Page 80 of Railing the Billionaire

“Myglam squad?”

“Being on television doesn’t make you special.”

“Neither does eating squirrel food, Grand Poobah of Pretension.”

This time he didn’t hiss—he squawked, loudly.“Bran muffins aren’t squirrel food.”

“Watch out, your self-righteousness is showing. Knowing you, there’s a bit of spittle, too.” I hung up before he could respond.

It feltsofreaking good.

Immediately, he called back. I rejected his call, posed in front of the gorgeous view from my window that proved I was exactly where I said I was. I smiled, flipped off the camera, and took a pic. I sent it to Edwardo along with a one-line text.

Me: Shove that shift right up your pooper with the stick that’s lodged there

Then one more text forgood measure.

Me: I quit

The thrillof control coursed through my veins. I let out a laugh of victory. Little dots flicked across my screen. He was writing back. Before his message could come through, I blocked him. I had never felt so empowered.

The door opened behind me, and the feeling in the air changed immediately because of Gabriel’s presence. My eyes snapped to my laptop, a quick jolt of panic that he could see what I’d been writing. Of course it was fine, closed, and hidden the way it was supposed to be.

He was looking a bit undone this morning, his top button not buttoned, his hair deliciously mussed. He’d been running his hands through it, the way he did when I drove him crazy.

“How was your hero jaunt?” I asked.

“I never claimed to be a hero,” he said.

“You’re fixing all the world’s problems with a wave of your cash. I bet you promised half a bazillion dollars to whoever could dig you out of here the fastest.”

He went all stiff shouldered and extra scowly. “I do not see myself as a hero.”

“Oh yeah? That’s certainly how the world sees you, after you get past the personality thing.” I didn’t want to call him a robot, even when talking about others’ perceptions. It felt wrong. He was an anti-robot; he was a broody, grimacing sourpuss.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I’m…practical. Doing what I can.”

“Sure. You’re just like any other guy, doing whatever job he has to do to pay the bills for the mediocre life he’s settled into, telling himself that the dreams he used to have for himself were silly, that he never really wanted more, never wanted the American dream anyway.”

Gabriel pursed his lips. I wanted to poke them back into place, maybe give him a proper poke in the nose, too. He wasn’tgiving me the reaction I was looking for. I wanted growly, snappy retorts to fill my writing well. I wanted to put things back to the way they were supposed to be between us, before I’d started fantasizing about forbidden touches in our shared bed.

“My dad worked in waste management,” he said, ripping his gaze from mine. “He’d tell me about everything people threw away—perfectly good things. How all of that waste filled huge swaths of land, plenty of it ending up in oceans when it was shipped off to other countries.”

His father was a garbage man? Everything he was saying was so opposite of the vision I’d had of him as a little rich boy growing up in a mansion. I figured his cold social awkwardness was from never having his parents give him enough snuggles. But this was a different picture entirely.

“I went once, to the landfill that serves Epiphany,” he said. “The mountains of garbage were larger than the buildings. I could never forget. So when I went to college and found biochemistry, the pieces clicked. It was never about being one thing or another. It was about doing what I could do with the skill set I had.”

“So when you said you didn’t have money growing up…you didn’t mean you weren’t yet a bazillionaire.”

“Billionaire.”

“Same thing. You meant you weren’t a millionaire either.”

“Like I told you, I didn’t grow up with money.”

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