Page 12 of Most Eligible Billionaire

“What?” I say, heart racing madly. I don’t really want to know, but I learned with bullies that you have to pin them down. You can’t just be scared. “Or what?”

The Henry clone raises his brows, like,you’ll see.

I snort. “I thought so.”

Everybody’s looking at me, but it’s Henry’s gaze I feel, like a silken ribbon on my skin. I don’t dare look at him. He’s a raging inferno of assholishness and powersuitedness with a dash of hotness that makes him…uh.

I spot a tray of champagne flutes. I walk over and take a glass, just to do something.

Also, alcohol.

I concentrate on the holding of Smuckers and the sipping of champagne while I wait for whatever is supposed to happen to start happening.

Henry and his clan are all on the other side of the room, quietly affronted and maybe they reallyareeyeing the candlesticks. There are several large candlesticks, all of them good and hefty.

I was surprised Bernadette funded so much of the hospital, with her apartment being so shabby and all, surprised that she was a somebody from a long line of somebodies, the kind that show up on the society websites. I was actually surprised there were society websites at all, but maybe that’s not a shock since I’m allergic to rich personages of every stripe.

Carly was actually the one who ushered me into the world of society websites and Henry Locke soon after I came home from the hospice and uttered his name.

“Wait—theHenry Locke?” she said.

“There’s atheHenry Locke?”

“Uh!” Carly has about fifty varieties ofUh!This one I recognized as hercan-you-be-more-clueless?-Obviously-NOT!variety ofUh. She fired up her phone and promptly handed it over, and I found myself staring at a smiling tuxedo-clad Henry with a beautiful, dark-haired woman on his arm, dressed in Givenchy.

“So, he’s supposed to be somebody?”

She fixed her most incredulous gaze on me. “Henry Locke? Playboy starchitect? Cock Worldwide?”

“Wait, what?” Cock Worldwide is our joke whenever we pass one of the gigantic Locke Worldwide cranes that dominate the construction site of every giant project. I assure you, we’re not the only ones who make the joke, not the only ones who look at the logo of circles in the shape of a building and see quite a different image, not the only ones who think it’s funny to combine the sighting of a Cock Worldwide crane with erection commentary. “He and Bernadette arethatLocke?”

“How many Lockes do you think fund New York hospitals?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Umm…”

She snorted, disgusted with my ignorance of New York’s leading luminaries. Billionaire Henry Locke is one of New York’s top ten most eligible bachelors, according to another image she showed me, this one fromThis Week NY.

Judging from the scowl he wears in the photo, Henry wasn’t any happier about being named one of New York’s leading bachelors than he was finding a fake dog whisperer in his mother’s hospital room.

“Most eligible bachelor if you’re a masochist,” I said, handing the phone back to her. “Did you call him starchitect?”

“It means star architect,” she’d informed me.

All in all, my little sister was far more enthused about the personage of Henry Locke than I was.

I’m draining the last of my champagne when the team of lawyers enters the room. They don't say they’re lawyers, but I know lawyers when I see them. They take a table set up near the fireplace.

Members of the Locke clan take the front chairs that face the lawyers’ table. I take the back, the disreputable kid with her fluffy sidekick.

Members of the Locke clan wear nice outfits and they’re impossibly beautiful. The women all have amazing blowouts, though it’s possible they just have good hair genes. People with good hair genes tend to marry other people with good hair genes, and through the generations end up having kids with even better hair, and those kids find each other.

Like Pekinese noses, but far more desirable.

So that’s the theory I’m spinning as the reading of the will begins with a distribution of money from various overseas bank accounts.

Every time I think the bank accounts portion of the will reading is over, there are more overseas bank accounts for the lawyer to list off. It’s like a clown car of overseas bank accounts.

I really am pleasantly surprised Bernadette thought of Smuckers. It would be good if I could take him to the Park Avenue vet who has known him since puppyhood, and if there’s money for his fancy food, I'm all there. I’m guessing there will be some bill submittal process, which is fine with me as long as I don’t have to interact with these Locke heirs.

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