Page 31 of Most Eligible Billionaire

I feel this shiver of excitement as I flip my blank book to a new page. I’m imagining bright colors. Gorgeous, playful imagery. Sassy, irreverent sayings. I start sketching. Designing this line is the jewelry-maker’s version of playing hooky. And when I imagine his gaze landing on me and Smuckers in coordinating shit? The fun only doubles.

Henry wants to go? Oh, I will go.

Eight

Henry

I push into Chantisserie. “Two. Booth.”I set a hundred-dollar bill on the host stand.

Brett gives me a look.You could be nice—that’s what the look says. But between his fake nice request and my very straightforward hundred-dollar bill, I know which one this guy would choose. Every time.

People are not that complicated.

The host peers over his glasses at us, then down at his book. “This way.” He leads us to a booth by the window.

Brett orders two scotches on the rocks even though it’s early afternoon.

“It’s mood alteration o’clock somewhere,” I say.

“The second one’s for you.” He pulls out his iPad and slides it over to me. “The good news is that they found the loophole you thought they would.”

I nod. I felt sure our lawyers could find a way to twist the “qualified to serve as permitted by state law” clause to eject her on grounds of incompetency. “And something like this would fall under private mediation, right?”

“That’s what they say.”

Our drinks come. “Shouldn’t be hard to prove, considering half a dozen people have witnessed her channeling the thoughts of a dog. Where’s the bad news?”

He reaches over and swipes the screen. “They have to file, then get on the schedule. It’s going to be slow.”

“So we grease some wheels.”

“We can’t pay to speed it up. It has to go by the book. We gotta do this Boy Scout or it might get challenged.”

“How long?”

“Weeks. I don’t know,” he says. “They don’t know.”

I swirl the ice in my drink. This is bad. She refused the money, which means she thinks she can get more. The best way to do that is to make things bad enough that we pay. It’s a hostage situation.

He looks at me, waiting to see what I say. They always expect me to have the answers, the battle plans. Usually I do. But working under the direction of an unpredictable scam artist who pretends to know a dog’s thoughts?

“So we manage her.”

A perverse thrill shudders through me as the idea takes hold. I take a swig of my drink. Set it down. Close my eyes. Breathe. I focus on the calm of it spreading through me.

When I open my eyes, Brett’s watching me. Waiting.

“Never imagined I’d feel nostalgic for Kaleb’s minimum profit-per-square-foot ball and chain around my ankle,” I say.

He snorts. “What the hell! Right?”

Kaleb never understood the new economy. He never got the memo that you sometimes make a bigger profit by taking a loss up front. That once in a while it’s worth it to make cool shit. You can’t put a price on being known as a builder that makes cool shit.

No, it’s all about profit margins to Kaleb. The man is so 1980s it sprains my brain.

“Manage her. Keep her busy. Keep her from screwing things up. Keep her…favorably disposed.”

“Should be easy for you. She’s not with anyone,” Brett says.

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