The Billionaire Boss Next Door(63)

He shakes his head and rounds the sofa to take a seat. I watch with barely concealed angst as he makes himself at home on my couch and stretches an arm across the back.

Am I in a parallel universe? Are we friends now?

Like, what is happening here?

I honestly thought he would straight up kill me if he ever found out that I was the burner-phone messenger. But he knows. And I’m still kicking. It’s almost too much to comprehend.

I turn down the volume a little, just to make it easier to hear him.

“I haven’t listened to any of this music since I was a kid,” Trent says. “Junior high, I think. Does that sound right?”

“I don’t know. How old are you now?”

His eyebrows pull together. “I’m your age. Thirty-three. You didn’t know that?”

“No,” I say with a laugh. “How would I?”

He shrugs. “Google. Wikipedia.”

My laughter is so manic, it’s almost scary. “Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot. You’re a billionaire.”

He rolls his eyes and picks at imaginary lint on his knee. “I’m not. My parents are, but I am not.”

I plop onto the couch on the other end and tuck a knee to my chest. “Yeah, but it’ll be yours one day. Same thing.”

He laughs, but let me tell you, I don’t think it’s because he thinks something is funny. It’s scornful and pessimistic in a way that only I, a cynic myself, understand.

“Wow. What’s that reaction all about?”

He shakes his head and pauses, but then speaks anyway. When he does, he makes eye contact, and I instantly feel like my skin is too tight for my body. “My dad isn’t exactly my biggest fan. I was supposed to take over Turner Properties when he retires, but lately, it doesn’t seem like he’s too keen to hand it over to me.”

“Whaaaat?” I screech. “Is he looking for an adoptive daughter to leave it to instead?”

He chuckles and points at me with a wagging finger. “Very funny.”

“You may think it’s funny, but I’m serious. Mama could use a little money cushion. I’m even open to servicing him sexually.”

“Greer.”

“What?” I tease. “Nothing too kinky, probably, but I don’t know… I’m undoubtedly willing to let my morals slip pretty far for a billion dollars.”

“He and my mom are still together.”

“Maybe she likes to watch, Trent. You don’t know. Don’t be so selfish.”

“You’re terrible,” he says, but he says it with a smile.

I shrug as something occurs to me. “Wait a minute. Why don’t I ever hear you?”

“What?”

“In your apartment,” I explain. “You seem to hear me all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard you.”

My phone buzzes on the table, and he nods at it.

I scoff. “No way. Don’t try to distract me with my phone.”

“It could be important.”

“Trust me, the last time something important happened to me was in the 1980s, and it was the moment I was born. Answer me. Why don’t I ever hear you?”

He lifts his shoulders and sighs before chuckling a little. “I don’t know. I’m quiet? I don’t have a TV? I don’t cackle like a hyena? It could be any number of things.”

“I do not cackle!” I protest with a smack to his leg. He looks down at the place I smacked him, and I wallow in my embarrassment.

Oh God, what is wrong with me? Hitting the boss is never a good idea, Greer. Even if there is some kind of weird pseudo-friendly neighbor thing going on.

When he looks up, his grin is a relief.

“You cackle. Trust me. But it suits you.”

“It suits me? Are you saying I look like a person who cackles? Do I have a deformity I don’t know about?”

He shakes his head and reaches out to squeeze my hand.

My fingers feel warm even after he pulls away.

“It just means you have a fun, free spirit. I like that you cackle.”

My breath catches in my lungs, and my brain reels through a number of possibilities for escape. Finally, it remembers that my phone buzzed on the coffee table not long ago.

I reach forward and grab it, clicking on the message from Emory to see what she has to say.

Incognizant of my company, I read it aloud.



Emory: You have a date next week, Tuesday at 7 at La Previe. A guy I know. Wear something revealing.



“Jesus,” I say when I’m done, typing across the keyboard as fast as I can.

Trent leans in and whispers, “What are you saying?”

Normally, I’d keep it to myself, but seeing as he’s already involved, I run it down for him quickly.

“I said, ‘Thanks for the offer, but the chances of me going on a date you set up for me with absolutely no details are about as good as me finding some spare fucks to give. No.’”

“I take it you didn’t know she was trying to set you up.” Trent chortles and sits back in his seat.

“Other than the fact that she’s always trying to set me up? No.”

“I can relate to this dilemma.”

I quirk a surprised brow. “How?”