Page 282 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

I shrug. “Have you heard anything break since they came in here?”

He’s curled into a little ball, and he’s hugging his knees. The phone’s receiver is lying on the ground next to him.

“Who’d you call?” I ask.

“What?” he asks.

“Okay, well you just stay under there, and I’ll deal with the very scary townspeople you’ve known your entire life,” I tell him.

A minute ago, I was pretty terrified, myself, but it’s so much more fun to mess with him.

Still, as I’m walking out of the office, I get another jolt. Everyone in the store has something in their hands, and almost all of them are looking at me right now.

I stand on the threshold a few beats; right until I notice that what I’m looking at isn’t just a mob of people. They’re trying to form a line.

If this is Mulholland’s idea of looting, it’s very polite.

My knees not quite doing their job, I walk around to the back of the counter and take my seat on the stool in front of the cash register. Looking up, I say, “I’m sorry, I have no idea who was first.”

They figure it out, and over the next hour or so, I sell every single thing in the store. Mrs. Taber even comes up to the counter with the tag for the armoire she wasn’t interested in buying only a month ago.

When there’s nothing left on the shelves, a couple of people stay behind to ask ifthoseare for sale, too. I tell them, “I’ll have to ask Troy, but I doubt it.”

They don’t seem to care.

I get up and walk back into the office to find Troy sitting at his desk, the phone to his ear.

“Yeah,” he says, “just one. No, I don’t know how long it’s going to be, can we just leave it open-ended? Great.” He covers the mouthpiece with his palm and says, “Did they get everything?”

“Pretty much,” I tell him. “They wanted to know if the shelves were for sale, too, but I didn’t—”

“How much are they offering?” he asks.

“Probably more than what you bought them for,” I answer. “What should I tell them?”

“Tell them if they can get the shelves out of here themselves, they can buy them, but we don’t do home deliveries,” he says. He turns his attention back to the phone, saying, “Yeah, I’m here. You don’t have anything straight through to Papeete?” He groans and I walk out of the office with the good news.

The guys waiting on word about the shelving pay me, but say they’ll have to come back with a truck another time. I let them know we’re probably going to be closing up for a little while—for obvious reasons. The only response I get as the final two men leave is, “Don’t worry about it.”

After the shortest shift of my life, I head home. As much as I’d love to revel in the insane bonus that’s no doubt coming my way, I’ve got to get my head together.

Zach is coming over tonight.

Initially, we’d talked about grabbing a drink after I was off, but since my schedule seems to be open for … I’m not sure how long, but a couple of days, at least, Zach’s coming over to my place in about an hour.

Now all I have to do is convince Naomi to make herself scarce. I don’t know how that’s going to work, but as much fun as it was to see the townspeople come together to try to buy my affection the same way I thought Zach was, I don’t feel too much like going out anymore.

I get to my building and start down the hall. When I come around the corner, though, I’m hit with déjà vu.

Standing in front of my door is a group of ten or twelve people.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Mr. Robbins, the assistant principal of the high school answers, “Well, we just wanted to see if we could get a few minutes to talk to you about Stingray.”

“I don’t work for Stingray,” I answer. “Can I get to my door?”

“Of course,” Mr. Robbins says. “Listen, we know that Mr. Scipio’s putting something together here in town, and a lot of us would just like to be a part of it, you see?” he asks. “Why, I bet if he were to hear it from you—”

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