Page 70 of Return Billionaire to Sender

I narrow my eyes. She’s not unaffected—that I can tell. “This offer won’t keep getting better. It may start going away.”

“Good,” she says. “Iwantyour offer to go away. It’s bribery. It’s illegal. It’s wrong.” She looks around the room, gazes through the open doorway. You can see clear through to the plate glass window in the main room, and the lights of the city street beyond it. There’s a couple in the far corner in the main room, heads bent over their meals. “Is it okay that we’re doing this in here?”

Really? That’s her concern? “This restaurant doesn’t close for hours and there’s nobody in this entire section. Nobody would hear it. I think they’re fine with us sitting here.”

She adjusts the angle of the screen.

“That was five hundred thousand,” I say. “Dollars. Just so we’re clear. Cash, silently appearing inside whatever bank account you name. It wouldn’t go through Bexley or the lawyers. Nobody would know.”

“I don’t want it.” With that she hits play.

I stare, dumbfounded as the screen fills with images of people on the street outside 341, some with bikes. They’re rambling on about bike racks, and the perils of locking their bikes up to street signs.

“Did you sign something swearing you wouldn’t take money from me?” I ask.

“No. And that’s the last question you get. You’ll save your questions until the end of the presentation.”

My mind is spinning.

Why won’t she take the money? And if it’s not money, what does she want?

“You could do a lot of good with that kind of money,” I try.

“Shhh.”

“It wasn’t a question; it was an observation.”

She gives me a dark look, monitoring me until I pretend to be watching. She is not a wealthy woman. I know where she lives. I know where she came from.

The video rolls on.

What am I not seeing? Nobody is incorruptible—not even her. I was there in the limo when she gave in to that kiss, kissing me back, breathlessly indulging herself. She wanted the kiss every bit as much as I did—of that I am sure. She crossed a line then. Why the hell not cross this one?

“Are you even watching?” she asks.

“My eyes are pointed that way, so I’m technically watching, but really I’m thinking about something else.”

“Do I have to start it over?”

“God, no,” I say.

“Then you’d better watch or you won’t get your check mark for the day,” she says.

“But my thoughts are so much more interesting.”

She backs up a few minutes and makes me watch it over. A discussion about bike racks.

“Don’t you want to know what I’m thinking?”

The way she blushes gives me a good idea of what she thinks I’m thinking. She’s pretending to watch the video, but I think she’s not. I can see the drumbeat of her pulse banging in her neck.

“Elle,” I pursue. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Quit interrupting or we’ll start the hour over.”

“What do you want? Tell me that.”

“I’m gonna delete yesterday’s check mark if you don’t pay attention.”

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