Page 123 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“Wulfric hates everything. He’ll probably be giving it away as some kind of bonus.” She turns to me. “Maybe even to Hugo if he kills it with the model, which he will.”

“He’s been at that thing nonstop,” I say. “I think they should move the presentation.”

“They can’t. Or won’t. Math dudes flying in. High stakes and heads rolling. Finance bro come-to-Jesus moment and all that.” Lola inspects the card for a spa package and pronounces it a bore.

I tell her about Vicky’s dinner and my style shop adventure. “I wish you could have come. We missed you.”

She examines a crystal box that contains a Fabergé egg. “I was pissed AF that I couldn’t go.”

I look over at Hugo and Wulfric. “Does he always bring you to these fancy things?”

“Yeah. But I’d be working either way, what with him texting me for research on people he sees. Trying to figure out whose company is in trouble and all of that. This way I can do it on the spot. Plus I get a new dress and an amazing meal. Wait till dinner, Stella. Don’t worry, though. Wulfric nearly came to blows with a few people over a pineapple item on the menu.”

“Wow. Okay.”

Lola picks up a card for an archery tour to Scotland. “If I was bidding, I would get this in a heartbeat.”

I look over the auction items, but the thing I want most is whatever mysterious gift Hugo had for me. And for the presentation to go well. And for Wulfric to never find out about the pineapple.

“Look!” Lola shows me an auction item where tiny fish give you a pedicure. “Not for all the tea in China!”

I select a tiny gold rocket, which is a stand-in for a rocket ride to the space station. “You couldn’t pay me enough.”

“Hell no. Gimme the biting fish over the bro rocket.”

The auction is a lot more fun once we start competing on who can find a worse present than the rocket ride.

Lola finds a gift certificate for cryogenically freezing your body at death.

“Rich people are out of their minds,” I say. Then I add, “I want little fish to eat my body after death. Or else piranhas. I’d bid on that. And I want to be in a rocket while it happens.”

“What? Noooooo!” Tabitha butts in and slings an arm around my shoulder. “Stella, do we need to buy you a happy light?”

We make Tabitha choose her worst gift. She takes it really seriously and discovers you can bid on a piece of cake from Prince William and Kate’s wedding.

We move on to picking the worst possible gifts for each other. Drinks are had. Finger foods are eaten.

At some point I notice that Hugo is in a large circle of people. I can feel him hating the attention from across the room. “I’m going to do a rescue,” I say. “You two—keep your guys away from each other. I don’t want to see Wulfric and Rex in a rumble.”

Lola and Tabitha grin.

I go up and link arms with Hugo, who introduces me to Meredith, a statuesque redhead who looks like one of those models where they put glasses on her and pretend she’s a librarian. But Meredith went to MIT with Hugo, and I have no doubt the glasses aren’t a smartness prop. And then there’s Maria and Sergei and Ethan, who also went to MIT with Hugo, and some industry people with names I didn’t catch.

Hugo puts his arm around me.

“I hear you two met at math camp,” Meredith says. “What’s your area of specialization?”

“Ummm…” I grin. “Videos about sports drinks?”

Meredith snorts. “Really?”

“Stella’s a marketing wiz,” Hugo says proudly. “Her videos win awards.”

“Ohhhhh! That’s amazing,” Meredith says in the way that you say it when you don’t think it’s amazing at all, and maybe you’re even embarrassed on the person’s behalf.

Everybody agrees that it’s “amazing” that I’m in marketing with amazing definitely being in quotes.

Sergei frowns at me. “Though you’re aware, I’m sure, that Hugo is literally the world’s top expert in blending microstructure with systemic macrostrategies.”

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