Page 28 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“How is that relevant?”

“Isn’t death always relevant?”

“Do I need to have Brenda escort you out?”

“Deathly allergic, Hugo. I mean, hello, did you not spend years eating Mom’s fruit salad? I can’t imagine her not putting pineapple in that. How did we not know?”

“You think I made it up? Who would make up an allergy?”

“But I’m almost sure we ate pineapple when you were over.”

“There’s such a thing as a late-onset allergy, isn’t there?” I say.

“Is that what it is?”

“So.” I straighten, resolved to end this. “An obligation card, a ridiculous refusal to understand sunk costs, and an interrogation? Am I going to regret getting you this position?”

Her smile fades. Her sparkle goes. “Excuse me.”

I regret my harshness, but it’s always best to rip off that bandage. She needs to steer clear of me.

“I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your help,” she adds.

“You are welcome.”

“Right. Um…okay.”

I hate that it’s come to this, but she gets the message now. Leave me alone.

This is how it has to be.

I watch her leave with a queasy twist in my gut.

ChapterThirteen

Stella

“Hugo’s bad boyfriend material,that’s for sure.”

Charlie said that to me once when we were on the outside porch couch watching Hugo drive off in his parents’ beater car.

I staked out that couch a lot the summer I turned fourteen—not only was it cooler out there, but Charlie and Hugo would have to pass by for all of their comings and goings. I was a one-girl toll booth with a crush the size of a tank.

Charlie was pretty oblivious as a rule, and I was careful to feign disinterest whenever he’d talk about Hugo and his antisocial ways, which I, fool that I was back then, found hot.

Hugo was growly and difficult and unpolished, but I felt sure that he was hiding a heart full of love and tenderness, and that I was the only one in the world who could ever bring that love out. Not that I had evidence for it, aside from times he’d look at me with what I tried to convince myself was adoration but was likely disbelief or possibly gas.

So when Charlie dropped this little not-boyfriend-material tidbit, I’d no doubt pretended to concentrate on Candy Crush or Tetris—while burning with curiosity. I was an inferno of curiosity, desperate for him to say more.

Why was Hugo bad boyfriend material?

When Charlie didn’t elaborate, I’d allowed myself a grunt, desperate to elicit the tiniest drip more, but it was a no go.

I knew that any further sign of interest in Hugo would shut that faucet forever. I had no choice but to bide my time.

Still.

Bad boyfriend material? Why?

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