Page 53 of The Bride and the Billionaire Grump

Everything about her draws me in.

She notices me and smiles.

I don’t want to stand here looking like an idiot. “Drink?”

“One of your delicious cocktails, please?” She smiles brightly.

Her smile melts me.

Everything about today has felt like a dream, and I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay here, stay with her, stay in this.

I mix her drink together. I love that she’s so obsessed with Chef’s sauce and my cocktails.

I wonder if we could be friends that hang out here a few times a year or would that be weird? That would probably be weird.

All I know is that the thought of never seeing her again after this makes me feel ill.

There’s never been that spark with anyone else and it’s just something I can’t stop thinking about… and then her in a bikini, it’s just torture.

I’ve seen beautiful women before, but Millie is stunning, and she doesn’t even know it.

Maybe that’s the difference. The dating pool where I live in LA is primarily made up of plastic people who are only trying to sleep their way to money, power and status. The situation has its advantages because the women I meet often don’t mind the whole no-strings-attached thing, but any hook-ups I do have end up feeling clinical, cold.

There is a part of me that thinks I’m missing out by staying permanently single, but I just don’t think it’s fair to go intosomething with someone who expects and deserves a committed partner. I go back and forth between wanting something I know I can’t have and trying to figure out if it’s something that could work.

My past is something that has always defined me. It’s something that influences every decision I make. I would never want it to impact someone else.

I walk out to Millie who is now sitting out by the pool in a towel.

“I’m going to miss this pool!” She takes the drink off me and takes a sip. “And this drink. My God.”

I can’t help but smile. “What about me?”

She eyes me. “Yes, I will miss my sparring partner.”

I chuckle. Sparring partner.

Millie takes another sip and sighs. “Did you ever think you’d end up here?”

I tilt my head. “Here, as in my own house?”

She laughs and it makes my stomach flip, in a good way.

“As in resorting to a reality TV show and then being ditched.” She laughs louder. “THEY LEFT US HERE!” She doubles over.

I laugh with her. It’s true. It’s ridiculous. I’ve got my lawyers looking into it because surely they weren’t allowed to do that. Not that I care, but for Millie’s sake. It doesn’t seem right.

Her laughter dies down and she sighs. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

I stare at her. She’s just so gorgeous. Her dimpled smile, her sparkling blue eyes, her long lashes, her curves.

I think if the girl in front of me, as she is now, had showed up on the show, there would’ve been no competition.

I picked her because she’s feisty and because I knew without a doubt that she wouldn’t decide to marry me in the end. I liked Natalie, but you could see she definitely had expectations of the show being real. There was no fear of that with Millie.

I didn’t want to admit it at the time but there was also no spark with Natalie, and I definitely didn’t want to admit there was one with Millie.

I kept wondering why Millie was even there. I got the vibe that she didn’t even like me and I was offended at the time, which I also didn’t want to admit.

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