Page 40 of The Grumpy Billionaire
My shoes sank into the plush cream carpet as I entered the small room. I looked down, hoping there was no sand still on them that would leave marks on the pristine surface.
Instead of sitting, I walked around the room’s perimeter, examining the photos lining the walls and covering the small tables on either side of the love seat and chairs.
I wasn’t sure how much progress we’d made today in getting comfortable with each other again, but the photographs went a long way toward filling in the time gap left by our sudden separation eleven years ago.
For my own sanity, I’d steadfastly resisted doing internet searches on Reid or looking him up on social media. And I’d avoided StillYours.com like the plague.
There were photos of him with various well-known business and government leaders, a framed cover fromForbesmagazine featuring StillYours.com. There was an article from the U-R-I student newspaper about the launch of his company, complete with a photo of Reid trying very hard to look grown up, standing beside his dorm room desk and laptop.
Lee was in the photo with him. That’s where they must have met—it was evident Reid trusted him—maybe they’d been roommates or something.
I stepped over to another small collection of photos on a tabletop. Reid with his mother. Another with his high school best friends.
And one of Reid with a woman.
I picked that one up to study it more closely. She was dark-haired, tall, almost as tall as Reid, with the exotic eyes and impossible bone structure of a model. In fact, I thought I recognized her from the most recent Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
With her dark hair, wide brown eyes, and olive skin tone, she looked somewhat like me—except of course for the whole model-gorgeous thing. She even had a tiny gap between her front teeth like mine.
Weird. She was like, “Mara Plus—the new, improved version—now with a thousand times more beauty!”
I wondered if she was Reid’s girlfriend. Made sense—young, handsome billionaire—supermodel girlfriend—a tale as old as time.
I placed the picture of the lovely couple back down among Reid’s photo collection and worked to quell the tide of acid rising in my gut.
This had nothing to do with me. I’dwantedhim to move on, hadn’t I? Why shouldn’t he have a beautiful, perfect woman in his life? He deserved it.
And if the girl he’d chosen was basically an upgradedme, it was none of my business.
But then, why had he said only suckers believed in love? If a man couldn’t find happiness with that idealized specimen of a woman, whocouldhe love?
“Mara.”
Reid’s raspy voice came from behind me, making me jump.
I turned to face him. “Hi. I was just… looking around.”
His lips quirked in a little smile. “Yes, I see that. So, here’s the itinerary. Sorry it took so long. I had to print it out for you, and my stupid printer jammed. The thing’s as complicated as a fighter jet cockpit. This is why I have assistants at work.”
He handed me a crisp sheet of paper.
I reached for it, beginning to read with a growing sense of dismay. “Itinerary?”
“Yes.” He grasped my elbow lightly with his fingertips, steering me toward the front door as I looked down at the paper. “For the week.”
“The… week? I thought—your assistant said a day. I thought we were going to set up the interview now.”
“I’m not ready.”
As I stared at him in confusion, Reid continued his matter-of-fact explanation. “I won’t do the interview until I feel comfortable, and I’m not there yet.”
I glanced again at the dates and times on the paper in my hand, my mind whirling and my belly trembling with a terrible sense of impending doom.
“But we can’t—I can’t spend a week with you. I have to work. I have a job.”
And that’s the least of my reasons.
Reid lifted a brow. “I believe your primary job at the moment is securing this series of reports for your upcoming ratings period. I’m willing to bet if we were to call your boss right now and ask him to give us a week to prepare, he’d readily agree. What do you think?”
