Page 69 of The Grumpy Billionaire

She slides her hands around my back and presses into me. “Evil,” she whispers into the next kiss. “Have we passed the area where it is yet? Will you at least tell me that?”

“We have not passed it.”

“Then how do you know it hasn’t been sold?”

“Because nobody but you would think it was worth the price.”

Her smile brightens the whole gloomy place. We continue on.

I’ve thought about buying it for her a few times over the years, but giving a strange and extravagant gift to my best friend’s little sister? A woman I haven’t seen in a decade? Who does that?

I’ll be buying it now.

“I’m still mad at you, you know,” she says.

“The letter?”

She narrows her eyes at me and picks up a glass asparagus. “You better not be getting me this.”

“Please.”

A few minutes later, she finds a ceramic owl clock. “This?”

I groan. “What do you take me for? That is not your kind of owl at all. Too realistic.”

“Right? Everybody gets me owl stuff. If it has an owl motif, people think I want it, but it’s not true.”

I pick up a big-eyed seventies owl. “This is more in the ballpark…if it was a couple of clicks more ridiculous.”

She looks at me, amazed. “I know you think you’re deeply and hugely impressing me right now, but don’t think that’ll get me to change my mind about dating you. Or forget what you did to my dream job.”

“Why won’t you let me fix it?”

“Why won’t you accept that I asked you not to try to fix it?”

I move close, my lips a hair’s breadth from hers. “You are impossible.”

“So I hear.”

“Mr. Jones!” It’s the owner, Felix, calling me over.

I sigh. “He probably has something to show me. Keep trying to find your gift. You’ll fail. And when I finally give it to you, you’ll be speechless. And I’ll take advantage of you in some outrageous way.”

Again the eye flare. Will I ever get sick of that goddamn eye flare?

ChapterThirty

Stella

Hugo’sup at the counter with the owner, holding some glass orb thing up to the light. Is that the one thing he doesn’t find ridiculous?

I drift nearer, to a spot where I can better see the two of them without eavesdropping or interrupting. I love knowing that he goes to this place, that he knows this guy. It’s like seeing into his secret life.

What is this thing he’s admiring and scrutinizing so hard?

I can’t stop wondering about the rest of his life. Mom says he lives in a nice condo, but what is it like? What does he have on the walls? I’d imagine geometric things, but maybe that’s wrong. What does he do in his spare time? Keeping my distance from him is a double-edged sword, because I’m burning with curiosity about him.

He says something to the man. The man pulls out his phone, pokes at his screen, and then shows it to Hugo. It all seems very serious, but that’s Hugo. So serious. So intense.

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