Page 100 of Trailer Park Billionaire
Oh, god.
Paige adjusts her glasses and clears her throat. “Helena, darling. Never be ashamed of your libido.”
“Or your poor timing,” Robyn teases, flinging a scarf over her shoulder, accidentally whipping Guy right in the face.
“It’s really more a lack of spatial awareness, it seems,” Earnest chimes in, now both his thick brows raised.
Sienna just smirks from the seat beside Paige, as she accepts a butterscotch candy from her.
“Hey, guys,” I mumble, my face as red as a Georgia O’Keeffe flower painting that just realized what it looks like. Then I turn to Ben and whisper, “Why are there this many people here?”
Ben shrugs, clearly delighted. “They insisted on coming along. It’s kind of their thing.”
Robyn pats my shoulder. “We’re a collective, dear. A co-op of chaos. Think Robin Hood—but sexier.”
“Sexier than a bunch of men in tights?” Guy throws in quietly.
“That’s…” I remember those weird plans I saw in her apartment. “Wait, do you guys actually rob banks?”
Sienna shakes her head. “Banks have good security. Not worth it. Besides, our missions are a lot more… eclectic. Karmic, if you will. We’re not just thieves.”
Earnest leans forward as well now. “But what if we were just thieves? Would that be a problem?” His eyes narrow in on me. “What do you think of the current state of the world and the secret cabal of lizards governing it?”
I stare at him, not sure what to say.
Luckily, Robyn comes to my rescue a second later. “Hey, that’s basically my granddaughter-in-law you’re talking about. Lay off, will you?”
Earnest leans back in his seat. “Just need to make sure she’s one of us.”
“Well, I hate the lizards as much as the next guy,” I say carefully. “Besides, I literally stole that.” I point to the bag Sienna is holding in her lap.
“And she’s banging Ben,” Guy adds in a short moment of silence. “He has great taste in friends. So he’ll have great taste in partners too. Isn’t that right, buddy?”
“Okaaay,” Ben turns around after having tried to stifle his laugh for a while now, “how about we focus on the job at hand, shall we?”
I catch Ben glancing at me for a second, his eyes crinkling when they meet mine.
The job site today is an estate. A big one. It looks like someone took Versailles, mated it with a bunker, and then hired an entire kindergarten for the paint job. Golden lions flank the driveway,purple accents drip from the roof, and the front door is at least double the normal height—presumably to fit the owner’s ego.
I tug at the hem of my blazer, feeling slightly ridiculous. Not so much because of the outfit—classic black, well tailored—but because of the auburn bob wig with blunt bangs perched on my head. Robyn shoved it at me the second we parked the car.
“Best to be careful. That way they won’t recognize you if you ever run into them again,” she’d said, adjusting it like she was styling a Barbie. “Also, it brings out your cheekbones beautifully.”
“Okay,” I mutter as we—Alexei, Ben, and I—walk up the steps, heels clicking, nerves racing. “Remind me again why I’m letting the embodiment of nouveau riche buy a painting that should be in a museum?”
Ben glances at me sideways, brushing his fingers against mine. “Because we don’t want your eye to look like their roof again.” He makes a face. “Plus, the artist was a raging racist, misogynist, all the -ists, and the painting’s been wasting away in a climate-controlled coffin anyway.”
“I know, I know.” I sigh.
“It’s for a good cause,” Alexei says dryly from behind us.
Ben smirks. “Besides, if it helps—these people are awful. You’ll hate them instantly. And they deserve to spend too much money on terrible art.”
He’s not wrong.
Waylon Grift meets us at the door in a purple velvet smoking jacket and no discernible shame. He kisses the air near my cheek in a way that makes me want to cleanse my aura (and I don’t even believe in stuff like that). Isabella, his wife, trails behind him with a martini in one hand and a leash in the other. Her tiny dog is wearing a diamond necklace that probably cost more than the kindergarten kids were paid for the paint job.
“You must be the art wrangler. Lena Steinbeck?” Waylon mentions the alias Alex told him, giving me a once-over that makes me want to take a shower in turpentine. “And you must be the lucky owner of a John D. Swift,” he adds in Ben’s direction with a chuckle.
