Page 25 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

But maybe I don’t even know who I am anymore. Yesterday, I would have said I am definitely not someone who would have made the decisions I made today or be voluntarily spending time doing any of the things I am currently doing.

ME

Thanks. And very funny. Tomorrow please send someone to pick up my car. I’ll be here for a whileand won’t need it.

BROOKE

Will do. But NO MORE TEXTS TONIGHT.

As I stand up to get undressed and try to make the best of this sleeping situation, car headlights sweep across the window.

Must be Frankie home from visiting with her grandpa.

I turn off the small lamp she gave me that’s sitting on the old dresser next to my cot, then peer around the edge of the window, keeping most of my body out of sight.

Yup, there she is, stepping down from the old truck. She flicks her hair out of her face as she skips across the path to the house.

And I unbutton my shirt, wondering what she sleeps in.

CHAPTER NINE

FRANKIE

Thelma yawns, stretches and adjusts her position on the kitchen windowsill to ensure maximum sunbeam exposure.

Oh, to be a cat with zero responsibilities and worries.

I push my empty oatmeal bowl to the side, pick up my tea and look over the summary of bad news that Paige sent me yesterday.

She’s absolutely right—the only logical, dispassionate decision is to sell to the developer that seems the least evil. But this place is all about the passion. All about the meaning. Yes, I’m sure we could move the unadoptable donkeys to other sanctuaries, but they’re all such delicate souls and would be affected by being ripped from their home. And I know what it’s like to have this place feel like your home.

Surely I can leverage my skills to get more regular donor money flowing in than Grandpa has ever been able to. I mean, the website hasn’t been updated for years, and the last activity on the social media accounts was elevenmonths ago. Not that anyone would have seen any new posts because the follower count is so low and the engagement almost zero.

If I crank out the most amusing and interesting content I can over the next few weeks, maybe I can start to turn them around. I mean, having an account based around cute animals has to be easier than getting people excited about nightstands, and I can do that blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back.

In fact, if I can revive the dead sanctuary accounts, rather than my time here hurting my chances of getting the VP position back in Chicago, it might actually help. It could show I’m not just a one-trick pony—or donkey.

It’s just over a week to Thanksgiving, but if I could cobble together an open day event that weekend to coincide with Small Business Saturday, while everyone still has relatives in town they want to get out of the house, and combine it with a big push on fundraising and volunteer recruitment, maybe I could make a good start on rolling the boulder up the hill. Then I could go back to Chicago leaving Grandpa to just topple it down the other side and everything will be fine.

I shove all sense of logic that no such efforts could ever be that successful that quickly out of my head. I have to try. I abso-fucking-lutely have to try.

Screw those developers.

Aside from Grandpa’s reasons for wanting to keep it, I’m sure the people of Warm Springs would rather have the sanctuary here than row upon row of cookie-cutter townhomes.

Movement outside catches my attention, and I gaze over Thelma’s outstretched body to see what is, objectively, a virtually perfect male form opening the door tothe shed, disappearing inside, and reemerging with a shovel and a bucket.

I leave my chair and move toward the window, drawn to get as close a look as possible.

Miller seems like he might be as beautiful on the inside as he is on the outside. I mean, anyone who’s willing to use their spare time to give back to animals can’t be all bad, right?

I’d let out all the donkeys as soon as I got up. That’s always my routine when I’m here. The alarm goes off at six-thirty, I put on clothes—or sometimes just muck boots and coat over my pajamas—and head straight out to open their doors so the animals can come and go as they please.

Miller heads to the mini donkeys’ enclosure first—maybe he thought he’d start with the smaller poops and work his way up. The way he’s fumbling with the rope loop makes it look like he’s never opened a single farm gate in his life.

What the hell is his story?

He’s quite the fascinating and mysterious character.