Page 47 of Her Billionaire Boss

“Are you sure you’re going to want to marry into this family someday?”I asked.He smiled back at me.Ishook my head and closed my eyes.“Okay.Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

(Matthew)

Though their parents were shockingly cool about the food poisoning, Charlotte and Scott would not let it go.

“I don’t think so, Lucretia Borgia.”He tried to swipe the beer bottle from my hand before I could pop the top off, but I dodged him.

“Well, look who watches educational television.”I tossed him the opener and gave the bottle a shake before handing it over.Charlotte, I understood, since she’d suffered the effects, but Scott was living on borrowed time with his nonsense.

“Dick.”He opened it, anyway, clamping his mouth over the top to catch the foam that rocketed out, the way he would have done when we were still in college.

“Yeah, just splash that all over my floors.”It wouldn’t do any more damage than all that lube on the staircase had.But the lube had given Charlotte another million-dollar idea: a cleaning service that specifically handles sex party clean-ups.

R&D were looking into it.

“I gotta tell you, man, this is exactly what I needed.”Scott wiped foam off his chin.

“To get away from it all, for free, with much nicer lodgings than any hotel you could afford?”

“That.Exactly that.”He dropped onto the sofa and picked up his controller.

“It’s nice to relax with a game and put my feet on the coffee table,” I said, reaching for one of the controllers on the charger.I tossed it to Scott.“Your battery is nearly dead.”

“Does Charlotte not allow you to play video games?”Scott asked, and the incredulity in his voice probably came from knowing the hard limit I set on my relationships in regard to “me time.”

But it wasn’t that Charlotte had forbidden me or anything.I liked being around her way too much to pay attention to anything else.

Which I wouldn’t mention to Scott, because he would immediately remind me that it was a relationship red flag for me.

So, I shrugged and said, “She doesn’t have a problem with it.We’ve been busy with work.”

“Busy with work.”Scott stared me down as he took another swig of beer.

“Yes.Turns out, your sister is a fucking asset.She’s had two hugely marketable ideas already that we’re going to implement.”Why did I feel like I was defending her?

“That’s what dad said.But I thought he was talking her up to be supportive dad.”Scott turned the controller on and connected it.

“Is that a thing that your parents did?”I asked, dropping onto the other end of the couch.

“Did?”He snorted.“Try present tense.Charlotte could burn down a post office and they would brag about how their daughter was a political activist.”

“Overcompensating, huh?”That wasn’t news to me.Charlotte had mentioned before that her parents were almost toxic with their support, and it was something she discussed often in therapy.

“I’m glad she’s doing something she’s good at,” Scott said, cautiously adding, “at a job she won’t lose if she quits fucking the boss?”

“Hey!”I barked in warning.“That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.And of course, I won’t fire her if we break up.Did you not hear me say she had amazing ideas?”

“If I didn’t make sure she would be looked after in the event of a worst-case scenario, what kind of brother would I be?”He hit the button to join an online game.

“Shit, I wasn’t ready.”I scrambled for my controller and shot him an, “asshole.”

We happily mowed down enemy combatants over the internet for a long silence broken only by things like, “On your left.Your left!”or “Are you kidding me?”

Until Scott said quietly, “How’s Catherine?”

“How the fuck should I know?”escaped me before I could piece together all the reasons I should probably have been gentler.“I mean—”