Page 30 of The Billionaire Is Back

The one that led to my parents’ kitchen and my cookies…

He looks around, making sure there’s still no one else on the road. He might be about to lean down to talk tome, perhaps about how the town has changed or stayed the same, or he might be about to stretch some other muscle, but I don’t have time to wait around to find out.

“Cool. Well, good talk. I’ve got a business to run.”

“Sure. You certainly do.” If he feels brushed off, he certainly doesn’t appear to be bothered by it. “See ya later, Sweeney.”

“I wasn’t following you, by the way.”

He grins. “’Course you weren’t.”

“I literally drive this way every morning!”

“Uh-huh.” He takes off, jogging down the street again with that cocky stride and obnoxious backside. Like he got the last word. There’s no backward glance. He knows where he’s going, and he goes there. That’s what he’s always done.

Not today, mister.

I speed down the road—okay, I can’t really call it speeding at a very safe and responsible thirty-five miles per hour, but I pass the billionaire. He can eat my dust. It would have been so cool if I didn’t check my rearview mirror to see if he even noticed that I passed him. But I do. And he does.

I am so far out of whack when I pull into my parking space behind the bakery, I can’t even seewhackfrom here. There are ten partially digested sugar cookies, three glasses of wine, and a billionaire blocking me from the road back towhack. But I’ll get there. I just need to get my hands on some sugar and flour and eggs and butter and water. And coffee. So much coffee. And absolutely no Grady Barbers.

Vera pulls into the space next to me, like a race-cardriver. I have no idea where she came from—I didn’t even see her in the alley. “Turn off your headlights!” she calls out as we both open our car doors.

I turn off my headlights.

She’s wearing sunglasses even though the sun hasn’t quite risen yet. She looks about as upbeat as I feel as she tries to unlock the back door. “Fucking fuck-ass shit-stick fuck this fuck-hole twat-monkey piece of…” And then she gets the door open and smacks the wall to turn on the lights.

“Have a good night last night, pookie?”

“Stellar, snookums. You?”

“Wondrous. Double espresso?”

“Quadruple.”

“Coming right up.”

I get to work making us coffee that is even darker than our moods. Vera puts on Nine Inch Nails, which is…troubling. And then I wipe down all the surfaces of this kitchen until I have symbolically cleansed every dehydrated corner of my brain of Grady Barber.

And then I feel fine.

But then Grady Barbershows up in my store as soon as it opens, sets up a brand new laptop at the table by the window, hogs the electrical outlet, asks for the Wi-Fi password, and doesn’t leave. He types on his laptop, handsomely. He talks on his phone, wealthily. He keeps ordering coffee. He’s treating this like his office, like amom at a Starbucks, except if he needs a place to do some work outside of his parents’ house, he could literally buy an office building. So why is he here? In gray sweatpants and a sexy old T-shirt that stretches across his pecs and highlights his biceps?

I want to complain. I want him to see that I’m frowning at him through the wall. Except he’s drawing a crowd. I don’t think we’ve ever had so many customers here at one time. It might be a fire-code violation. But fuck it, I need to make a lot of money, so Grady can get up and Magic Mike on that table for all I care. As long as it sells pastries.

I peek through the horizontal window between my kitchen and the store. There are locals of all ages milling about, trying to chat Grady up, but tourists seem to be curious about him too. A group of four college girls stand next to Grady’s table, tossing theirbeachy waveshair over their shoulders and casually glancing at him as they throw their heads back, laughing. God forbid they should eat any of my baked goods and get crumbs stuck to their watermelon-pink lip gloss. Fortunately, there are less annoying people here too. The good kind that eat sugar and gluten. Even Crabby is here, way before closing time, eyeing Grady suspiciously. Which is really the only way to eye him.

“We need more chocolate chip, and we’re almost out of apple fritters already,” says Vera as she enters the kitchen. She’s been gossiping with everyone and seems completely unfazed by the sudden influx.

“Are you pushing the pavlova?”

“Honey. Nobody wants pavlovabefore lunch. They ask me what pavlova is, and I can’t explain it to them. Grady explained it to Mrs. Doubtfire over there, but she just tried to set him up with her granddaughter.” She nods toward an elderly tourist who’s wearing stockings and sandals.

I aggressively switch off my food mixer, my chest clenching at the thought of him taking out some lady’s granddaughter, but what I say is “Why is he still here?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

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