Page 63 of The Billionaire Is Back

“Consider all of your shit shipped home and paid for,” Grady tells her, all straight-faced and rich-like. “If you want something shipped directly from the store, just put someone on the phone with Alice and she’ll take care of it.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Vera says. “And let’s say your lovely girlfriend’s best friend in the entire world wanted to get simultaneous appointments at a very popular hair salon and/or a table at a very popular restaurant on Spring Street. How would she go about securing those?”

“Text Alice the details immediately, and if necessary, I’ll put in a call myself.”

“She offered him a grateful smile as she nodded calmly and thought to herself that Grady really was the best of the Barber brothers,”Vera narrates.

“Damn right I am. Tell everyone.”

I wasa little nervous about walking into this trendy East Village hair salon, knowing that Grady had put in a call to the owner and said that I was his girlfriend. Even with the two-mimosa buzz I had going and the natural high of being in New York with my BFF, I was apprehensive about the potential derisive looks and condescending under-the-breath comments. But it turns out this salon is super chill. It also turns out people are really nice to you when Grady Barber has already tipped them ahead oftime and his assistant had a case of champagne sent over to thank them for squeezing us in.

Vera instructs my stylist to give me “a quick gloss and a blowout,” while she gets some teal added to her faded blue color.

I don’t even recognize my own hair when Hudson is done with me. I thought it was shiny when I left my parents’ house this morning, but now I look like an actress who’s playing a small-town baker in a major Hollywood movie.

“You look sensational,” Hudson tells me, and I have to agree with him. “If I had any interest in boning women, I would be extremely interested in boning you. But I just want to bone your boyfriend even more now.”

“You and me both, Hudson.” That was remarkably convincing of me. “I’ll email you my white chocolate–macadamia nut cookie recipe, but you have to promise to use brown sugar along with granulated—and don’t forget the cornstarch, or else it won’t be chewy enough.” I give Hudson a hug, even though I can already tell he’s not going to bother with the brown sugar or the cornstarch.

Vera is grinning like a maniac while texting someone as we walk out onto Seventh Street, and I almost bump into a man who looks like Stanley Tucci. I excitedly turn to Vera, and without even looking up, she says, “That was not Stanley Tucci.”

“But he was?—”

“It’s not him.”

While it may be true that I have thought four other well-dressed bald middle-aged men with black-rimmed glasses were Stanley Tucci since we started walkingaround Manhattan, I really do think that one was him. “Who have you been texting all this time?”

“What? No one. Notallthis time. I’ve just been telling Damien how awesome his brother is because it drives him nuts.”

“Interesting.”

“Nope. Let’s head this way down to Spring Street for lunch and carbo-load for the shopping marathon.” She takes my phone from me, orders me to look at my phone like I “want to suck it senseless,” and then texts whatever picture she just took to Grady.

I’m about to complain and ask how to unsend it, until I see how hot I look and decide it’s not my fault if Grady’s getting mixed messages. I am literally not the one sending them. When we’re seated at Balthazar and I’m looking at the fantastic French menu instead of the five celebrities that Vera informs me are also here, I get a text notification and calmly check my phone.

GRADY: Wow. You look amazing.

ME: Thank you, but Vera forced me to pose like that and then sent it to you without asking me first. Sorry to bother you!

ME: But thanks for getting us the appointments and the lunch reservation!

ME: See you for dinner!

GRADY: See you for our dinner date.

ME: I have to go out again tonight?

GRADY: Just be at myplace at six. I have to head into another meeting now. Have fun.

I’m not sure if I should be pretending to be his girlfriend in our text messages, just in case someone sees his phone, so I send him a smiling-face emoji and then tuck my phone into a pocket.

When I look up at Vera, she is staring down at her phone and swiping through pictures. “I want you to see something,” she says. Holding her phone up, she shows me a candid photo of myself, taken when I was texting just now. “Do you see how happy you are?” She keeps swiping. I am smiling like a lunatic in these pics.

“I’m just so happy to be here with you! We never get to have lunch like this.”

She frowns at me. She doesn’t even roll her eyes, she just puts her phone down and fixes me with a hard stare. “What is wrong with you?”

“She asked as she pretended not to be freaking out about Meg Ryan, who was in the same room as her,”I say, brilliantly mimicking Vera’s quirky habit.

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