The Billionaire Next Door (Billionaire Bad Boys #2)(9)

“Well, he did ask if I was Oliver’s niece.”

“Also plausible.” Bree leaned against the back counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “What’d you say?”

“I told him the truth. I wasn’t, and Oliver was one of my regulars.”

Bree offered a shrug; then her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. This time when she laughed, she slapped her thigh.

“What?” Rachel watched her reaction, completely perplexed.

“Your ‘regular’ what?” Bree was still grinning.

“My regular customer,” Rachel answered, making the duh face.

“Yes, honey, here the term regular makes sense.” Bree dropped a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “But in the hallway of a ritzy apartment with you looking cute and sexy-frumpy…”

“Sexy-frumpy? I don’t even know what that is.”

“He thought you were Oliver’s hot mama.”

“Eww!”

Bree laughed again. “Stranger things have happened.” She walked to the other side of the bar, but Rachel stood frozen.

Was that what he’d thought? That Oliver was one of her…clients?

Don’t blue-ball the guy…

A minute later, Rachel said goodbye to Bree, who greeted a group of guys at the bar and waved, then hailed a cab back to her temporary home.

On the ride there, she thought about Oliver’s gargantuan neighbor, how warm and hard he’d felt. How obscenely good-looking he was despite the fact he had a mane of hair. Which she did not like, by the way. Some girls had a type, and she was one of those girls. She liked guys who dressed smart, not necessarily suit-and-tie, but fashionable. She liked men who had ambition. She liked men who knew how to live the good life. Drank espresso. Cared about thread count.

As she made the mental list of qualities she liked in a man, they added up to Shaun. Which started to make her sad, then morphed to anger. Anger was a better emotion. Better to be pissed at Shaun than go down the rabbit hole of unanswered questions.

Why didn’t he put me first? Why wasn’t he sorry? Why did I ever introduce him to my parents?

Nope. No good answers lay down that route.

But she could stoke the flames of a current anger. The one where the long-haired upstairs neighbor basically assumed she was a prostitute. Just because she was staying in Oliver’s apartment and just because she kept late hours was no reason for the guy to assume the worst about her.

Who did that jerk think he was? She felt her lip curl; then an idea hit her.

She rapped on the glass separating her and the cabbie and gave him a different address. “I need to make a quick stop and then back to Crane Tower, please,” she instructed. Rachel was sure Bree wouldn’t mind if she raided her closet. It was for a good cause.

The mountain man thought she was a lady of the night?

Well, then that’s what she’d give him.

*



Beer in hand, Tag turned down the music and jogged for his cell phone, plugged in on the other side of his house. He loved the space, loved that he had room to move. At six-five bordering six foot six, he was used to ducking for doorways and bumping into walls in an effort to navigate in a smaller man’s world.

Here he had all the space he needed.

“Tag,” he answered, even though he’d already seen his father’s name on the caller ID.

“How’s it coming?”

His mouth twisted. Ever since the board mentioned struggling bar profits, Dad had been up his ass. Despite being retired, Alex Crane made it his business to know what was going on.

“My day?” Tag asked, playing dumb. “It’s coming along nicely. I cracked open a beer and was about to settle in and watch television.”

“Taggart.”

He ground his teeth together. Could he hate his full name any more? Not possible.

“I’m talking about the bars,” Alex said.

“I know.” Tag took a long pull from his beer bottle and glanced over at the plans he’d drawn up. He used the word plans loosely, considering he hadn’t done much more than scribble with red Sharpie on top of printed photos. Still, he had some good stuff going on. “I’ve been working on it all day, Dad. You suck at being retired, by the way.”

Alex laughed, a comforting raspy sound. “Rhona says the same thing to me all the time.”

A warm female voice trilled in the background and Alex laughed again. Tag’s neck prickled. Rhona had been his father’s personal assistant for years. Hell, decades, now. But lately, he’d been mentioning her more. She’d been around more.

Tag’s mom had been gone since he was eleven, but he still felt territorial over his father. He’d have to ask Reese if he’d noticed anything. No, scratch that, he’d ask his brother’s fiancée, Merina. Reese was a goose egg on figuring out people, but Mer had more intuition than all the Crane brothers put together.

“I ask because I wanted to give you Howard Schiller’s contact info.”

“Dad, I know Howard.” Howard Schiller was the architect who had designed at least a dozen of Crane’s interiors. It wasn’t as if Tag lounged at the pool when he did site and build visits. He put on a hard hat and met with developers. “I have his contact info.”

“Then why aren’t you using him?”