Page 69 of The Grumpy Billionaire
Why would he even still want me? “And… I have someone in my life, too.”
Reid narrowed his eyes and analyzed my face, searching for the lie and probably finding it.
He lifted his jaw in a dare-ya kind of way. “Who?”
I scrambled for a name—one of the himbos I’d recently met at the gym who’d offered me his number and asked me to use it whenever my schedule would allow.
“Bruce.”
“Bruce,” Reid repeated, plainly suspicious that I’d pulled the name from thin air.
I tilted my chin up in defiance and continued lying. “Yes. We have a date tomorrow night at Café Nuovo.”
His eyebrows dropped, and his lips pulled into a scowl. “You’re supposed to be withmetomorrow.”
“No. Maybe you should check your own itinerary. You wanted me to come to your company headquarters for a tour in the afternoon and discuss good video opportunities there. The itinerary said nothing about tomorrow night.”
Reid bit his lip, his gaze traveling to the ceiling and back down to me. “Yeah, you’re right.”
I took my minor victory and ran with it, seeing an opportunity to put some much-needed distance between us.
“And as it turns out, Sheldon is going to go in my place,” I said. “He’s the better one to handle that anyway. I’m going to a medical appointment with my mom tomorrow.”That much was true. However, I had fudged on the timing a bit. The meeting was early in the morning, not that Reid needed to know that.
Some of the tension left his face. He was calmer now, the testosterone surge subsiding the same way my racing hormones were finally settling back into their reservoirs.
He shifted away from the door, making way for me. I started to reach for the handle, but he stopped my motion with a hand on my shoulder, which then coasted down my arm.
“Mara.”
“What?” I forced myself to meet his eyes and tried to keep mine from revealing anything.
His gaze and his voice were soft. “What did your fortune say?”
I turned toward the door. “I can’t remember. Something stupid.”
Leaving his condo, I sprinted down the corridor to the elevator, unable to stop myself from looking back once as I waited.
Reid stood in the doorway, hands resting low on his hips, wearing the disgruntled expression of someone unused to being told “no.” I wondered if this was a first—a woman leaving his place at night, rather than doing the morning-after walk of shame.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside, slumping against the interior wall and hanging on to the handrail with both hands. I should have been satisfied—I hadn’t run away this time, and Reid hadn’t been smiling.
Instead, it felt like that time a couple years ago when I’d noticed my diamond earring was missing while standing near a storm drain, that empty sensation of losing something you know will never be found again.
TWENTY-THREE
Himbo
Mara
I jumped up from the waiting room chair as the doctor’s office door opened.
Mom had been with her for two hours, and I was dying to know what was being said on the other side of that wall.
“Please come in, Mara.” The psychiatrist smiled at me and held the door to her office open wide. “Your mother has indicated that she’d like for you to be informed about her treatment plan.”
“Yes, of course. Good. Thank you,” I said, stepping into the cozy space and taking a seat next to Mom on a pleasantly worn leather loveseat.
Dr. Weinberg sat in a swivel chair opposite us. She was a large woman, not unattractive, the kind often described as being “handsome.”
