Page 132 of Return Billionaire to Sender

“To what?” I ask.

Her eyes just sparkle.

Noelle clutches my other arm. “All the stupid stuff.”

That night, Noelle and I go out to a three-course dinner at one of my favorite spots near the park.

We have plenty of bruschetta. We talk about our time in San Francisco. It’s pretty hilarious, what she did, and now that we’re no longer at odds, we rehash every little session. I tell her exactly how crazy I thought her program was. She tells me how close she always felt to being busted. I tease her about the secret of the dryer lint bandit. Eventually I put her out of her misery and reveal that it’s whoever lives in apartment 512.

“Jada?” she says. “Jada’s the one who made the film. She lives in 512.”

“That makes perfect sense.” I explain that the footage seemed to be edited to show the door to apartment 512 right after the dryer-lint bandit was mentioned.

“Oh my god, you’re right! It’s Jada!” She’s on her phone, texting Francine, probably.

We spend the next few weeks doing what we want. It feels like making up for lost time. One of my first acts as Noelle’s boyfriend is to buy her some actual butterfly ties, not the clip-on kind, either, and implore her to wear one of them on one of our dates.

She is confused about the gift. “They are beautiful,” she says sweetly. “You found one with little hedgehog faces.”

“But?” I tease. “Are these the wrong kind?”

“Well, I love them because you picked them out,” she says. “But you know I wear clip-on ties. These are impossible to tie right. I end up wasting so much time. They’re the most time-wasting thing ever.”

“And you lose the sense of uniformity.”

“Yes, exactly,” she says. “And why in the world would you want me to wear a business outfit for dinner at your home?”

“You’ll see,” I say.

She thinks I’ve lost my mind. It’s a thought she often has about me, and I’ll take it. I think we’re all a little bonkers in the end.

That night at my place, in front of a roaring fire as the leaves are falling all over Central Park, I reach over and take her drink from her hand, setting it on the table. Then I reach up and slowly untie her tie.

“This,” I say. “I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I met you,” I say huskily.

“Hmm,” she says, starting to unbutton my shirt.

“No, wait,” I say. “Let me do it.”

She stills. Smiles.

Slowly I draw it away from her prim little collar.

“Am I supposed to look witchy?” she asks.

“No, just regular and serious,” I say, continuing on.

She gives me a prim face that is only a little bit exaggerated, but it’s still hot to pull the butterfly tie free from her collar. It’s sexy as hell, in fact. I hold it up, letting it swing free, and then I toss it over my shoulder.

She gets this mischievous look on her face. She leans in and whispers, “Guys are so weird!”

“Oh,guysare weird?Please,” I say.

And then she comes to me, laughing, and tries to wrestle me to the floor, and I let her.

Epilogue

Seven months later—the following spring.

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