Stranded with a Billionaire (Billionaire Boys Club #1)(61)

“Oh, wow. That’s fascinating.”

Audrey shrugged. “Some days she seems to like it. Some days she seems to hate it. I suppose it depends on who she’s working with.” When the subway announced their stop, she grinned and gestured at the door. “This is us.”

They walked a few blocks to an older apartment building. Audrey jogged up the steps and pushed the call button.

“Who is it?”

“It’s your sister. Open up. I got you a roomie.”

The door buzzed, and Audrey grabbed the handle, motioning for Bront? to enter. Bront? followed Audrey up four flights, the suitcase getting heavier with each step. One of the apartment doors was open by the time they got to the top of the stairs, and a woman who looked just like Audrey was looking at both of them curiously. She was tall, her form hidden by baggy clothing. Unlike Audrey’s pale orange hair, this woman’s was a fiery dark red, and she had the brows and pale skin to match.

“How’d you find me a roommate?” The other woman crossed her arms over her chest, looking suspicious.

Audrey put her arm around Bront?’s shoulders, tugging her close and beaming. “Bront?, this is my sister, Gretchen. Gretchen, Bront?.”

Gretchen studied Bront? with one raised eyebrow. “Bronty like . . . brontosaurus?”

“Like Charlotte Bront?,” she replied.

“I knew that. I was just f**king with you.” Gretchen adjusted square, thick-rimmed nerd glasses on her nose. She was the epitome of a writer on a deadline: Her red hair was pulled into a disheveled bun, her face was devoid of makeup, and she wore a pair of dark yoga pants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt that seemed a size too big for her. “So you want to be my roomie? You haven’t even seen the place.”

“Bront? here just broke up with her boyfriend and needs a place to stay for a few weeks.”

Gretchen flashed an annoyed look at her sister. “I need a permanent roommate, not a temporary one.”

“Yes, but Bront?’s willing to pay half of the rent this month, and she can’t stay with me because the boyfriend she broke up with happens to be my boss.”

Gretchen’s eyes widened, and she looked at Bront? like she was crazy. “Isn’t he rich?”

“Too rich,” Bront? said defensively. “He’s let it go to his head.”

The writer blinked behind her glasses. “Huh. Well, come take a look at the place.”

The apartment was small but cheerful, with plants on the windowsill and bookshelves lining the living room. A computer desk covered in paper and books sat at the far end of the apartment, and more books covered the countertops in the kitchen. Bront? immediately liked it, of course. “How many bedrooms?”

“Two,” Gretchen said, brushing past and opening the door to the bedroom down the hall. “It’s not very big.”

That was an understatement. The room was the size of her closet back home, but there was a narrow bed against the wall and a small dresser, which was really all she needed. “Looks good to me,” she said. “I probably will only be staying until the end of the month, though. I still have an apartment back in Kansas City.”

Gretchen shrugged. “I won’t take down my want ads, then. I do have to warn you about one thing.”

“Oh?”

“I have a pet. His name is Igor.”

“He’s hideous,” Audrey said flatly.

“He is not!” Gretchen opened her bedroom door and picked a small lump up off of the corner of the bed and held it out to Bront?. “He’s just a cat.”

Igor blinked enormous eyes at Bront?. Gretchen’s cat was hairless, apparently. It looked like a nak*d rat, if she was honest with herself. The thing had long, spindly legs and wrinkly gray skin. Enormous triangle ears jutted from the tiny, pointy face, and it stared up at her with wide golden eyes and then meowed.

Bront? laughed at the sight of him.

“Well, that’s a better reaction than the last potential roomie,” Gretchen said. “Welcome aboard.”

***

Bront? curled under the blankets of her new temporary apartment. The bed was narrow and uncomfortable, with a spring sticking into her lower back, and she was pretty sure she could hear someone talking on the other side of the wall.

She got out of bed and padded over to the small window of her room, pushing it open a crack. It eased open only about two inches, just enough to let the sounds of the street below carry into the room.

The apartment wasn’t glamorous, but Gretchen seemed nice, and Bront? still had a curious fascination for New York. Being here in the apartment felt a bit like hiding from reality. Back home, she’d have to deal with the fact that she’d slept with the boss and then broken up with him. But for now? She could hide away in this tiny room with a bunch of expensive clothes that would do her no good, a jillion books, a hairless cat, and a writer who was, even at two in the morning, seated at her computer and working frantically on her manuscript. It still felt a bit like an escape.

She’d left the diamond necklace behind, too. She supposed she could have sold it for rent money, but that would have been . . . painful. And unfair. And somehow wrong. It seemed to symbolize their relationship, and she couldn’t have sold it. She just couldn’t have.

Bront? wondered if Logan would be looking for her. She hugged her knees close, a stab of pain in her heart. The night before she’d been curled in his arms, deliciously sated after a round of incredible, blissful sex. He’d pulled her close and hugged her against him, his fingers playing over her skin as she drifted off to sleep, and she’d thought that she’d never been held so tenderly.