Page 1 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

CHAPTER ONE

MILLER

The cuteness of this small town is almost stifling. Like you could choke on the aroma of the bakery’s pink doughnuts, the rose-petal air wafting from the florist, and the salty tang of greasy french fries from the diner.

How people can live in these places where everyone knows everyone’s business, I’ll never understand. Guess it takes a certain type of mentality. One I’ll never have. Give me the anonymity of the beautiful city of Boston where I was born and raised, any day.

I do like two things about this place, though—the sweet scent of freshly sawn wood from the hardware store, and the mouthwatering aroma of roasting coffee beans that draws me toward the café. Well, that and a touch of restlessness from the almost four-hour drive from Boston.

I enter the Bearded Bean—the logo on the door features the outline of a man’s face with extravagant facial hair—and am almost run over by a clearly hassled older woman. I’m guessing she’s the grandmother of the two small kidsshe’s trying to wrangle. One child is in a stroller, banging a toy that sounds like dried beans in a tin can, while the second clings to the woman’s hand, crying. That explains the bucket-sized vessel of something presumably highly caffeinated in the stroller’s cup holder.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” she says, starting to reverse back into the coffee shop to let me in.

“No, no, not at all.” I flatten my back against the door to simultaneously hold it open and let them by.

“Oh, and there you go.” I stoop to pick up a stuffed donkey toy that’s fallen from the storage tray under the stroller and shove it back in.

Me saving a donkey. How ironic.

The kid in the stroller stops bashing her maraca for just long enough to grin at me, and I find myself waggling my fingers at her in a little wave.

“Thanks,” hassled granny says as she passes. “You’re very kind.”

“Not something I’m often accused of,” I tell her with all honesty. “But you’re welcome.”

The clatter of plastic toy-on-stroller fades as I step out of the chilly November air and into the warmth of the coffee shop.

As the door swings closed behind me, I’m transported from the quaint, sleepy town of Warm Springs, Upstate New York, back home to the most hipsterish of hipster hangouts in my Brookline neighborhood.

This place comes fully kitted out with two bearded guys behind the counter. They’re almost identical except that their coiffed hairstyles are parted on opposite sides, which makes them look like a mirror image of each other. Matching black T-shirts and brown waxed canvas barista aprons complete the effect.

The patrons, on the other hand, look like they’re extras in a folksy small-town tourism ad.

Anyway, I’m not here to admire the scenery or become acquainted with the locals. I’m here to get an old man to sell his land to me. Land that I know that Wade Skinner wants to snag even more than he wants to take his next scheming cutthroat breath. It would be the dickbag’s first venture outside the Boston area, the first time he’s extended his tendrils into New York state.

But I intend to beat him to it and make it the first time I’ve ever bested him on a deal.

He hates losing out to anyone. But losing out to me—well, that would fill him with a rage akin to a volcano right before it erupts.

And I cannot wait to see him pop his lid.

It’s taken me seventeen years to find the opportunity to get him back for what he did to us. And today, sweet, sweet revenge shall finally be mine.

But first, coffee.

“What can I get y—” The bearded guy on the left, whose name tag reads Aramis, stops mid-word when his eyes dart to something behind me.

I turn to see what’s distracted him and, frankly, don’t blame him.

The woman is thirtyish, fresh-faced, the tip of her nose pink from the cold, her brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail that hangs forward over one shoulder of a boxy gray, mud-stained jacket. A jacket that’s doing a good job of hiding the fine female form I’d bet my next hundred-million-dollar condo development is under there.

I turn back to Aramis. “Americano, please. Bla?—”

Now it’s my turn to stop mid-wordas he ignores me and walks away, rounding the end of the counter with his arms wide.

“Frankie!” he says, like he’s just seen a long-lost relative, before grabbing the hot muddy chick in the type of hug that suggests they’ve known each other since they were about five.

Frankie stands on the tiptoes of her rubber boots to hug him back.