Page 35 of The Billionaire Is Back

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says innocently. “Just that being home seems to agree with you. You have a nice color to your cheeks.”

“Had a good night’s sleep,” I tell her. Both of us pretending she hasn’t raised two sons and lived with men for most of her life. “Let me know if you need anything else.” I slowly shut the door.

And now that the adrenaline rush has subsided, I can feel the guilt. Layers of guilt. Guilt for fantasizing about Jake’s little sister. Guilt for messing up these sheets. At least there’s something I can do about the sheets.

I grab my business phone and text Alice.

ME: Morning. Please have new Frette Egyptian cotton sheet sets sent to my parents’ house. For all the beds. Three queen size. Make that six sets of queen size. All white.

Just in case. Because I won’t have time to do laundry myself and I sure as hell won’t let my mom do it.

ALICE: You got it ;)

The winky-face emoticon tells me she has an idea of why I’ve requested this, but Alice is paid handsomely to not ask questions.

Unlike my family.

Or maybe not.

My phone buzzes with an incoming call from her. I answer with “Address the packages to me, or my parents will think it’s a mistake and send them back.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, bossman. I’m calling because I just got a thousand text messages from friends telling me every gossip site in the city is reporting that Harrison Lynch bought an engagement ring at Tiffany’s yesterday, but he has not publicly confirmed if he’s engaged or who he’s engaged to.”

I’m stripping the sheets from my bed with one hand when I say, “Interesting.”

“I thought you’d think so. Should I be concerned?”

“ShouldIbe concerned?”

Alice laughs.Atme. God, I love her. “I don’t think you need to be concerned until we find out if the rumors are true and who the fiancée is. I think it’s safe to assume we’ll know all by the METH gala.”

“Right. Pembroke.”

“Mr. Lynch did say he wouldn’t give up without a fight. Aston Pembroke is a family man of the highest order. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone show so many pictures of his family in the middle of a business meeting before.”

“I really didn’t want to have to bring a date to that gala,” I grumble.

“You can’t show up looking like a bachelor if Lynch isgoing to show up with a bride-to-be. You want me to round up the usual suspects?”

I sigh and rub my forehead. If there was a socialite left on the planet that I’ve met and wanted to date, I’d already be dating her. “No. I don’t want you to. But go ahead and send me some options.”

“You got it. Until then, you’ll have some nice new sheets to keep you company.” I can hear her stifling a cheeky laugh before she ends the call.

“Why the hellare you stopping here?” Damien asks from the passenger seat of my Mercedes. On his lap are two lobsters that are being carefully transported inside two large plastic spill-proof containers that are lined with frozen liquid gel packs and seaweed. He’s got his arms around them, and he’s somehow making it look cool. Like all the kids are gonna be carrying around lobsters if they see him like this. “We gotta get to the beach!”

He is so exasperated. I have never seen this guy in a hurry before, but he really wants to get to the beach so he can let his lobsters move around.

And he’s going to have to wait another minute. “I thought you said they can stay like that for up to twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, but that’s not ideal. I don’t want to stress them out.”

“Then don’t act so stressed.” I park in an alley behind Main Street, looking around to make sure nobody’swatching before opening up my trunk, pulling out a garbage bag full of bedsheets, and tossing them into a dumpster.

When I start up the engine again, I can hear Damien grinning when he says, “Never mind. Definitely not gonna ask about that.”

“Good. Why the big rush to get to the beach this morning? Don’t you usually go later in the day?”

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