Page 112 of Her Billionaire Bargain (Kensington Square)

Eli’s eyebrows lifted, and I remembered suddenly I wanted this man to work with me. “In a manner of speaking,” I said to him with a sheepish smile.

“This is none of my business,” he said quickly, vacating the room and maybe the house entirely before I could say jack.

I couldn’t really blame him.

I shoved a hand through my hair and Isis banged a spatula. “Don’t start pushing your hand through your hair.”

I did it again just to annoy her.

She heaved out a sigh. “What is wrong with me? I know you’re the most annoying man on the planet. Literally. But you’re also sweet and you want to make the world a better place, even if you get lost in trying to compete with your brother—”

“Wait, what?”

She waved the spatula. “Who always stops to talk to the new divorcees, even after the case is theoretically over? Last month, you even gave Charlie Dinkums your home number when he kept crying over his wife. I mean, you were always like that, but you’ve been doing it even more this past year, which is part of the reason you need Eli. The amount of man hours you spend on each case is just boggling. Why are you staring at me?”

I rubbed my suddenly aching temple. Tylenol was no match for this crowd. “You think I do that already? I thought I didn’t do it enough. Charlie is different. We got to be friendly, yeah, but it’s not like—”

“What about Mary Donnelly? You talk to her however many times she calls, and she calls alot.Last week, you had me send her a plant and chocolates and wrote out the card yourself with your home number in it. Again. She keeps losing it, and you give it to her again and again although she drives you crazy. Dex, you’re a damn saint. That’s why your clients can’t stop recommending you all over town and you have more business than you could possibly do on your own. And why you need Eli. That know-it-all,” she added under her breath.

“You don’t like him?” I scratched the back of my neck and fervently hoped he wasn’t in earshot.

Although if he was smart, he was probably long gone.

“I don’t know him. He just thinks he knows everything. Typical man.” She dumped some of the liquid egg batter from the carton into the pan. I had no clue who would be eating that other than Isis, since Berry had already had breakfast and I was already thinking about lunch.

Maybe Shelby would want Isis’s eggs. But in any case, I wasn’t about to argue with her.

I was still concerned for her mental health if she’d convinced herself she had a thing for me. I truly didn’t believe it.

But I clearly had a masochistic streak because I couldn’t help asking about it even so.

“Now you have a thing for me, so you’ve been meaner to me lately because you’re mad about it?”

Dark eyes blazing, she whirled on me, and I prepared to be blasted where I stood. Instead, she opened and closed her mouth and let out a long sigh. “Yeah, that about sums it up.” Then she pointed at me. “You can’t make me feel any worse than I do right now, just saying.”

“I don’t want to make you feel worse. I just think you might be…confused.” I leaned against the stove beside her, hoping standing next to her and an open flame weren’t dangerous to my health.

“Confused about what?”

“That, you know, we’ve been single together for a very long time. And now I’m—”

“In love with Shelby, yeah.” She waved me on to continue.

I did a double take. “I didn’t exactly say I was in love with her. It’s so new. We barely know each other. I do love most everything I know about her, but to say I’m in love with her, period, is a lot.” I frowned, recalling last night’s certainty on that very subject. Yeah, I was in love with her. “Then again, I asked her to move in today.”

“You did what?” She hauled me into a rib-crushing hug. “I’m so happy for you.”

I tugged her back to arm’s length. “I don’t think you understand how crushes work.”

She laughed in my face. “I didn’t even know I had a teensy-weensy thing for you until that mansplainer Eli called me on it.”

“How did he call you on having a crush on me?”

“We were talking, and he said I was unnecessarily harsh and he wanted to know if we were engaged in a ‘personal’ relationship because of how protective I was over you.”

“Since when?”

“Since always, you jerk. I can insult you but no one else can, ever.”

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