Page 57 of The Billionaire's Paradise

“Oh, then they’re definitely fucking. You show me a man who shared a bunk bed in college, and I’ll show you a man who’s seen his roommate’s dick more than his own mother’s face.”

I planted my head in my hands. “And now they’re having lunch together. Again! This time at the yacht club. Oh, God! Am I being stupid and paranoid about all this? Why am I so jealous?”

“Because another man—a filthy rich hot man, albeit—is muscling in on your Cal. Listen to me, Matthew. There’s only one thing you can do about jealousy.”

“What?”

“Either put it to rest… or push your husband down the stairs.”

I blinked. “That’s not advice. That’s a crime.”

“Only if you get caught. Now do you want to keep your husband… or let him go? Are you gonna fight for love… or roll over and give in? Are you gonna prove to your man how much you love him… or let some jazillionaire jezebel steal him away from you?”

I felt her words rise in my chest like she was Braveheart. “I’m gonna prove to him how much I love him!”

“Good for you! Now… let’s go spy on them.”

CHAPTER 22

If you’re wonderingwhether Mrs. Mulroney’s plan to “go spy on them” was a joke, I regret to inform you that by noon she had broken into Mr. Banks’s room using a crochet hook and a hairpin, entering like a cat burglar from a 1950s comedy caper and emerging minutes later with a look of glee on her face.

“We need disguises. Thank Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that Mr. Banks came prepared.”

“You went through his things without asking?”

“Indeed, I did,” she said, holding up what looked like the contents of an eight-year-old’s costume box. “I’m guessing the mustache and monocle belong to Monsieur Baguette-Bordeaux, while the feather boa and the eyepatch came out of a shoebox labeled ‘Pirate Jenny.’”

“Pirate Jenny?”

“Now’s not the time to ask questions,” she said, putting on the eyepatch and fling the boa around her neck. “Now sit still.”

“I am not—no—that mustache is not going on my face—”

“Too late. There,” she said, popping the monocle onto my left eye to complete the look. “You’re either about to give someone a library fine or dig up Tutankhamun.”

“We’re not digging up anything.”

“Are you kidding? We’re digging up the dirt on your husband’s affair. Now let’s move—there’s espionage to be done and shellfish to sample.”

Apparently inspired by Mr. Banks’s love for nom de plumes, Mrs. Mulroney made a last-minute reservation at the yacht club under the name Katarina von Kunningsberg.

“We’d like your finest table,” she insisted once we arrived.

“You’ll get ourlast availabletable,” the maître d’ replied, gazing suspiciously at her eye patch.

That table, unfortunately, was also right next to the men’s bathroom.

The minute we sat down, side by side, we lifted our menus to shield our faces.

As I glanced over the top at the room, Mrs. Mulroney glanced at me. “Why on earth are you wriggling your nose like a bunny who can smell the rabbit stew that the farmer’s wife is baking?”

“That’s an unsettling analogy, but if you must know, it’s this damn mustache,” I told her. “It’s tickling my nostrils. I keep thinking there’s a hairy caterpillar on my lip trying to crawl up my nose.”

“Just keep calm. We can’t afford to draw any attention to ourselves.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Countess von Kunningsberg.”

“Just try not to get the flibberty-gibbets like you always do when you’re nervous. We’re here to observe, not to interveneorcause a scene. And remember, Cal is innocent until proven guilty. Chances are there’s nothing going on at all, which would probably be a good thing, because if Cal and Hal became a couple their blended name would be Chal? What kind of a name is that? Unlike Cal’s and your blended name.”