Page 81 of Most Eligible Billionaire

She pushes open the door and heads out into the night.

She doesn’t want me following, but there’s no way I’m not watching from the door, not when she’s wandering around that gloomy sidewalk. She clutches her purse, forlorn under a streetlight.

I'm Henry Locke. People depend on me. I protect my people.

No matter what the cost.

A black car rolls onto the lot. She slips in and they drive off.

My heart curls into a cinder.

Dizzy, I wander out to my truck and start unloading the last pieces—a concrete block that weighs a ton and some massive wood slabs. I bring them in, one by one, to Latrisha’s workstation.

I can’t shake the memory of her wounded expression.

What have I done?

Latrisha eyes me as I muscle an unwieldy piece of debris into the corner. I say, “Why are the coolest looking hunks of rebar-wrapped concrete always the heaviest?”

“Somebody would help you with it.”

“I want to do it.” I get another load, and then another. I go back to her and peel off my gloves. She has paperwork for me to sign.

“I met her,” she says when we’re done, folding her copy.

“Who?”

“Bernadette. Your mother. She was mean about my hair.”

I look toward the red-lighted exit sign, thinking about going for a night run later. Anything to run off this energy. “She had a hard time being nice.”

“That’s what you call it? Is that how she always was to people?”

“To people. Yeah.” Not the dogs, though. Never the dogs.

“She was like that to Vicky. A complete bitch about her clothes.”

“That’s what you get when you sign up for Team Bernadette,” I say.

“You think she signed up for Team Bernadette? Dude, your mom stalked her. She pursued her, manipulated her. Vicky did everything she could to avoid that woman, but she wheedled into her life and Vicky took pity on her and she made sure she was safe and all of that. And now here you are, screwing with her, too. Lay off.”

I pause. “My mom pursuedVicky?”

“Your mother literally harassed her, demanding she talk to Smuckers after the fair.”

I frown. “What fair?”

“The fair?” Latrisha continues. “Where she volunteered to fill in for the pet whisperer? Do you not even know this story? That’s how they met. Vicky was there selling those bow ties, and the person who was being pet whisperer or whatever didn’t show up. They had some booth or something. So Vicky volunteered to do it. They put this ridiculous outfit on her. And your mother comes along and Vicky’s like,Smuckers enjoys hearing you sing, and your mother was convinced she had dog whisperer powers from then on.”

Cold steals over my skin. “That’show it all started?”

“I can’t believe you don’t know. Did you care to even ask? Or were you too busy listening to Coldplay and shopping for tartan plaid scarves?”

“What are you talking about?” My mind reels. Dog whisperer booth. Were these the details Vicky had tried to give me? The ones I refused to listen to? “Singing,” I say.

“Doesn't everyone sing in front of their pet? That’s what Vicky said. And they’d run into each other by accident after that, and your mom would be all,You have to tell me what Smuckers is thinking!Offering her money and stuff. And Vicky would insist she wasn’t a pet whisperer, insist there’s no such thing. Your mom thought Vicky was withholding her psychic gift from her. Out of spite or something.”

I nod. “Of course she would.” Bernadette thought the whole world existed to spite her.

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