Beauty and the Billionaire (Billionaire Boys Club #2)(78)

Astonishment crossed his face and his mouth slackened.

“How about you take a long, hard look at that a**hole butler of yours? How about you hire someone who you actually enjoy being around? You’re a wonderful person, Hunter. You’re shy but you’re incredibly giving and thoughtful, and you have a poetic soul under all that muscle. If you’re lonely, it’s because you’ve isolated yourself. You have friends!” she exclaimed. “Your buddies thought you were happy at the dinner party and I saw their faces. They were happy for you. Why can’t you be happy for you?”

And she jabbed him in the chest with her finger again.

Hunter caught her hand. She was momentarily astonished at how warm he was against her cold skin, and longing flared through her. But when he lifted her hand to try and kiss the palm, she wriggled free.

“No, Hunter,” Gretchen said quietly. “I care about you, I really do. But I’m still mad at you.”

“I want you with me, Gretchen. If you can forgive me for what I said, I want you at my side. I just have a hard time believing that someone as perfect as you would want to be with someone like me.” He looked pained at her rejection, his scars stark on his face.

She wanted to kiss him and make him feel better. She wanted to grab him by his tailored lapels and shake some sense into him. So she just shook her head.

“Am I too late?” Hunter asked in a low, intense voice, full of pain. “Is that it? You’ve moved on? To him?”

Gretchen gave him an exasperated look. “I was sad and Cooper was comforting me. We’re just friends. That’s all we’ll ever be.”

“You were sad?” His attention focused on her words. “Why?”

“Why do you think?”

For some reason, his face broke into one of his rare smiles.

And she found herself smiling back at him. “I’m still mad at you.”

“But you’ll forgive me.”

“Not today.”

“Tomorrow, then.” His eyes gleamed with anticipation.

“Maybe not tomorrow. I’m still deciding,” Gretchen told him playfully, and began to walk back to the coffee shop. “You need to make some changes first, though.”

“I will,” he said.

“Good!” she called over her shoulder. “And next time, don’t throw away my roses!”

She didn’t look back as she went inside the coffee shop, but she could have sworn she’d heard him chuckle before she closed the door. A hint of a smile touched her face.

They were good. Sort of. They weren’t great. Hunter needed to come out of his shell. But they were starting in the right direction.

And she smiled.

***

The next day, as Gretchen walked into the coffee shop, she was met by a surprising scene.

Every table was covered in enormous vases full of roses. The interior of the cafe looked more like a florist, and customers were milling around, sniffing the flowers and exclaiming in wonder as they held their lattes.

Every rose was exactly the same color—that icy pale blue-purple that she’d come to associate with Blue Girl. It was the rose she’d told Hunter that she liked the best.

Gretchen unwound her scarf from her neck, feeling warmth throughout her bones. She headed to the counter, unable to stop grinning. She knew who those were from and what they meant.

And while she couldn’t be bought, well, it was a start.

Cooper gave her a relieved look as she arrived. “Thank God you’re here. Did you see this mess?”

“Mess?” she inquired innocently. “I think they’re beautiful.”

“The first delivery showed up a few hours ago, and they’ve been coming in all morning. I think someone bought every purple rose in the entire city.”

“Blue,” she corrected him absently, pulling a long-stemmed rose from one of the vases and smelling it. “They’re blue.”

“Well, there’s no name for the recipient. No sender. Just flowers coming in from every single florist in all of Manhattan. It’s crazy.” He looked frazzled.

Gretchen dragged her fingertips across the bud of the rose, feeling the soft petals and smiling. “I think it’s sweet.”

“I don’t know what to do with all of them.”

“Give them out to customers,” she said, taking scissors and snipping the stem from the rose in her hand and tucking it safely into the pocket of her apron. She’d take this one home tonight.

***

The next day, dozens of yellow roses showed up. The day after that, white roses with pink edges and a delicious scent that was so thick it made her nearly dizzy with delight. The roses never came with a card, but that was okay. Gretchen knew who they were for. Each day, she’d carefully take one of the flowers, wrap it in tissue and tuck it into her apron, and then take it home and press it between the pages of a book, carefully preserving it.

She didn’t work for the next two days, but she still passed by the coffee shop, unable to stop her curiosity.

No roses. For some reason, that made her smile even more broadly. Hunter knew when she was working and made sure the flowers were delivered just for her. That was sweet.

She spent her days off with Audrey, baking, cleaning Audrey’s apartment as payment for letting her live there, and shopping. Her normally capable sister seemed a bit morose and stressed, and Gretchen wondered if Audrey was worried about Daphne. The rest of the family had written off Daphne long ago, but Audrey refused to give up on her twin. Every time Daphne sauntered back into their lives, Audrey was the one who paid the price.