Page 16 of The Renegade Billionaire

I lower myself to the chair and drop my forehead to the desk. “You realize the entire town will think we’re dating by the end of the day, right?”

He snorts. “Because I asked you how often you’ll be here?”

“Because we want her happy,” Blissy calls out over the rattle of jars as she takes down tea leaves for the day.

“Blissy,” I hiss.

“Sorry, Mads. Happiness means well, but we’re a bunch of talkers. Don’t ever say anything out loud that you don’t want repeated.” Blissy is either blissfully unaware of my embarrassment or she just doesn’t care.

“Truth,” Trevon mutters. Internally I cringe over his own history with the grapevine. His first week here, he let slip that he sometimes watchedBlueybecause it reminded him of his little brother.

Within the hour, the entire town knew, and he heard about it from the stadium stands all season, poor kid.

“S-so,” I slur the word like an idiot. “What are you looking for today?”

The way Braxton traps me in his orbit with only his gaze makes me dream up all kinds of inappropriate answers that he would never, ever say.

Maybe the stress of life has finally gotten to me.

After what I deem to be an eternity, he winks. Freaking winks. Who winks anymore but creepers and peepers and dirty old men? Well, apparently this late-twenties/early-thirties too-handsome-to-be-real man does.

When’s the last time I had sex? That’s the only explanation for my wandering thoughts. It’s been so long I can’t even remember. Maybe we’ll have to girls’ trip it to Charleston soon.

But that will cost money, my inner voice sing-songs.

“Madison?” he says, and then I notice everyone in the Chugaloo is staring at me as if I missed the question more than once.

I bolt upright. “Sorry, what did you say? So, so busy today,” I ramble. “I guess my mind wandered to a to-do task.”

That full, plump lip of his hitches on the right side. “That doesn’t say much about me if I’ve already bored you into a to-do list.”

Humor is written all over his face. It’s a joke. I know it’s a joke, but my cheeks burn as hot as the pits of hell while a flush engulfs my entire body.

“I’m playing with you, Madison.”

“Madi,” I correct.

“Does everyone call you Madi?”

I nod.

“Right. Okay, well, I’ll take the membership please,Madison.” He says my name in a silvery tone that has even Blissy fanning herself behind him.

Good Lord. He’s going to cause me nothing but trouble.

“A membership?” I squeak. “How long are you staying?”

He shrugs one massive shoulder. I’d known he was a large man, probably six foot four, and built, but when he stands here in a straining T-shirt with a red soda can on it and jeans that shouldn’t look that good on him, there’s no denying this man is more than a snack—he’s the whole dang meal.

“As long as it takes,” he says breezily.

“As long as what takes?” I purposefully don’t look at him while typing his name into the computer.

“To find my happy.”

My fingers freeze on the keyboard, and my gaze is laser-focused on the floor six feet in front of me.

He’s looking for his happy.