Page 11 of Most Eligible Billionaire

The inside is all lush carpet and ornate woodwork, even on the ceiling. I take Smuckers out of his case and carry him in my arms as I go in search of room eleven. I’m glad I have the letter with me, because I’m thinking they might not let me in, even though I'm wearing an ultra-trustworthy outfit with a delicate obsidian necklace of my own design.

Room eleven turns out to be full of illustrious-looking people standing around talking against a backdrop of chandeliers and dark carved wood. It’s like I stumbled into a photo shoot for Dior.

I spot Henry right away. He’s not technically in the middle of the room, but he’s definitely the center of gravity, forcing everyone to orbit around him with his asshole sheen of power.

Most of the people here have the blue eyes and gold-burnished dark hair of Henry, as well as the imperious stature, though nobody wears it quite like him. It reminds me of the way a high school girl gets into a certain style and all her friends follow her, but nobody quite pulls it off like she does.

Henry spots me immediately, or more accurately, glowers at me immediately, a disturbance in the field of poshness, and then they all turn to glower at me, as if on the silent and kingly command of Henry. And they all have this look like theycan’t even!

Henry is the one to address me. “What areyoudoing here?”

My belly squeezes. My throat feels thick. Standing there, squirming under the power of Henry’s glower, I’m suddenly sick, sick, sick of myself. How did I get back here, cowering before the overwhelming force of wealth and power?

I'm suddenly grateful for Smuckers in my arms, a canine shield of cuteness. I squeeze him tight. “I was called. Or…Smuckers was. This letter came to Smuckers care of me. A summons, I suppose is the word. I don’t know. It seemed official…”

Stop over explaining, I tell myself.You’ve done nothing wrong. He can’t hurt you. Hold your head high.

“In other words, you think you got your payday, after all,” Henry says.

I straighten my backbone. “Sorry, Richie McRichface, we were summoned, just like the rest of you probably were.”

A hush comes over the room. I look around.

“What? Did somebody murder the butler with a golden candlestick?”

Henry’s eyes glitter. He’s every inch the lion at the gates of the palace, the epitome of the kind of person I vowed never to be pushed around by or terrorized by ever again.

I hold out the letter, heart pounding, a mouse in Henry’s mighty jaws, dangling by my tail. No way will I let him know it.

He stops in front of me and takes the letter.

“Who is this?” another guy asks. Another one of the relatives. Younger than Henry, from the looks of it—maybe twenty-seven, whereas Henry is around thirty.

Henry doesn’t answer; he’s performing an intensive examination of the letter.

“It’s real,” I say.

He turns it over. Holds it up to the light. And suddenly I'm back there, sixteen years old, everyone acting like I'm the liar, trying to intimidate me. Challenging me on things no regular person would be challenged on.

“Oh, please,” I grab it from his hand. “You know it’s real, so don’t bother.”

“You know her, Henry?” the younger relative asks again.

“She was in Mom’s hospital room.” Henry eyes me. “Pretending to read the dog’s mind.”

Umm…what to say to that. It is definitely what I was doing. I shift Smuckers to the other arm. “Thedoghas a name,” I say. “It’sSmuckers.”

Henry gazes down at me imperiously. “And now she’s hoping for a payday. So, how long did you have your hooks into my mother?”

Sometimes a question is a question. Other times, a question is a finger, aggressively poking your chest.

That’s what this question is, a bullying finger jab. “I didn’t fool her or have hooks into her,” I explain. “I never expected anything from her. I took Smuckers out of kindness.”

The younger relative snorts, like I’m being ridiculous, but I keep on.

“Did she think I’m a dog whisperer? Yeah, even though I told her repeatedly I wasn’t. Excuse me if I tried to use it to help her now and then.”

“You mean help yourself,” says Henry’s younger but equally burnished relative. “If there are signs you manipulated her with your shady dog psychic act…” The relative frowns, like the implications are too troubling to name.

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