The Last Eligible Billionaire(31)

Silence settles behind me.

All except Marshmallow making a whimper that suggests he’s caught in the crossfire of a glaring contest.

Don’t turn around, Begonia. Do not turn around and do not drop the sugar and do not move if you want to live.

Hayes breaks the silence while I stand frozen, a tablespoon of sugar hovering over his coffee. “Begonia and I will join you in New York early next week.”

Paris and New York? I’m so startled, I drop the full heaping tablespoon into his coffee. The metal clatters against the ceramic, making me cringe.

No way to hide when you’re clanging spoons in coffee mugs.

“Next week?” Giovanna says.

“I’m fully equipped to telework from here while I learn my new role this week,” he says over my muffled squeak of surprise. “And then I get to spend the weekend with Begonia without you.”

“Hayes—”

“I want time alone with my girlfriend. Go away.”

I’m tipping the creamer into his coffee when he slips behind me, puts an arm around my waist, and kisses my neck.

My nipples leap fully erect and my vagina asks if it’s playtime and I spill cream on the counter.

I could pretend this is popping my post-divorce cherry if I hadn’t actually asked him that out loud.

Hayes covers my hand with his, guiding the creamer container back to safety. “Thank you, bluebell. Just the way I like it.”

“Wait,” I gasp, way more panty and needy than I would prefer to sound in front of his mother. “Cinnamon first.”

I knock over the paprika and the oregano in the small spice rack on the counter in my lunge for the cinnamon, but I pull myself together, unscrew the lid, and sprinkle the right amount of cinnamon into the top of his coffee.

“Hayes doesn’t take cinnamon in his coffee, dear,” Giovanna says.

“He’s trying my favorite since I couldn’t shut up about it,” I say at the exact same time Hayes replies, “Begonia insisted it’s delicious, and she’s right.”

Oh my god.

We’re on a fake-relationship-wavelength.

And he’s still pressing his body to my back, one arm still looped around my waist, making me want to suck my stomach in.

I asked him to have sex with me and now he’s touching me.

I have to talk to Hyacinth.

Like, now.

“Remember, darling, you promised no tomatoes in those eggs,” Hayes murmurs into my hair, loud enough for his mother to think he’s whispering sweet nothings but soft enough for only me to hear exactly what he’s saying.

I think.

“Making you happy is my favorite thing in the world,” I reply, louder for our audience.

It’s a Razzle Dazzle line. It’s a total Razzle Dazzle line. Not long after we turned twenty-one, Hyacinth and I had a weekend of bingeing as many of our favorite Razzle Dazzle films as we could fit into two and a half days, and drinking every time a main character said the line.

We weren’t falling-down drunk at the end of the first ten-hour marathon, but we’d gone through more vodka shots than we thought we would. And I have no idea if they still use it, but as of about ten years ago, they’d used it plenty.

“If only I didn’t have to work today,” Hayes replies, and I almost choke on air.

That might be the second-most common line ever recited in a Razzle Dazzle film. At least six scenes have flashed through my head with various actors on various sets.

And is that—is that a twinkle in Hayes’s eyes?

No.

I’m imagining it.

He reaches for the coffee mug and takes a sip.

And if it weren’t for the way half his face twitches before he turns and lifts the mug in his mother’s direction, I’d swear he was being completely honest when he says, “Delicious. I’ll never drink coffee another way again. Mother. Pack your bags. You can stay for brunch, and then you’re leaving by two. I’ll book your ferry myself.”

He stalks out of the room like that’s that, no room for argument, and I catch myself rolling my eyes.

But not before Giovanna catches me too. “So he’s not your first boyfriend who likes to issue orders?” she murmurs.

“He’s a man.” I sigh heavily. “We have to put up with the ego to get the rest of them.”

She blinks at me once, and then Giovanna Rutherford laughs.

And not just any laugh.

This laugh comes with a snort.

And a fart.

I am not kidding.

Giovanna Rutherford, Jonas Rutherford’s mom, matriarch of the world’s most perfect family, billionaire in her own right, just laughed so hard that she farted.

Hayes pauses, jerking his head in her direction as she covers her mouth and pretends she didn’t fart. “Oh, goodness. Snort-laughing doesn’t happen often, does it?” she says.

I don’t know if I’m nodding or shaking my head. Somewhere in between, definitely. We’re just gonna pretend that little fart didn’t happen.

“Giovanna? Are you okay?” Amelia floats into the kitchen on a pillow of gilded perfection—okay, she’s walking, but it’s like she’s trained in the art of walking like you’re floating on a cloud-pillow—and her brows are perfectly arched like she’s both amused and concerned.