Page 23 of Most Eligible Billionaire

I can’t blame him. I’m wearing a black sweater with dusky pearls, a gray skirt, and kitten heels. When I put it on this morning, I felt like it embodied the timeless glamour of black, but now that I’m surrounded by women in chic brights and wow-factor shoes and men in head-to-toe GQ, it seems to embodyI’m a sad panda.

Smuckers doesn’t care; he’s riding in his favorite purse today, gray pleather with a comfortable place for him to stick out his head. I can feel him wagging his tail in there, sensing petting opportunities.

“Service animals only,” the guard says.

I tell him that the dog belongs to the Locke family, that he’s expected. He frowns for a second, waiting for me to retract my story, maybe, then makes a call. Moments later, he waves me to the crystal elevator bank.

I ride up to the fifty-fifth floor and get out.

Into another world.

Manhattan at street level can be gloomy, especially around the Financial District with all the tall buildings.

But this place is spacious and dazzlingly sunny, with floor-to-ceiling windows that have a view of the river. But what’s most remarkable is the blue, blue sky, impossibly, soaringly blue with white puffs of clouds.

The floors are an expanse of sparkling white tile sweeping out to a balcony edged with grass and furniture more appropriate to a chic lounge bar. The walls are composed of giant sparkling blue tile with a glow that comes from cracks between the tiles. Yes, that’s the way the place is lit—a glow between tiles!

The flora scheme is tropical, with potted palms and Royal Blue 1 calla lilies as large as dinner plates.

It’s designed to impress, but really it just intimidates the shit out of me.

At the far side of the expanse of loveliness is a glass-enclosed meeting room, a fishbowl for the fancy. Six men and one woman sit around a table in there. I spot Henry at the head of the table.

Did they already start? I pull out my phone. I’m five minutes early.

“Can I help you?”

I turn, startled, not having noticed the two women corralled inside a large circular desk tucked discreetly to the side—so as not to spoil the impact of the room, I suppose. The desk would be the only place you can’t see the view.

Admins, then. Been there, done that.

I took a lot of temp jobs when we first came here. Temping in the day, waitressing at night, paying out half my earnings to sitters, but I made it work, and I was always there with a bowl of oatmeal and a smile when Carly woke up.

Things got better once my Etsy store took off, even better when we got the Upper West Side apartment-and-parrot-sitting gig.

“I’m here to…see the board.” I shift my Smuckers purse. “Did they already start? I meant to get here earlier, but the subway.”

“They’ll be out in a bit for the official start.” The black-haired secretary comes around the desk. She has a Princess Leia hairdo that I definitely approve of, and her name is April according to the sign on her desk. “Who is this little guy?”

“Smuckers,” I say.

I take the wee prince out to receive his rightful petting, snap on a leash, and set him on the floor. “Did the meeting start? I thought it wasn’t starting until two.”

“Looks like some sort of pre-meeting,” she says, scratching Smuckers’s head. “Are you doing a charitable giving pitch? To the board?” she adds when I seem confused.

I suppose it’s natural to think it, being that I’m dressed as a librarian with a flair for dirges and dogs. “No, I’m actuallyonthe board.”

April gives me the side-eye.

“I’m the new member,” I add. “In place of Bernadette. Technically, Smuckers is.”

April glances again between Smuckers and me, still not sure whether to believe me.

Not that I’m a mind reader.

Though my impressions are usually right.

Don’t be jealous. If you spent enough time being hated by everyone with access to Twitter, Facebook, and TMZ, you, too, could end up with the ability to instantly process the tiniest of movements, one of the few perks of going through the hell that I went through, and a talent I seem to share with the common housefly.

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