and I did the full download on it the other day. She’s like, he’s not so bad. I mean, really? Because it’s eight on a Friday night, and Lola really wanted to come to this dinner. Why isn’t she here? Wulfric is making her work. I don’t know how she tolerates that man.”

Kelsey claps. “Mia bringing the Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes!”

“Nice and fresh. All the way from South Jersey,” Mia says. “Double-filling ones!”

People go for them like locusts. The conversation fizzles out as everybody eats the strange little desserts, which turn out to be these vanilla cake bites with peanut butter filling, all covered in chocolate.

Even Vicky’s man, Henry, stops by with their two dogs, Smuckers and Spencer, and grabs a Kandy Kake.

Vicky narrows her eyes at him. “Did you time this?”

“Plead the Fifth,” Henry says.

“Of course he timed it,” Mia says. “Who can resist?” She grabs another. “Just don’t fall for the fake ones. Fake Kandy Kakes flip my bitch switch.”

The two dogs grab center stage, getting lots of petting while angling for table scraps.

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