Page 40 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

FRANKIE

The soup trembles in the ladle as I scoop it out into the mismatched array of containers that I’ve laid out on the counter. It feels good to know there’ll be a whole load of ready-made, healthy food for Grandpa once I’ve left.

What doesn’t feel so good is knowing Miller is just on the other side of that wall standing under the water I can hear running. Andwhydoesn’t it feel good? Because it’s not right that I can’t stop myself from imagining him all naked and soapy.

There’s no room in my mind for naked and soapy thoughts. One hundred percent of my brain cells need to be engrossed in getting long-term ongoing donations that will keep this place going and mean we don’t have to sell.

So what the hell is wrong with me? What on earth possessed my mouth to ask Miller if he wanted to stay for dinner?

Well, apart from the fact that he’s interesting and amusing company. And not exactly unpleasant to look at.

And I couldn’t very well just leave him to fend for himself for dinner when he was so massively helpful with the hay bales.

Man alive, I swear that watching Miller’s thighs and arms power him up and over that fence, then toss the bales over into the back of the truck, made me feel like the universe had singled me out for a very special show.

But an interesting glimmer into his life emerged—he climbed at a gym in Boston, which means he had a regular place he went to, which means he had a pretty settled life before he decided to go on the road looking for a new place to live. So what would have prompted him to leave? Is he running away from something? Or am I overthinking this? Probably.

The gushing water on the other side of the wall comes to an abrupt halt.

He must be toweling himself off now.

Stop it, Frances Maria Channing. Stop it.

My brain’s use of my full name gives me goose bumps. No one’s called me that since Grandma. When I was a kid it meant I was in trouble. Later, it was because she was feigning outrage over a story I was telling her about college shenanigans.

And I remember, crystal clear, the final time she said it. I was standing at this very stove scrambling some eggs for her breakfast when she said, “Frances Maria Channing, no granddaughter of mine would ever dream of scrambling eggs without a glug of half-and-half in them.”

My scrambled eggs have been graced with a glug of half-and-half ever since.

Sometimes these memories tighten my throat. But, as time goes on, they more often bring a smile.

“Well, that feels a million times better.” Miller emergesfrom the bathroom, a cloud of steam billowing out behind him, making him look like a god emerging from…wherever it is gods emerge from.

He’s now wearing the designer jeans he had on when he first showed up here.

Since his singed new boxers are still drying on the shelf, he’s either rewearing his preshower undies (which I’d imagine he’s not, because he seems to be fastidious about personal hygiene) or else there’s nothing between…um…him…and that snug denim.

Is it the steam from the soup that’s making me hot?

His top half is dressed in one of the plain white T-shirts we picked up at the Tractor Trunk. And he can’t have fully dried himself off because it clings to his pecs in a couple of damp spots.

He pushes his hands through his glossy wet hair, leaving tracks in it, and gives me a sparkling smile.

Soup spills from the ladle, misses the container I was aiming for and slops onto the counter. “Shit.”

“Let me,” he says, putting his neatly folded pile of dirty clothes on a chair and heading my way.

He rips a couple of sheets of paper towel from the roll and, standing as close to me as possible without actually touching me, mops up the spill between the grid of open containers.

My pulse immediately responds to his proximity, to the heat radiating from him, to the knowledge that if I leaned just a little my arm would brush against the powerful bicep peeking out from his sleeve, to the scent of my lavender-and-vanilla body wash on him that sends my eyes drifting shut before I catch myself.

“Thanks,” I say, as he scrunches up the soup-soaked paper towel and tosses it intothe trash. “I’ll leave these out to cool, and you and I can have the rest.”

I go to open the cabinet to get bowls but reel my arm back in when I realize that would mean reaching right across him, and my mind immediately runs a scenario where he’d rest his hand on the small of my back to steady me and tell me not to worry, he’ll get them, like he’s always done in the ten years we’ve been cooking together.

My mind is ridiculous.

“Could you grab a couple of bowls from that cabinet, please?” I ask, while stomping on the parts of my head that are foolishly dreaming up fantasy future life scenarios with a man I barely know and will never see again after I return to Chicago two months from now.