Page 35 of Most Eligible Billionaire

It’s a pair of mimes, and they’re carrying something large between them—a piece of wooden furniture with shiny detailing, like some kind of fancy high chair. They start across the floor with the thing hoisted between them.

Vicky steps out of the elevator after them with Smuckers on a leash.

Her hair is tauntingly confined in that polished ponytail. Her simple brown dress has a slim, shiny belt that matches the dark brown of her glasses. But it’s not her outfit that gets me—it’s her bright gaze, her flushed cheeks, just the energy of her.

It charges the air around her. It sends shivers across my skin.

I have the feeling that medieval warriors must’ve had, seeing the enemy pour over the hill, flags flying, armor glinting.

I go to my feet.

“What the hell?” Brett mutters. We’re all standing now.

The mimes proceed toward us with whatever it is they carry, followed by Vicky and April. Smuckers trots along on the end of a leash. Wearing a blue bow tie.

A Locke-blue bow tie.

My pulse races.

Vicky cuts ahead of the mimes and opens the door for them. They’re your classic mimes’ mimes: white painted faces, striped socks, berets, black suspenders, the whole dorky deal. They enter bearing the strange piece of furniture, acting surprised and delighted to discover us.

What. The. Hell.

I watch in shock as they set the thing—some sort of a cross between a high chair and a throne—down at the end of the table. They make a huge production out of shifting chairs around to make room. They measure the space with an invisible measuring tape, gesturing dramatically to each other.

They’re not really very good mimes; this adds to the insult of it.

Vicky seems engrossed with the operation. Smuckers pants excitedly in her arms.

“What is this?” I ask hoarsely.

Vicky turns to me, adjusting her glasses in her tantalizing I’m-looking-at-you way.

“Provisions and accommodations shall be made for board members attending meetings,” she says.

Damn bylaws.

My pulse thunders, and it’s not just annoyance.

Kaleb clears his throat. “This is irregular.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Brett bites out. “Mimes aren’t accommodations.”

As if the mimes are the problem.

The mimes are beckoning Vicky and Smuckers over now. Vicky goes and hands Smuckers to the shorter of the two. Smuckers licks a bit of white paint off the one mime’s face in the process of being installed on what I see now is some sort of custom throne, like a high chair with a blue satin cushion. The back of it has some sort of circle picture of Smuckers wearing a Locke-blue bow tie, like a royal portrait.

I swallow.

Smuckers wags his tiny tail as the mimes hook him to the chair via a velvet ribbon, also Locke blue, salute him, and exit.

Kaleb grumbles from the other end. Brett comes to stand next to me. “The hell? Tell me that’s not a throne for the dog.”

“Okay,” I breathe. “How about an elevated, highly decorated dog bed?”

“Not funny.”

No, it’s not funny. It’s scrappy. It’s…I don’t know what. I don’t know how I feel about any of it. It’s been a long time since I didn’t know how to feel about something.

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