Page 89 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire
A dribble of cold water from my hood runs inside my jacket and down the back of my neck, making me shiver, but I do my very best to contain any sudden movements.
“You like this, huh?” Her trembling is a little less violent.
“Don’t ever tell anyone what I’m about to do, Petunia, but I think you like this too.” And I softly launch into the first words of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Halfway through the song, her shaking dissipates even more—it’s not gone completely, but it has subsided.
This might be one of the high points of my life—a terrified living creature responding to my efforts to make her feel safe and cared for. I mean, how fucking rewarding is that?
I keep up the strokes and the soft singing, la-la-lah-ing where I don’t know the words.
Partway into my third rendition, she lowers herself to lie down. Her head’s still up, but this has to be a sign she’s feeling better.
“Good girl.” I crouch at her side and rub her back. “See, I told you everything would be okay.”
Wow, that wasfucking amazing.
Also fucking amazing is that the bath and beer are now actually in my sights.
I ease myself up to standing. “Good night, Petunia,” I whisper right as the sky outside the window is illuminated by a bright flash.
Fuck.
I put my hands over her ears as if that will somehow stop the thunder from getting to her.
It doesn’t.
She’s shaking again.
She doesn’t get up, so that’s something, but the shaking is not good.
For the first time, she turns her head and makes full eye contact with me. Christ, the haunted look in her eyes, the pleading behind them, is enough to rip my heart right out of my chest and shove it through a shredder.
Frankie wouldn’t leave her, would she?
Of course she wouldn’t.
She’d sleep here with her all night if she had to.
“Don’t worry,” I say to Petunia in as gentle a tone as I can. “Don’t worry.”
There’s a stash of blankets in this stable too, so I ease myself gently away from Petunia and walk over to grab half a dozen.
Armed with something warm and dry to sit on, I kick a pile of hay together next to her and lay the blankets on top. If I’m going to be here a while, I at least need to be as comfortable as it’s possible to be in wet clothes that are becoming colder by the second.
I take off my dripping jacket, hang it on a nail sticking out of the wall, and park myself on the blanket stack next to the still-shaking little donkey.
“I’ll pet your back for however long you need me,” I tell her.
What’s that sound?
It’s my name.
Someone’s calling my name.
“Miller?”
That’s Frankie’s voice.
