Page 47 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

The vehicle stops outside the house. This feels weird. Wrong. If I had hackles they’d be rising right now.

“Sure, yeah.” But I’m not really concentrating on what either Oliver or I are saying. “It might have to be in an evening, but I could probab?—”

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s like someone just fired a hot bolt into my chest. “Fuck me.”

“I’d rather not,” Oliver says. “Is that what we have to do to get a meeting with you these days?”

I’m so stunned by what’s before my eyes that I can’t even laugh at his joke. “I’ll call you back.”

Wade fucking Skinner slams the SUV door and strides toward the house.

A red tide of rage rises within me as my fist tightens around my phone. All I want to do is sprint over there, punch him right in his asshole face and tell him to fuck off.

But if he sees me, it would out me to Frankie and be game over.

Game over for her selling the land to me, and game over for any hope of actually kissing her. Which isn’t even remotely a priority right now and should absolutely not be what immediately flashed across my mind.

Before Skinner reaches the front door of the house, the rear kitchen door swings open and Frankie emerges.

Fuck, I’m too far away to hear what he’s saying to her. But it’s only seconds before the mud splashes around Frankie’s boots as she talks, so I guess he’s introduced himself and that’s immediately flipped her switch.

I don’t want to miss a single word of what’s being said in this heated conversation.

So, like a movie cop hunting a baddie, I sprint out ofthe barn toward the shed, which is a good twenty yards closer to the house, and seek cover down the side of it.

I get there just in time to catch Frankie saying, “…my property,” in such a way that the only words that could have preceded it are “Get off.”

“Calm down now, miss.” Skinner says in that slimy, patronizing tone he has that would explode even the most robust misogynist-o-meter.

I peer around the corner of the shed to see Frankie shove her hands into the pockets of her overalls and thrust her shoulders back. “I’ve told you we’re not interested. Now please leave.”

“There are a few things we haven’t chatted about yet, though,” Skinner says.

He turns in my direction and ambles toward me with that superior gait he has where he swings his legs nonchalantly between steps.

Thankfully his eyes are glued to the big barn ahead of him that I’ve just come from. It gives me the crucial second I need to duck back around the corner of the shed. My whole body is like a tightly coiled spring, desperate to leap out and confront him, but forced to hold myself back and stay out of view.

“There is nothing to discuss.” Frankie’s voice gets louder as they approach.

“Well,” Skinner says, “there is this beautiful old barn.”

Thank Christ Oliver called and I’m not still in there running the sander and don’t hear them coming.

I dart around the back of the shed so they don’t see me when they pass.

“Why would you care about the barn?” she asks. “Even if we did sell to you, which we will most definitely not, you’d demolish it for your uglytownhouses anyway.”

“I just want to be sure you understand something about it,” he says.

There’s the sound of a few sharp kicks against wood.

“See?” he says. “Rotten.”

“It’s fine,” Frankie says. “And it’s also none of your business.”

“But it’s rotten at the bottom. Look.” I imagine he’s now poking at it and peeling bits off.

“What is this? Are you now performing some kind of public service rot inspections?” Frankie’s tone is sharp and rich with dislike.