Page 8 of The Grumpy Billionaire

My serious Hugo-style swains would always find my whimsical attitude enchanting at first. “You’re a breath of fresh air, Stella.” “You’re comic relief, Stella.”

Eventually, the whimsy would get old, and the disapproval would build. More and more I would find myself at arm’s length in all categories that didn’t involve food and sex. The razor-sharp talons of criticism would emerge, followed by total disdain.

Trust me—disdain feels like a jagged, rusty knife in the gut when it’s coming from somebody you adore.

I’m so done with Hugos. So done with not measuring up. I learned my lesson.

The butterflies settle down and act busy doing whatever butterflies do when they’re not circling and fluttering like little jackasses. But what can you expect? A butterfly has a brain the size of a pinhead, if that.

The woman at the courier desk has stopped wringing her hands; now she’s gripping the edge of the desk as if Hugo might decide to use his vast mental powers to cause an earthquake.

So, clearly it’s weird that he’s come down from his ivory tower to visit the courier desk.

He doesn’t look happy.

Why would he be? I’m a blast from the past to Hugo—and not the good kind; I’m an unfortunate fashion choice, a horrible earworm burrowing into his brilliant and beautiful life in the Big Apple. Though Hugo wouldn’t call it the Big Apple. He’d call it whatever brilliant brainiacs who live in New York call New York.

“Since when does Hugh-dini pick up his own deliveries?” Hesh asks.

“Houdini?” I say.

“Hugh-dini,” Jane says. “That guy who’s standing up there? That’s Hugo Jones. He’s the brains of this operation.”

“You call him…Hugh-dini?”

“Sometimes justDini,” Jane whispers solemnly.

I nod, biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling or, God forbid, laughing. This would be a bad time to laugh!

I wish I could tell them I knew him growing up, but I promised I wouldn’t, and I would never want to get him in trouble after he did this nice thing for me.

It would be so wrong to laugh, but…Hugh-dini? “So...he doesn’t know you call him that?”

Hesh spins around and widens his eyes. “You can never say anything. The entire floor would probably be fired!”

“Lips zipped!” I would never tell. For one thing, I’m not an asshole. And also, Hugo’s opinion of himself is already inflated enough.

Up front, Hugo holds the envelope by the edges like it’s hot, confident fingers and big knuckles on full display. I know those hands almost as well as my own.

And of course, there go the butterflies, back in the old Hugo routine: flutter around until he somehow reveals how much he hates you, and then slowly drop to the pit of low self-esteem. Rinse and repeat often.

Newsflash, butterflies: Adult Stella is in charge now. Adult Stella is a successful, confident woman with a brain the size of a grapefruit, or maybe two grapefruits if you smushed them partly together, or maybe let’s go with a largish somewhat misshapen mango to more accurately represent the oblong shape of a brain. Whatever, it’s a big-ish brain. Definitely bigger than a pinhead.

What’s more, as adult Stella, I possess a butterfly-sized swatter, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Up at the courier desk, Hugo’s laser focus is still fixed on the envelope, though is it really? Hugo sees things you don’t think he sees, what with his raptorlike vision able to detect the tiniest movement from ridiculous distances.

And that scowl! I remember it well, being that it was turned on me from the moment Hugo and I met at math camp that fateful summer.

Yes, I was once at math camp—not due to any math abilities, mind you. The camp desperately wanted my brother, Charlie, so they bent the rules and the prices for me. It was a convenient form of childcare for my parents, and an entrée into new realms of self-esteem sadness for me, being that I sucked at math.

Up front, Hugo mumbles something and then storms off with the offending envelope, long legs eating up the space on the other side of the glass.

Murmurs go up all over the room.

I’m looking down at my desk.

Swat swat.

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