The Last Eligible Billionaire(2)

This is a nose-tickle of perfume. Given the increasing volume of the echoing music—is that “I Will Survive”?—and the yowling to go along with it, I don’t believe I’m about to find my property manager here taking advantage of my absence to live it up.

While I’m hardly an expert on the man, I’m positive he’s not the girl power song type.

Which means I’m about to find my squatter in the bathroom.

I make my way down the hallway to my suite and gently press the latch. The door swings easily and soundlessly as I push it open, revealing another disaster of clothing strewn about my bedroom and increasing the volume of the singing drastically. Two bras dangle off the mirror over my armoire. A box of tampons sits open on the floor outside the bathroom door. Four pairs of muddy shoes are scattered about the floor, perilously close to the Turkish rug beneath my bed.

But the mess is nothing compared to the singing.

Dear god, the singing.

There’s not a human in my bathroom. There’s a hyena stuck in the awkward stage of puberty, sucking down a helium balloon, and then letting it all go in an off-key rendition of the world’s worst karaoke song.

Not helping the headache.

Not helping the bone-deep exhaustion from the travel to get here stealthily.

Not helping my desire to be completely alone, away from the world, away from scheming socialites and my mother and wedding cakes and funeral flowers and the weight of generations’ worth of expectations that have landed squarely on my shoulders now that I’m not only the new chief financial officer of my family’s company, but also, rather quickly and unexpectedly, the final unmarried male billionaire under the age of eighty-three on this entire planet.

You’d think being nearly forty would give me all the freedom I need to tell anyone meddling in my personal life to fuck off, but my family’s fortune started with children’s cartoons in the 1950s and has continued with family-friendly movies, television shows, streaming networks, amusement parks, and branded merchandise, with most of us still front and center as the modern family of dreams.

We’re the very pillar of perfection.

The Rutherfords do not engage in scandalous behavior publicly, even mild infractions involving a slip of the tongue, no matter how much I’d like to climb the Brooklyn Bridge and let out a massive fuck some days.

And if I think my relatives’ attempts to introduce me to dozens of women who will be the next woman of my dreams is irritating, it’s nothing compared to the brow-beating I’d get for not living up to the family name.

The song changes, and my squatter launches into an off-key accompaniment to “thank u, next.”

It is too damn early for Ariana Grande and her lovely voice on-key.

Forget a pubescent over-heliumed hyena off-key.

I take two steps farther into my bedroom and spot my intruder through the crack in the bathroom door. Three more steps, and I can clearly see her.

In a manner of speaking.

Her hair is wrapped in a deep blue towel, my black silk robe dangles from her shoulders, her face is coated in green something, and she has one leg propped on the edge of my elegant tub, where she’s— Dear god, tell me she is not doing what I think she’s doing.

She wails along with the lyrics that I frankly can’t understand, and also which don’t seem to be lyrics that should be wailed, while she gives a hard yank that momentarily interrupts the singing as she yelps in pain.

She is.

She’s waxing her bikini line with one foot perched at the edge of my marble soaking tub.

While wearing my robe.

The very audacity of this woman.

Invading my home.

Leaving litter and dirty dishes and soiled clothing on every available surface.

Disregarding all respect for cheesecake.

And standing in my bathroom, grooming herself while ruining already questionable songs.

This ends.

Now.

I step through the open doorway, ready to toss her over my shoulder and then off the balcony. “What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”

She spins, screams, and then, with ninja-fast reflexes, grabs an industrial-size bottle of shampoo, also from the edge of my tub, and hurtles it at my head.

“Stop!” I order.

“Intruder!” she yells over the infernal music. “Marshmallow! Attack!” She grabs a towel and flings it at me too.

I dodge it easily, though my weary body would prefer this was unnecessary. “Stop.”

For the love of every Razzle Dazzle film ever made, why did I finally choose today to ditch my security team?

Her robe—my robe—is gaping open, revealing creamy skin, lush breasts, and half-waxed not going there, but her state of undress doesn’t stop her from diving across the bathroom to my vanity, where she grabs a tube of toothpaste and throws that at me too. “Thief! Murderer!”

I take three steps toward her, and an electric toothbrush comes flying my way. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Help!” she yells. “Marshmallow!”

I swat aside a flung box. What the fuck is marshmallow?

Is she kinky? Is it her safe word?

Does she think I’m a stripper? Or a paid companion?

And I thought this couldn’t get worse.

She grabs the towel stand that sits in the middle of the vanity, but I reach her and wrestle it out of her grip before she can send that flying also, snagging her hands to keep them from causing more damage.