Page 24 of Most Eligible Billionaire

I feel Henry coming toward me well before I see him. My housefly-like room monitoring abilities don’t extend to people I can’t see, but apparently Henry is a special case; the sensation of him nearing prickles over my skin.

I turn to find his cobalt blue eyes fixed tightly on me. He saunters toward me like the prince of Wall Street. And the prince of Manhattan. And the prince of sunshine and men’s fashion and the coolly-striding-toward-you club.

My skin heats, and tiny Irishmen start up a jig in my belly.

The rest of them are flanking him on either side, but Henry outshines them, because he’s Henry Freaking Locke.

“Vicky,” he says. “And Smuckers. Right on time.”

“Looks like you already started.”

“Would we start without you?” He asks this in a friendly tone that makes the Irishmen jig even faster.

“Um…yes?” I say.

“That wasn’t a meeting,” Brett, aka the less glorious and way meaner copy of Henry, says.

“We’ll be back in ten.” Henry heads for the elevator, followed by his cufflinks and click-shoe entourage. Yeah, the board meeting definitely already started. First item on the agenda: exclude me.

“You’re anowner.”

I turn to find April looking at me anew.

“Well, technically it’s Smuckers,” I say.

She nods thoughtfully, seems to weigh her words. “You might ask for a full description of board privileges. Did you know we send cars to pick up all members?”

“No.”

“There’s a credit card attached to board membership that you can spend on meeting-related stuff. A projector, for example. Or a new case for the dog. Anything utilized in a board meeting would be reimbursed. You really don’t know any of this?”

I shake my head.

“Have you sat on a board?”

“No,” I confess.

“You’ll like it here. Locke Worldwide is like family. Doing the right thing reallyisthe right thing around here.”

That’s the Locke motto, and I find it sweet yet eerie that she acts like it’s true.

Ten minutes later I’m in the glass boardroom with its floor-to-ceiling windows looming over all the world. Henry introduces me around. He doesn’t bother to introduce me to April, who sits in the corner with a laptop at the ready.

People sit down. I settle Smuckers onto my lap. Henry saunters around the table handing out sheets of paper—the agenda.

My belly tightens as he takes his seat across from me, beautiful and sleek in his gray suit.

“I’ve never sat on a board before,” I say. “So I’m wondering, before we start, if there are things I should know. The lay of the land. Maybe, you know, some sort of greetings wagon thingy?”

Henry doesn’t try to hide his annoyance. It lights up his face in a way that maybe pleases me too much. “Agreetings wagon thingy?”

“You know, that bag neighbors hang on the doorknob to welcome somebody who just moved in to the neighborhood, and it explains things they should know about neighborhood amenities, like playgrounds, and there are pizza coupons and—”

“I know whatgreetings wagonmeans.”

“Smuckers is a bit new at all of this.”

He flicks his gaze to April, who nods quickly. “I’ll set up a courier,” she says.

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