Page 140 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire
EPILOGUE
SEPTEMBER
FRANKIE
“You’ve honestly never been in a football stadium before?” Prince Oliver asks as he takes his seat next to me in the Boston Commoners owners’ box and hands me a beer.
Seriously, never going to get used to having a member of the British royal family bring me a drink. Nor will I find it easy to drop the “Prince” like he’s asked me to. “Prince Oliver” is all I’ve ever heard him referred to as my whole life.
“Football, yes,” I say. “Soccer, no.”
“Oh, I meant soccer,” Oliver says. “Sorry. Even though I’ve lived in the US for a few years, I still sometimes forget that it’s confusing when I call it football. Doesn’t help that our head coach is English too and totally refuses to say soccer.”
I could listen to Oliver talk all day. Not only is hisaccent spectacular, he has brains, banter and is instantly likeable. It’s baffling that he doesn’t have a girlfriend, but Miller says he’s been burned so many times with women selling their stories to the press or with the paparazzi hounding them so much that they can’t take it, that he’s kept to himself since he left the UK.
Grandpa turns around in his front-row seat and holds up his beer to tap against mine.
“Cheers, Frankie.” He smiles like an excited kid.
He has a whole fresh lease on life now he has new knees, a renovated home, and, of course, love to put a spring in his step. It’s like he’s about twenty years younger.
“And Elsie,” I add.
She and Grandpa let go of each other’s hands, for what feels like the first time since we picked her up this morning, so she can offer me her wine glass.
“Cheers, sweetie,” she says. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”
“Wouldn’t be a true day out without you both.” Miller takes his seat on the other side of me, hooking his arm around the back of my chair and kissing my temple.
The touch of his lips anywhere on my body never fails to send a ripple of goose bumps down my side. And I’m pretty confident that will never end.
“Such a lovely evening for it,” Elsie says, looking up at the clear, darkening sky over the stadium.
“Here we go,” Miller says. He and Oliver get to their feet on either side of me.
I rise to join them as the crowd erupts in cheers to welcome the Boston Commoners and tonight’s opponents from Nashville as they jog onto the field.
The ref blows the whistle for halftime, and we all stand to applaud the Commoners’ one-nil lead.
“Now do you see why I bought into this place?” Miller’s face is lit up, energized from cheering on the team he’s followed since he was a kid. There’s also a slight edge of nervous worry behind his eyes that maybe they won’t hold on to their lead.
“Totally get it.” I rub his lower back just above the waistband of his jeans. “The atmosphere is more like a gathering of close friends than a huge sports event.”
It’s true. I’ve been in the stadium for less than two hours, and everyone I’ve bumped into has smiled and said hello. And not just because I’m with one of the owners. Before the game, I got lost looking for the restroom, and the person who helped me would have had no idea who my boyfriend is.
Boyfriend.
Just thinking that word flips my belly.
It wasn’t that long ago that I’d thought I’d spend the rest of my life in Chicago, or maybe New York City if a great job opportunity came up there, grinding on the corporate treadmill, thinking every promotion was more validation than the last, that every extra hour I worked made me a better person.
I never imagined my life would come full circle, right back to where I was happiest as a kid—Warm Springs. That I would spend my days in overalls and muck boots rather than business suits and high heels, dealing with sore hooves instead of sore egos, and enjoying the laughter on a child’s face when they get their firstdonkey ride rather than monitoring the scowls around a boardroom table.
“Ha, look!” Oliver nudges me and points at the jumbotron.
“Oh, no.” I drop my head into my hands at the sight of Miller and me on the kiss cam.
The crowd roars.
