Page 15 of Return Billionaire to Sender

The guy comes out from behind the desk and beckons me to follow him.

It’s here that I realize I should just shut up, being that nobody else has gotten anywhere near this far in the quest to see Mr. Blackberg.

Tabitha’s billionaire boyfriend, Rex, even tried to buy the building from him at one point, and Malcolm Blackberg seemed to take perverse glee in turning him down without so much as granting him a meeting. There’s some thinking that Blackberg even sped up the eviction timetable because of Rex’s offer. Tabitha feels sick about it, even though we all assure her that it’s not her fault.

I follow the man into a luxurious little room with a couch and a selection of snacks. I stop him before he knocks.

“Wait. Remind me…how long do you have budgeted for this meeting?”

“We slotted out the hour you requested, but he has an eleven hard stop that can’t be moved. I know you were stuck in the elevator—just add more time to the back of the schedule or whatever you do and we’ll approve it.” With that he knocks.

“Thank you,” I say, clutching the envelope with its rectangular bulge. It’s ten forty. I have exactly twenty minutes to make him watch the video. It’s twenty minutes more than I’d dared to hope for.

There’s a grunt from inside—I can’t tell what it means, but my guide seems to think it meanscome inbecause he proceeds to open the door to one of the most luxurious spaces I’ve even seen. Practically everything is black marble or steel.

The desk is a massive black marble slab atop a rough-hewn marble base that looks like it was forged by the axes of ogres.

There behind the desk sits Mr. Blackberg himself. He fixes me with a confused glower.

I’m a deer in headlights, gathering my wits.

“Stella from Bexley for your emotional intelligence training,” he says, quickly closing the door and leaving me alone with him.

“I-I’m here with a delivery for you,” I say, walking to his desk like a trembling virgin approaching a powerful god.

“You’reto be the new executive coach?” he clips out in his English accent. “You?” This as if it might be the most bizarre happenstance ever.

“Seems I am,” I say, taking a seat across from him.

“What was all that down in the lobby yesterday, then? Recon?” he asks.

He remembers me? One split second of interaction and he recognizes me, even when I wear the uniform? Nobody does that. “It’s not important,” I say.

“It’s important to me. And what the hell kind of methodology is this?” he asks. “A letter carrier? Good god, tell me it’s not to deliver a dose of reality or something.” His accent makes everything he says sound more angular, somehow.

I suck up my courage—I have less than twenty minutes to get him to understand how much we cherish our building. “My methodology will not be part of the program.”

I pull out the iPad, willing my fingers not to tremble. It’s his stare. He has the fiercest eyes I’ve ever seen. True dagger-staring eyes. Make that longsword, crossbow, and battering-ram-staring eyes.

I set up amid the onslaught of his gaze.

“An iPad? That’s your delivery?”

I punch in my code and Maisey’s face fills the screen, telling how she’s been in her apartment since 1972. She shows where she knits every evening. “This home is everything I have in the world,” she says.

Malcolm snorts. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

“This is your training,” I say, trying to sound in control.

“Please,” he says, voice dripping with annoyance.

I stop the video, trying to remember the words that Stellaused in the elevator. “This is your court-mandated session,” I say. “Court-ordered.”

“A video of some old lady? This is what I’m meant to watch? Hard pass.”

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