Page 15 of The Elusive Billionaire

So my contingency plan was to drive up here, tell him to unblock me because we do have to coexist now that our best friends are married, and get home before the storm got too bad.

Freaking Mother Nature hates me.

With a sigh, I lift myself off the floor, strip out of my shirt and panties, then use Grey’s body wash to scrub my skin free of the mud that’s caked itself beneath my fingernails, up the crack of my ass, and even in my flipping ears.

It’s like a mudslide rolled down the side of a mountain and deposited it all in front of his house.

Defeated doesn’t begin to cover what I was feeling when he hefted me from my muddy grave. It had been raining so hard I couldn’t see his house, so I had no idea how far I’d gone or how far I had left. The trees lining his ridiculously long driveway gave nothing away either.

I had only planned to rest in the rain and mud for a few moments, but then emotions crawled up from hell and dragged me under in a way I never allow.

Grey and I have never been friends, but I’m grieving the loss of him like a death.

Which doesn’t make any sense. How can it hurt so much to be cut off by the one person who feels more like an enemy than my actual enemies?

The thunder overhead is so loud it shakes the walls of the house, and then the lights flicker, so I hurry through washing. It doesn’t matter if I’m still dirty. It’ll only get worse when Grey tosses me out of here anyway.

I’m under no illusion that he’ll offer me safe harbor during the storm.

“Get out of the shower,” he growls from the doorway. I don’t bother covering myself up. It wasn’t that long ago that he had his mouth on every inch of my body, so it’s not anything he hasn’t seen, and truthfully, the task of getting home is daunting.

My life has spiraled out of control, and I fear that this storm is only the prequel of what’s to come for me. I’m already exhausted by life at thirty years old. That doesn’t bode well for my future.

“A tree behind the house was struck by lightning.” He’s staring at me in the mirror, and somehow, the redirection makes his heated glare sting even more. “I have no idea if it’s true about not showering in a lightning storm, but I’d rather you didn’t die in my home. You haunt my life enough as it is.”

He spins and strides back out the open door.

But I do shut off the water because he’s right.

Typically, I would toss him the middle finger for bossing me around, but he’s also right in his feelings. I did this to whatever fledgling situationship we once had.

It’s my own fault he hates me, so it’s up to me to help us move past this before my life completely and irrevocably implodes.

A large white towel flies into the room, and I frown.

“I was doing laundry,” he barks. “Try not to soak my floors.”

Okay, he’s moved from asshole to dickhead. At least it’s movement, but it’s anyone’s guess if it’s progress or not.

He has the softest towels I’ve ever used, and I bring it to my face with a sigh.

It smells like him, and my stomach clenches with nerves.

I’m not this girl, and the fact that he can make me want to be is even more reason to justify what I’ve done—it was the right thing for the both of us.

He’ll never see it that way, but I know it’s true.

The towel soaks up the excess water from my hair, then I run it all over my skin before dropping it in his hamper and slipping into the clothes he left me. Of course even his lounge wear is designer—this outfit he so casually tossed my way probably cost more than my car payment.

Thank you, childhood insecurities—some remnants of being the poor girl never fade, like how I still notice every piece of clothing I could never afford.

For someone who hates me, he sure goes out of his way to care for me, even now.

When I exit his bathroom, he’s a tight wall of muscle standing in the hallway.

“What do you want?” His left hand balls into a fist while he weaves his lucky coin through the fingers of his right hand.

“First.” My hand falls to my hip, while the pointer on my free hand wags in his direction. He makes me so damn angry. “The weather app said I had four hours before this?—”