Dirty Rumor: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance(14)

It hasn’t happened yet—aside from that weird encounter on the sidewalk—but it will, and I’ll handle it with grace.

He’ll never know how my hands tremble when I’m waiting for the elevator, or how my heart pounds when the doors slide open to let me out. In case he might be there.

I hate him.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to avoid a man you hate.

He could have chosen any building in New York City to move into, but….

I lock the front door to the boutique with a vicious wrench of the key, then take in a deep breath of crisp evening air. I appreciated the silence of the apartment all weekend, but now I’m torn. I don’t want to go out, but I don’t want to stay in alone either…especially knowing that he is in my building, just a few stories up…. No. I’m not going to think about it.

On the walk back to my place, I pull my phone from my pocket and text Jess.

Girls’ night in?

She’s rarely in town now that she’s the Queen of Saintland—it sounds fake, but it’s so, so real—and I need to seize the opportunity to hang out with her when I can.

If she’s free, that is. Between her husband and her daughter, she’s probably wrapped up in— Yes!!!! I’ll bring wine!

That’s my girl.

When she arrives at my apartment 40 minutes later, I’ve changed into a pair of black yoga pants and a matching hoodie. Jess, I’m glad to see, has left her formal queenly attire at her hotel suite and worn similar night-in attire, as well.

“Love the outfit!” I say when I open the door, and she twirls around, holding two bottles of wine up above her head.

“It’s like we planned it!” She glances at my hoodie and yoga pants. “You have no idea how much I need this. Every day in Saintland is jam-packed with appearances and formal meetings. I never get to wear yoga pants.”

“Tonight’s your lucky night.” I lead the way into the kitchen to get the corkscrew, then—because why the hell not?—I open both bottles of wine.

Jess claps her hands. “Go big or go home!”

“Popcorn?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

We chat about her daughter, Lillian, while I pop two enormous bowls of popcorn and drown each of them with the ideal amount of butter and special popcorn salt I bought in the Village. We each carry a bowl into the living room, the bottles of wine tucked into the crook of my arm. Jess goes back to the kitchen for the wine glasses. She sets them out on the coffee table, then lets herself fall back onto the sofa, pulling one of my microfleece blankets off the back of the couch and tossing it over our legs.

“Feels like home,” she says, and reaches for the popcorn, stuffing a handful into her mouth.

I lean against the backrest and sigh. “It’s a good place.”

“Totally agree. I’d still live here if it wasn’t for Alec.” Her eyes glimmer when she says his name, and an icy flash stabs me in my chest. I swallow the jealousy with my next sip of wine and concentrate hard on the fact that my friend and former roommate is happy. That’s all that matters, not the fact that Ace Kingsley is an ass.

Jess reaches for the remote like she never left, turns on the TV, and starts flicking through Netflix. We lived together long enough that she doesn’t have to ask me what I want to watch to relax—either a cheesy romantic comedy or an over-the-top action movie will do. She settles on action, some film I’ve never heard of, and turns the volume down low.

For a while, we make dents in the popcorn bowls in relative silence, but then Jess sits up, a gleam in her eyes, and turns so she’s facing me.

“Are you really not going to tell me what happened?”

“What do you mean?” I set my wine glass onto the coffee table.

“Ha!” she says, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Don’t you play dumb with me, missy. Ace Kingsley. You practically ran out of the Swan together the other night.”

I roll my eyes. “Nothing happened.”

“Lies….” She looks up and to the side, above the TV, and waits.

“Fine. I went to his place.”

“To his apartment?”

“To the penthouse at the Four Seasons.”

“Holy shit,” Jess breathes. “That place costs…it must cost….”

“Fifty thousand a night.”

“The country of Saintland wouldn’t pay for the king to stay there!”

“Well, Ace Kingsley thinks of himself as royalty.” The joke comes out bitter, and Jess sends me a look.

“What happened at his place, Carrie?”

“Well…you know.”

“Fine. You don’t have to give me the details. So it ended badly?”

“It ended with him acting like a total prick. The next morning, he started acting like a total douchebag. Said that we shouldn’t ‘do this’ again. And I know for a fact that I’m amazing in bed.”

Jess dissolves into laughter, then straightens herself up, her face struggling to be serious. “So what’s his problem then?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t blue balls.” The wine is making me raunchy, but I don’t care. I’m just glad to have Jess here.

“No chance of that,” she says finally, getting control of herself.