Page 3 of The Billionaire's Shrubbery

To earn a sip of wine, we have to declare whether the criminal is telling the truth or lying, before the narrator's voiceover explains how the investigator was able to tell. I am the reigning champion, able to read body language and tone of voice from the first time we watch an episode. Aside from being a plant whisperer, that’s my superpower.

“Instead of wasting two thousand dollars on a weekend listening to a billionaire give you business tips you can learn for free on the internet, I think you should invest in your education—get a certificate in criminology. You could make so much more money than you’ll ever make watering plants.”

Georgia has said this more than once, and I’ve considered it more than once. And yet I always come to the same conclusion: one path is filled with lightness and life and oxygen and hope, the other is paved with horror and sadness and the broken lives of victims and their families. There’s not enough money in all the world to convince me to take that route. I prefer to keep unsolvable crimes trapped in the frame of our old TV, right where they belong.

Silence is my answer. Georgia redirects the conversation. “Guess who I saw on the mid-day news.”

“Good guy or bad guy?”

“Depends …” she contorts her mouth and wrinkles her nose.

My enthusiasm about the bonsai trees and the giant check in my pocket deflates. I know exactly who she’s talking about. “Did he save a bus full of puppies from driving off a cliff?”

Virginia laughs. “Close, actually. He donated his clinic’s services to help over a hundred dogs that were in a puppy mill.”

I roll my eyes.

“He’s still not wearing a wedding ring,” my sister sing-songs.

The alleged love of my life—Frank—who I fell for during my sophomore year of university and graduated two years ahead of me. He went on to veterinary school, promising we’d do the long-distance thing, that he’d stay faithful so we could build a real future together after we both finished our respective programs. But he fell for a woman who offered to bankroll his clinic.

I should’ve known better. If Dad taught me nothing else, it’s that men will always level up, given the chance.

2. Will

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE … AND L.A. … AND VANCOUVER …

Ikick open the door to my penthouse and leave my carry-on for the housekeeper to deal with in the morning. It’s after midnight, and even though my body screams for sleep, my brain is on fire. I turn left from my elevator entrance, down the hall to my bedroom. Dim lights in the ceiling activate a few steps ahead of me.

I hang my suit and pull on a pair of sweat pants. Even though I live alone, walking naked around my condo is not an option. With three brothers who have access to my suite and use it at their leisure, I never know what I’m coming home to after being on the road.

Despite having been away for six weeks, delivering my Come Into Power seminar in fourteen cities across Canada and the US, the odds of finding my place exactly as I left it are about zero, since cleaners don’t come in while I’m not here.

I head to my living room to see what they’ve done this time.

“Hey, bro.” My identical twin brother yawns his greeting from the dark corner.

“Horse. What’s up?” I can see his shape, but not his face. “Alexa, full lights.”

“You bastard,” he complains, covering his head with a throw cushion.

“Seriously? Me? Why else would you be up after midnight unless it was to see my face when I saw what you pricks did to my place?”

I scope the room. My giant TV screen is intact, still mounted on the wall. The white patterns in my sixteen-by-sixteen area rug are still white. I don’t see any tears in my leather furniture. I sniff the air. Smells like nothing, just the way it should.

Horse drops the pillow. “Alexa, lights at fifty percent. I wasn’t sure I’d see you in the morning and I wanted to check in, make sure you’re surviving.”

“And if I say I’m not?” I collapse into the Herman Miller lounge chair beside him. “You going to offer to trade places with me and deliver the European seminars?”

“And have to cut this glorious hair? Shave my beard? Wear a suit and tie every day? Not a chance.”

“When was the last time you needed a security guard at your hotel door to keep the women away? Isn’t that worth a razor and having to dress like a grown-ass man for a few days?”

He shakes his head.

“Horse, why are you here?” I’m exhausted and my brother’s life of freedom—because he was born twenty-one minutes after me—is pissing me off.

“We had seven requests for refunds from the San Francisco event. And four so far from Seattle.”

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