Page 65 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“Are you asking me for permission to tell her?”

“Not really. I’ll tell her either way. This is more of a warning.”

Cooper’s laughing. “Hugo Jones, are you trashing our code of silence for a girl?”

“She’s important to me,” I say.

“Tell her,” Cooper says.

* * *

She’s waitingunder the bright green entryway canopy that stretches out from her building, talking to the doorman when we pull up. She looks beautiful and badass in a large blazer over a miniskirt and blue cowboy boots. This outfit is pure Stella.

I’m looking forward to telling her why I wrote that letter. She’ll see that I did it to protect her.

I get out. “Stella!” I open the door, because I’m not the kind of man who lets his driver get the door for guests.

She strolls up in full amusement mode. “You ride around in a limo?”

“It’s not a limo, it’s a town car.”

We settle in.

“Not a limo? Umm...” Her sweeping gesture takes it all in. The leather seats. The privacy panel. The beverage bar. “Walks like a limo, has a driver in a cap like a limo…”

“Limos are elongated luxury vehicles for events and the ultrawealthy. A town car is designed for executive transportation. It’s efficient.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Billionaire.”

The billionaire thing.Of course she’d have heard. “Money’s nothing but electronic signals. A cloud of ones and zeros.”

Stella snorts. “Tell it to the starving people.”

“I know, it’s a bit much,” I say. “I give it away, but it just builds up again.”

“How annoying!” she teases. “And yet you endure the hardship!”

I catch her hand in mine. Everything’s fun with her. “I don’t give a shit about the money.”

She grins. “Just the math, ma’am.”

“Something like that.”

She puts her hand to the side of her mouth for a big fake stage whisper. “Pssst: you’re riding in a limo.”

“Trust me, I’d be riding in cabs and Ubers, but Wulfric’s intent that I take this thing.”

“He makes you ride in it?”

“He doesn’t make me. He puts it at my disposal day and night. It would be ridiculous not to use it.”

“He’s protecting his golden goose,” she says. “He doesn’t want you in the subway or even a cab. So that you keep laying those golden eggs.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re just laying them all over, aren’t you, Hugo?”

I give her a hard look, but that only goads her on.

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