Page 5 of Most Eligible Billionaire

The way her hand changes, grasping Smuckers’s neck, I think she likes it.

I keep on.

“Smuckers says you’re going to love Licky so much. Oh, wow! Smuckers says that Licky is wagging his tail right now—he totally can’t wait. He’s wagging up a storm, just like Smuckers does when he sees you coming.”

Bernadette’s face is definitely softening. Is this wrong? I don’t know. But then again, I’ve gone a long way down the road of wrong already with this thing.

“Smuckers has something else important to tell you. Instructions! He says you should singSomewhere Over the Rainbowthe minute you get to the other side. Smuckers says to follow the light and you’ll see Licky Lickardo wagging his tail. And you’re to immediately singSomewhere Over the Rainbow.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

I sit up, a rabbit in the headlights—or more like a virgin sacrifice, pinned by the furious gaze of a man in a perfectly tailored suit, a prince of a power broker currently standing in the doorway, though the wordstandingdoesn’t quite cover it. He’s owning it. Dominating it. Lording over all the world from it like an entitled god.

His brown hair is impossibly lustrous, touched with gold where the light hits. There’s something charmed about him, but more like wickedly charmed. His eyes are cobalt blue. Icy daggers, aimed to kill.

Killme.

How long has he been standing there?

“What the hell—?”

Bernadette begins again to clutch at Smuckers.

“Shhh,” I whisper, putting a finger to my lips.

He straightens, as thoughshhhis a strange command to his ears, and I suppose it probably is. This is not the kind of guy you sayshhhto. “What are you filling my mother’s head with?”

Mother?This straightens me right up. This isthe son?

“Well…” I cross my arms. “About time you visited.”

He scowls and strides commandingly across the room.

He reminds me of a vengeful god in one of those ancient paintings that hang in the Met. Current mood: destroy the earth. But this god wears a suit instead of flowing robes. Vengeful god 2.0: the hot-but-scary Wall Street edition—born hard, deadly, and dressed to kill it in the boardroom.

It seems impossible that this man was ever that lost little boy in the photo on Bernadette’s mantel.

He sets a disposable cup on a table next to a small stack of empty cups. There are several iThings there next to a man’s cashmere coat slung over the arm.

So he’s been here. For a while.

He turns back to me. “Smuckers says to follow the light? He says to singOver the Rainbow? A brother named Licky Lickardo on the other side? Care to explain any of that?”

Definitely not,I think.

I turn to Bernadette, like maybe she might care to explain for me, but her eyes are closed. Is she faking sleeping? That would be so Bernadette. “Bernadette,” I say. “Hey, tell your son—”

My words die as he nears, looming over her on the other side of her bed. He gazes down at her with an expression I can’t read.

I wait, cowering in my sensible pumps.

“Was she…awake?”

“Well, yeah,” I whisper.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

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