Page 41 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire
“Sure,” he says casually, completely unaware that my head has just married us off and has us in this routine a decade from now.
He places the bowls with their 1970s brown square pattern on the counter space between the array of soup containers and the pot on the stove. “I happened to notice there was some open wine in the fridge. Would you like me to pour you a glass? Just in the interests of it not going bad, I mean.”
“Sounds good.” I attempt to get a grip on my trembling soup ladle. “You can have one too if you like. Just in the interests of it not going bad. Glasses are in the cabinet along from the bowls.”
And while he takes care of that, I dish up the soup, slice the herbed ciabatta from Kneads Must into hefty chunks, shove the pile of papers in the middle of the table to one side, and lay out the food along with butter from the local farm shop.
“You could charge a fortune for a meal like this in thecity.” Miller places a glass of wine in front of each of us and takes the seat across from me.
“God, yes. In Chicago, this would be classed as farm-to-table and that immediately ratchets up the already exorbitant price by another fifty percent.”
“Cheers.” Miller holds up his glass.
I clink mine against it as I sit and take a sip, the cool tart liquid somehow instantly relaxing me. Or is it Miller’s easygoing demeanor that’s doing that?
“Are you missing it?” He takes a chunk of bread from the thick wooden cutting board and puts it on his side plate. “Chicago, I mean.”
“Haven’t had a lot of chance to think about it.” It’s partially true. I haven’t thought about the city at all. The only thing I’ve worried about is if being here is jeopardizing my career prospects. “Haven’t been here even a week yet, and I’ve been run ragged the whole time.”
“Well, then I’m happy you now have some help.” His smile says that he means it.
“Yeah, your timing could not have been better.”
He shifts a little uncomfortably and butters his bread. “This place means a lot to you, huh?”
I blow on a spoonful of soup. “Impossible for it not to when I spent so much time here as a kid.”
“You never did tell me where you’re actually from.”
“New Jersey.” I rip a chunk of bread in half. “My parents would drop me off for the summer when I was younger. Then, as soon as I was old enough to get the train myself, I did that.”
“How does someone come to start a donkey sanctuary?” Miller takes a slurp of his soup, then gasps and sticks out his tongue, wafting air over it with hishand.
“Too hot?” I ask.
The sight of his tongue is definitely too hot for the parts of my body that are reacting to it in ways I do not need them to be reacting to him.
He nods.
I tap his glass. “That’s cold.”
Thankfully he puts his tongue back in his mouth and takes a sip of wine to chill the burn.
“They were left some money,” I explain. “Grandpa used to manage a farm for an elderly couple who had a ton of land and no idea what to do with it. Grandma and Grandpa lived in a little house on the property. Grandpa ran the farm and Grandma helped in the house and the kitchen and with admin and generally everything to do with running the couple’s house and life.”
“Whoa, that sounds like a big job. Arealjob.” And that sounds like the tone of a man who’s spent so much of his life shuffling assets online that he doesn’t know what it’s like to do physical work.
“I think it was. Anyway, when the couple passed away within three weeks of each other, they left a stack of money to Grandma and Grandpa, as long as they took the four donkeys. Once they’d bought this place and settled in, word got around that they were donkey people. And they could never say no to an abandonment or abuse case.”
“Wow, that’s pretty special.” Miller seems genuinely taken aback by their altruism. “This soup is amazing, by the way.”
“Thank you. They eventually registered as a nonprofit. And since then, dozens of donkeys have been through this place, then been adopted and gone on to live long and happy lives in their new forever homes.”
“So,” Miller picks up his bread, “if this place is anonprofit, does that mean the board has a say in whether you sell to one of those developers and dissolve the sanctuary?”
Now, there’s a question only a businessperson would ask.
“The board has only ever been me, Grandpa, Mrs. Bentley—who was a very active volunteer until she broke her hip a few years ago and something went wrong that’s meant she’s had to use a walker ever since—and a guy who was mayor for a long time. But he passed away a while ago.”
