Page 349 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

“There’s a jet that drops flame-retardant on the stove whenever the alarm in the kitchen goes off, and it extinguishes everything,” he says. “We were going to release it next year, but we never quite got the cleanup part right.”

“What?” she asks.

I bend down and hand Grace her shirt. I tell her, “We need to talk.”

CHAPTER19

MULHOLLAND

GRACE

It’s been three days since I’ve been back home. By home, I mean home, home.

After that party, Zach and I had a talk. I dare say it didn’t go quite the way either of us wanted it to. He says I’m changing, that I need some time away from all the distractions of New York.

He says he’s going to join me here when he can, but we’ll see ifthatever happens.

I know I should be at the store right now, trying to hock what I have for next month’s rent, but I don’t feel much like going anywhere.

I’ve hardly left my room, except to take care of Max and Sammie. Naomi left them with a friend of hers who does that sort of thing for a living. She takes excellent care of animals and all, but the woman can’t get it through her mind that not every animal needs a poodle cut.

Sammie has little puffs of straight, short fur sticking up in the oddest directions while Max looks like a canine social deviant. The way Bernice lets them run around her fenced-in three-acre lot with other animals, though, the two couldn’t care less about the bad groom job.

They’re happy, so I’ve learned to live with the occasional look from people on the street when I take Max out for a walk. Problem is, Max’s walks are the only time I’ve left the apartment since I’ve been back.

Zach says I’m changing, that I’m losing that thing about me that he fell in love with oh, so very long ago. The thing is IknowI’m starting to change. I’m getting sick of people walking over me all the time.

How much money I have or what I do doesn’t matter. I sat down with a lot of people who will be talked about for generations, and small-town as I am, we got along just fine.

My door opens and Naomi walks into the room.

I sit up in bed, saying, “Where have you been?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” she says. “When everyone ran out of the party because you were stripping or whatever—”

“That didnothappen,” I interrupt. “Along with everyone else, I removed my clothes in a very mature, even ladylike way. Besides, everyone left because of the smoke coming out of the kitchen.”

“Whatever,” Naomi says. “Anyway, so I was looking online because I found Zach’s secret liquor cabinet. By that, I mean, it’s like bigger than this whole apartment and there’s booze—booze everywhere!”

“What’d you steal?” I ask, lying back in bed and covering my face with my blanket.

A moment later, Naomi’s on top of me, pulling the cover back off, saying, “I didn’t steal anything.”

“Okay, what’d you try to steal?” I ask.

“A bottle of Jose Davolos Cognac,” she says. “If that maid lady wanted a big payout, instead of spreading your tits all over the world, she should have just snagged a bottle of that and sold it on eBay.”

“You tried to steal a two-million dollar bottle of cognac?” I ask.

“Calm down, I put it back right after I took it off the shelf,” she says.

I lean up on my elbows and ask, “And why did you do that?”

She looks away a moment, saying, “There may have been an alarm.”

“Okay, so why aren’t you in prison?” I ask. “You know when you’re out on bail you’re not supposed to leave the state, right?”

“Oh stop that,” she says, slapping my arm. “Nobody’s arresting anybody. I did have to play some shadow games with that one maid, though. I think her name is Fern or something old-fashiony like that.”

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