Page 77 of The Billionaire Is Back

So, I help him out there. “Well, Lynch. What are your plans for life after you leave the company?” It’s a classic sales tactic—move past the sale as if it’s already done. Because it is.

“Not sure yet,” Lynch replies coolly. “Nothing to speak of.”

“Oh, except that you’re getting married, of course,” Genevieve reminds him.

Lynch wraps his arm around Emma. “Oh, of course. In terms of my personal life—our—personal life, we are planning a wedding. A big one. Huge, in fact.”

Emma’s eyes widen excitedly at this news. “We are?!”

“We are hoping you will do us the honor of attending,” he says to Aston and his wife.

“Oh, of course, of course,” Genevieve coos. “I do love a big wedding. Our daughter is having one soon. Have you set a date?”

“Soon,” Lynch mumbles.

This is not going well for me. I realize Claire’s hand is in my pocket, and as much as I like how it feels, this is not the time. Then I realize she’s pulled out the piece of paper that Alice gave me earlier, handing it to me. She gives me a little wink.

I surreptitiously unfold the note, and we both read it.LynchJoy = Green Card Marriageis all it says.

I fold the paper and put it back into my pocket.

That makes sense.

But that also means Emma must be facing deportation,and as much as I would love to reveal Harrison Lynch as a felon, his assistant is a nice person. I share a meaningful look with Claire, who gives me the tiniest shake of her head. I mirror it. Not going there.

“I mean, it does have to be fairly soon,” Emma is saying, “but we’ll have to make sure we pick a date when there aren’t any retrogrades. Venus, especially, but also Mercury or Mars.”

I watch as Lynch tries to silence her with his expression, but that adorable little silent-movie pantomime I watched them engage in back at his office happened when Miss Lovejoy wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. Or astrological retrogrades.

“And of course, we wouldn’t want a wandering moon or a hard Neptune in either of our charts either,” she continues.

Aston stares at the floor. His wife clears her throat. She must have a hard Neptune stuck in there or something. “Of course.” She frowns.

“Well, what about you two lovebirds?” Lynch says, trying to turn the glaring spotlight away from his kooky fiancée. “How long have you known each other?”

Claire takes my hand and looks up at me. “I’ve known Grady for as long as I’ve known myself,” she says. “He’s my brother’s best friend. It’s a brother’s-best-friend romance,” she tells Mrs. Pembroke. “We grew up together.”

The woman touches her heart. “Ohhhhh, how sweet.”

“And how convenient that you’ve found love all of asudden,” Lynch says cynically. “Just in time for this event.”

“Oh, but I saw it in the tarot reading I did, when—” Emma starts to say before Lynch silences her by planting an awkwardly timed but very effective kiss on her mouth.

They both look a little flustered when he finally pulls away, and I almost believe that kiss as much as everyone else seems to, including Emma. Until Lynch looks at Mrs. Pembroke and says, “Actually, I didn’t want to mention it earlier, but Emma and I will be starting a family as soon as possible. I want as many little Lynches running around as we can swing it.”

Genevieve is eating this up and completely ignoring how surprised Emma is by this declaration. “Oh my goodness, how delightful. Isn’t that just marvelous, Aston—did you hear that? They’re starting a family.”

“I heard, darling,” Aston says, wrapping his arm around her waist. “I heard.”

“That’s why I want her to be my wife and the mother of my children ASAP,” Lynch says, hammering that final nail in the coffin of my deal. “When you know, you know.”

A direct shot at Team Glaire Bweeney. Or Crady Swarber. Whatever. Just because we don’t have a good ship name that doesn’t make us less awesome. Maybe Lynch’s relationship with his assistant is real, maybe it isn’t. But he’s doing the thing. Genevieve is not going to want her husband to dethrone a man who’s about to marry and start a family. I’m screwed.

“Well, I love Grady. I’ve loved him my whole life, and I’d wait for him forever.”

All eyes are now on Claire Sweeney, including my own, wider than they’ve been all night. She doesn’t look at me, she just squeezes my hand, staring down at it.

“I can tell you the exact moment I knew it too,” she continues. “I was seven years old. Grady and Jake—my older brother, Robbie, and Grady’s brother Damien were playing with their Nerf guns around the house. They didn’t usually let me play, but for some reason this time they did. Of course, the teams were Jake, Robbie, and Grady versus Damien and me, so we didn’t stand a chance, being the younger siblings. I took a lot of Nerf darts to the face that day. But it was fun being included. And Grady never shot me. Not once. He showed his little brother no mercy, but he’d catch up to me and point the Nerf gun at me, and somehow I’d always be able to dodge it. Because he would never pull the trigger as quickly when it was pointed in my direction.

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