Page 45 of The Runaway Billionaire's Inconvenient Baby
All I can do is stare until the anger bubbles up into my chest and boils over, a fury like water exploding on a hot stove. It shoots through me, ice hot, makes my hands shake and my heart pound. Two weeks. Is that all we get? “Is this a joke?” I ask quietly.
Mrs. Richardson glares at me. “I don’t make jokes. Is this a joke to you?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “It’s a complete joke. It can’t be real.”
“It darn well is real. I got one. Siona across the street got one. My neighbor and their neighbor got one. I’m darn well sure if you go home, you’ll have gotten one. Is that handsome young man still staying with you?”
“Not anymore,” I say through gritted teeth.
If Jacob thinks he’s staying in my home, on my island, for a single second longer, he’s sorely mistaken.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Richardson. I’m going to go and get this dealt with.”
“You are? How?”
I don’t answer her. I don’t have an answer.
What I am going to do is close the cafe for the afternoon and hunt Jacob Ford down. I’m going to march home right now, drag him out of bed where he’s no doubt lazing around, kick him onto the street and tell him to get the hell out of here. This place isn’t his. It can’t be. It never will be.
We’re not leaving.
I read the letter once more, my eyes skimming over the words as if they might have changed in the last three seconds. They haven’t.
“Come on,” I say to Mrs. Richardson, untying my apron and flinging it down on the counter.
“Where are we going?”
I usher her toward the door, taking care to go slowly so she doesn’t feel rushed even though I want to run. “I’m going to close up, and then I’m going home.”
“Home? What about the cafe?”
“This is more important,” I say. Without the island, the cafe doesn’t matter at all.
I manage to get Mrs. Richardson on her way home, lock the front door, and storm along the beachfront in the direction of home. The sound of my stomping feet is so loud that it’s the only thing I can hear over my pounding heart, and the only thought in my head iswhy has he done this to us?
When I turn the corner two blocks away from my house, I almost smack face-first into him. “What the hell?” I yell, partly from being furious with him but mostly out of shock.
“Billie?” he grunts, startling backward like I’ve zapped him with electricity.
“What thehell?” I say again, this time with the full force of my anger. I shouldn’t yell at him in the street or make a scene. I know that. But if he gets his way, there won’t be anyone left to care that I did. A few houses down, I hear a shutter bang against a wall. If I had wondered whether we’d have an audience, that just confirmed it.
Jacob holds up both hands like he’s surrendering or trying to tame a wild animal. “Please, Billie, don’t yell at me. Not yet. Give me a chance to explain.”
I clench my fists. “What is there to explain?”
“Everything!”
He takes a tentative step toward me, and when I don’t flinch or say anything else, he breathes out, the golden sun above dancing in his hair, catching his captivating eyes and making them shine. This is how he got me the first time, by being gentle and pretending to listen. I won’t let him do it again. I won’t be tricked into giving my life over to him.
“I think,” I say slowly, “that there’s nothing you need to say. I think you used me. I think you always wanted this island to yourself, and I think you didn’t care who you stepped on to get it. I think you never cared about me or any of us at all.”
“That’s not true,” he says, and I hesitate for a second. It’s all he needs to blurt out his excuses. “I neverusedyou. I like you… no, honestly, I do. Yes, it’s true when I first came here, all I wanted was the land and I didn’t care about any of you, but then you showed me.Youshowed me how beautiful it all is. You helped me understand that this community matters, that it’s not the land. It’s the people.”
“So why the hell are you evicting us?” I yell.
“I’m not,” he starts, and I let out a harsh, bitter laugh.
How can he dare to look me in the eye and say that? “You’re not? Explain this then?”
