Page 4 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

Frankie follows. Turns out her shapeless jacket is just annoyingly long enough to cover her butt.

Atticus moves posters and business cards around to clear a space in the center, then Frankie pins up her Get Your Ass Down Here! flyer.

I have to put my hand over my mouth to prevent my chuckle being audible. Got to admire someone who can come up with a pun like that.

She reaches up and, ah yes, the jacket rises just enough to reveal that the jeans that are loose around her legs are most definitely not loose around her ass. Wow.

I take a sip of coffee, even though my nervous system does not need another jolt right this second.

Frankie gives Aramis another quick hug with a promise to catch up whenever she gets a minute and heads out the door, waving and smiling—the real sunbeam smile, not the one from the corporate photo.

Well, fuck.

This was supposed to be a quick trip. A one and done. I planned to be driving home tonight with the signed purchase and sale agreement on my back seat.

But I didn’t rise from nothing to become Boston’s Condo King without being resourceful. Without being able to think on my feet, and pivot, and do whatever the hell needs to be done to get the deal.

Christ, if I made myself go on that wilderness camping weekend with a guy I wanted to buy land from, I’ll do anything—those two days are seared in my mind. Everywhere was filthy, I couldn’t keep the bugs offanything, and we had to dig our own toilet. But I did it anyway. And got the land. Which is now home to a thirty-two-floor building with an indoor-outdoor pool. And my bank account is healthy by multimillions because of it.

To get my much more valuable long-awaited revenge on Wade Skinner I’d fashion a flying machine to take me to the sun and back if I had to. So a one-woman donkey-sanctuary-defender is nothing.

It might take longer than the few hours I was expecting to spend here, though. But it’ll be worth it. What Skinner did to my family has been eating me alive, like an infestation of termites in a wood-framed house, for seventeen years. Ripping off my parents and almost leaving us without a roof over our heads is an unforgivable crime. I promised myself if I can get him back once, just once, prevent him from getting what he wants just once, I’ll consider it a job well done and let it go, shed the weight from my shoulders, the gnawing in my gut, and move on with a lighter step.

My phone buzzes again.

BROOKE

The supplier doesn’t have enough toilets for the Pinnacle Residences. Project manager wants to know if he can source others to make up the difference. I told him you’d say no, that you want them all to match. But he insisted I ask. So…

ME

Goddamned right they all have to match. Tell him to shove a rocket up the supplier’s ass to get enough of the original choice made in time.

You feeling ok today, btw?

Brooke is pregnant and threw up in the wastebasket by her desk yesterday.

BROOKE

Much better thanks. Hubby got me half a dozen doughnuts for breakfast and that did the trick.

ME

Whatever keeps you working.

BROOKE

My ever-caring boss.

Man, I hope she comes back after maternity leave. Maybe I should offer to pay her childcare bill.

But that’s a problem for when I’m back in Boston. For after I’ve seen Wade Skinner’s face when I rip up his contract for this land he wants oh-so-fucking-badly and tell him it’s mine.

I stride across the café to the noticeboard where a middle-aged woman is perusing its contents while sipping from a thermos mug that has a tea bag string dangling from it.

While she’s scrutinizing a notice about a knitting competition, I snatch the donkey volunteer flyer from its pin.

She jumps a little, startled by the sound, and turns to me.