The Last Eligible Billionaire(52)

And, just as expected, she gasps.

“Oh, Hayes, this is beautiful,” she whispers. “Do you get to see this every day?”

To this point in my life, I’ve avoided the corporate offices as much as possible, but I’ve still made this journey often enough that I know what she’s asking. “No. I’m generally working during my commute.”

“No wonder you’re grumpy all the time.”

Nikolay’s lips twitch.

I try to glare at him, and instead, I sneeze all over the dog.

Begonia turns away from the view, cringing. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Marshmallow’s sorry too. For his fur making you sneeze, I mean.”

Marshmallow doesn’t look sorry.

He looks like it’s an honor to wear my snot. The damned dog’s tongue is lolling out as he pants, looking for all the world like he’s flirting with me the same as half the women and at least three men in the snack bar today.

If they’re not kissing my ass because they want to date me—and honestly, why anyone would want to date me is beyond me—then they’re kissing my ass because I have power and money and connections.

Not for the first time in the past few days, I wish I’d been born into a family like Begonia’s.

My nose twists again, and Nikolay silently hands me a handkerchief.

“Oh, wow, look at that fancy house.” Begonia’s staring out the window again. “It’s massive. It’s not a house. It’s—is that a hotel? And the lawn! It’s so green. I know, I know, grass is green, but it’s like—it’s like it glows. It’s preening because it knows it’s the proverbial red carpet for whatever celebrities and CEOs and royals can afford to stay there. And the fountain! When I was little, Hyacinth and I would sometimes check this book out at the library all about the world’s greatest fountains, and we used to tell each other we’d live in gorgeous mansions with fountains in our driveways, but naturally, we didn’t. I don’t think I’d want to. Can you imagine the upkeep on a fountain? And it’s not like a fountain like that would’ve fit at summer camp, and I wanted to live at summer camp more.”

She spins, beaming at me, and her smile drops away.

I have no idea what my face looks like, but I do know one thing.

Begonia’s just realized that the hotel she’s gaping at isn’t a hotel.

It’s Sagewood House.

And where every last one of my former girlfriends would’ve fussed over its beauty, none would’ve quite like Begonia.

And none would be having second thoughts.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve known her a little more than a week. I can see the second thoughts.

“I’m gonna need a minute,” she squeaks.

“It’s a house, Begonia.”

“Chad’s company had a holiday party at the fanciest hotel in Richmond one year, and there were passing servers with cocktail weenies on trays, and he got so mad at me when I called them cocktail weenies, and said he didn’t want to take me places when the hired help outclassed me.”

My first assignment for my new assistants will be to find Chad’s address so that I can personally go beat the shit out of him.

I’m a damn Rutherford. We don’t beat the shit out of anyone. We watch a fucking Razzle Dazzle film and hug.

But I will beat the ever-loving shit out of Chad Douchecanoe Dixon for making Begonia feel inferior for merely being who she is.

“Begonia.”

She doesn’t look at me.

“Begonia.”

I get a squinty-eyed cringe. “Yes?”

“It would be the highlight of my life if you were to ask my mother to serve you cocktail weenies while we’re at Sagewood House.”

She flaps a hand about. “Sorry. I’m being ridiculous. It’s because I’m tired. If I wasn’t—”

“I would rather be back in Maine too.”

Her eyes finally connect with mine, and it’s like watching a puzzle click into place. She nods, and she probably has no idea just how regal that simple action is on her. “Okay. One more adventure.”

“Sagewood House is a home. Feel free to treat it as such, regardless of how it looks.”

I’ve said many, many things to Begonia that I never would’ve said to another girlfriend. And I don’t think it’s the non-disclosure agreement and the fraudulent nature of our relationship insulating me from having to mean it, though I do mean it.

I think it’s that she’s Begonia.





20





Begonia



My fake boyfriend’s house has a helipad and looks like a museum from the outside—and I assume on the inside too—and I’m trying to embrace someday, I’ll tell my great-nieces and nephews about the time I had an adventure pretending to date a billionaire and sleeping in his mansion, but I might be hitting overwhelm for one day.

So when Nikolay opens the sixteen-foot-tall front door and gestures us into the marble-floored, crystal-chandeliered entryway after our short limo drive from the helipad to the circle drive and portico, and voices well up somewhere deeper in the house, beyond the curved staircase, I whimper.

Hayes looks as exhausted as I feel. There are bags under his eyes that I won’t be pointing out, and his shoulders are drooping, which I also won’t be pointing out. But he pulls them back, glances in the direction of the voices, and then nods to Nikolay. “Take Begonia to my quarters, please.”