Page 8 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

I stare at him and swallow hard, concentratingwith all my might on fighting the urge to let my eyes drift over his tall, broad-shouldered form.

“Did you forget about me?” Paige’s voice comes from the kitchen table.

“Shit.” I tear my eyes from the smooth-voiced stranger. “Hang on.”

I swiftly return to the kitchen table and bend down in line with the camera. “Sorry. Got to go.”

“I’m guessing they sent a different hay guy,” she says.

“What? Why?”

“Because I haven’t seen that flush that creeps down your neck since that actor you like, Chase Cooper, walked past our table at the Orange Parasol.”

“I do not have a flush.” I say way too loudly, while sensing the heat from my cheeks race to my collar bone. “And it’s not a hay guy.”

“Ooh.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Who is it?”

“Someone who wants to volunteer. And I’m desperate for a volunteer. Got to go.”

As I start to lower the laptop lid, she tips her head in an effort to not disappear. “Totally flushed,” she shouts.

I shut it completely, straighten, tuck some hair straggles behind my ears, and head toward the man standing on the doorstep. He now has his back to me, his hands on his hips, silhouetted against the sun. He looks like a still from an art house Western movie.

And goddamn her…Thelma is rubbing herself around his boots as if she just met her soulmate.

CHAPTER THREE

MILLER

My attention’s drawn from the seventy-five acres that shall be mine to the mewing sound coming from my feet.

“Jesus.” I lift up the leg the cat is currently grinding her ear into—thank God for the new rubber boots between me and the mangy fur—but she just moves to the other. So I lift that one, and she goes back to the first. I appear to be engaged in a bizarre tango with a farm cat.

Behind me, there’s a much more pleasant sound—a low, throaty laugh emanating from Frankie.

“She likes you,” she says.

“Is that what this means?” I gesture to the furball alternating from one of my high-stepping legs to the other.

Actually, I could maybe milk this a little. While I want to touch this thing about as much as I want to be stabbed in the eyeballs with a fork, I do need to get into Frankie’s good books as quickly as possible. If all this goes to plan, I need her to eventually like and trust me enough to have faith in my advice when I suggest which offer she shouldaccept. And there’s no time like the present to start laying the groundwork.

So, since my first impression here is extra important…ugh…here goes.

Scooping my hand under the cat’s belly, I pick it up and hold it against my chest. “Isn’t this one a cutie.” Doing my best to suppress a grimace, I tickle the moth-eaten creature under the chin and it immediately presses its head into my hand.

“You have quite the magic touch,” Frankie says with an expression that suggests I’ve completed a feat on a par with stopping the world from rotating. “I’ve never seen her like that with anyone but my grandpa. She’d have taken my hand off if I’d even tried to pick her up.”

I shrug. “Guess animals just love me.”

Not true.

When I was seven the class guinea pig sank its teeth into my finger and held on, swinging from my hand as I ran around the room screaming. More recently, the goat that we tried out as a mascot for the soccer team I co-own headbutted me from behind so hard that I crashed face-first onto the field and had a bruise the size of a fist on my ass for a month.

“And I guess that would make me a good candidate for volunteering,” I say, leaning my head back as the cat aims its ears toward my chin.

“Thelma-wrangling skills are definitely a bonus,” Frankie says. “Could you just put her down inside the door? Then I’ll show you around the sanctuary and we can chat and see if we’re a good fit for each other.”

A good fit for each other.Those words cause an unusual stir inside me.