The Last Eligible Billionaire(11)

My headache is back, and the longer that dog sits there switching between watching her load the dishwasher while she babbles, and gazing at me like it’s a teenage girl and I’m my brother at a movie premiere, the more my sinuses clog up again.

“Give me your phone.”

She pauses in the midst of wetting a rag. “Are you going to make my dog eat it like he did yours?”

For the record, twitching while your head is pounding isn’t enjoyable. “Yes. That will solve everything.”

Her face screws up in irritation. “I’m trying very hard here.”

“And I have a headache, I haven’t slept in two days, and I wanted peace and quiet and to be alone, and this is my house. Give me your damn phone so I can find this damn contract you claim to have so that I know who I have to murder.”

“I don’t have signal, and I—”

“Give. Me. Your. Damn. Phone.”

She closes her eyes, sucks in a very large breath that has her chest rising under her pink shirt, and blows it out like she’s counting to three thousand.

When she opens her eyes again, I swear she’s muttering to herself about wishing it was my brother here instead of me. But she hands me the phone with very controlled movements, like she wants me to know I’m trying her patience, and like she thinks I’ll truly care about where her patience sits when she’s trespassing in my house.

“Does your family know you say damn? That’s not allowed in any of your movies.”

“Unlock it,” I order softly.

She flips it around to her face, swipes up, and then hands it back to me. “If I find out you’re Hayes Rutherford’s doppelg?nger and that you are really the one who’s not supposed to be here, I’ll do something we’ll both regret.”

“Believe me, Ms. Fairchild, if I could be anyone else right now, I would be.”

Her nose wrinkles, and she goes back to attacking the countertops. “Why would you want to be anyone else? You’re financially set, you have a good reputation, your family is lovely, and there’s literally nothing in the world you can’t have.” She lifts a hand. “Yes, yes, except this house to yourself at this exact moment. And no family is ever as perfect as they look on TV. I’m aware. You’re inconvenienced and imperfect. So am I, Hayes. So am I. But I’m rolling with it, and I think you’d be happier if you tried to do the same.”

I connect her phone to the hotspot on mine, which gets weak signal, but signal nonetheless, then order her email to download while she yammers as she flits about the kitchen, continuing to gather dirty dishes and dumping them in the dishwasher, then wiping the counters down.

“How many people did you have over?” I ask.

Her nose wrinkles. “Just me and Marshmallow.”

I eyeball the dishwasher, which is close to full.

“Oh, that.” She flaps a hand at her mess. “It’s been such a long time since I decided where we should eat that I don’t actually know my favorite foods anymore. I’m sampling them all. Do you know I’d never had curry before yesterday? There’s a soup and sandwich shop over in town with a curried chicken salad and it was so good. I’m thinking of offering to do some bussing in exchange for tips and tricks on how to make my chicken salad that good when I go home. I’d never ask for their actual recipe, but if they wanted to share the brand of curry powder they use, or any you should know to never combine these ingredients suggestions, that’s all I need.”

She never stops talking.

And her email is downloading, and dear god, she has three thousand unread messages.

No, four thousand.

No, still going.

She’s not a squatter. She’s an assassin, sent to murder me by making me twitch to death at the sight of her Jesus Christ on a curry sandwich, thirty-four thousand unread messages.

“You need psychological help,” I tell her.

“My therapist said I probably only need to check in every three to six months. She was massively helpful during the divorce. And I still have daily work to do on myself, but I’m up for the hard work, and that’s the important part. Well, that and all the hard work I’ve already done. Scoot over, please, and I’ll get these bread crumbs behind you.”

I shift, glance around, and the disaster that was my kitchen is now a workable space, aside from the dishwasher still hanging open.

The refrigerator’s open again too.

I’m twitching all over again, watching her put my kitchen back to rights. “Could you please make that dog go live outside until I’ve removed you from this house as well?”

She visibly stifles a sigh, then squats and smiles at the dog. “Marshmallow! Go catch a butterfly! Go catch a butterfly, you good boy!”

The dog barks, wags its tail once, and trots to the back door, where it noses the lever, uses a paw to swing the door open, and slips outside.

Begonia makes one last pass through the kitchen, shutting the dishwasher and the refrigerator door. She dusts her hands together, then beams at me. “Coffee while we wait?”

“No.”

“No, thank you, Begonia, but it’s a very kind offer to share your special coffee of the month club coffee with me,” she says, affecting a baritone.

I slowly lift one eyebrow in response.

And Begonia, in what I’m rapidly deciding is true Begonia form, squints at me. “Does your family drink the same coffee that’s served at your theme parks, or do you have, like, a private coffee plantation where you grow and harvest your own? With—what is it? Civets, right? Civets eat the raw coffee beans, then digest them, and when they’re harvested on the other end, they’re super fancy and delicious in a way you wouldn’t think considering what the beans have, erm, been through.”