Page 43 of Billionaire Romance

2

Eric

I look down at my phone again and sigh. It's really unlike Bianca to be late. She knows how busy we are at the office this time of year, and this is the day she chooses to flake? If I didn't love my sister so damn much I'd have already left. She's thirty minutes late, and the people at the restaurant are starting to look at me funny.

Glancing at my phone again, the clock ticks forward. Thirty-one minutes.

I resist the urge to check my email, though I'm sure even in the short period that I've been gone that it's full to bursting. Marshall Greetings can stand for me to take a couple of hours away from my desk without collapsing, even though it doesn't seem that way sometimes. There's always some kind of emergency this time of year, when everyone and their mother is buying greeting cards. Frankly it starts in October and doesn't stop until March. I can't wait until the slow season when I can actually relax and not have trite sayings bouncing behind my eyelids when I close my eyes.

Thirty-two minutes. At this point I'm wondering if something bad has happened, because even though my sister always enters with the air of being fashionably late, she never actually is. Marshalls are never late. It was drilled into us from an early age, though it might be good if we can all start to forget those lessons now.

I cut off that line of thinking as Bianca breezes in, carrying that little dog that goes everywhere with her. I'm quite partial to Edison even though I'd never admit it to her. I have too much fun giving her a hard time.

She settles into the seat across from me with a flourish. "Sorry I'm late," she says with a smile. "I ran into some trouble."

"Are you all right?"

"Of course," she says, winking. "Nothing that my checkbook couldn't fix."

I roll my eyes. "I don't even want to know what you bought or who you bribed. It was probably you trying to bring that dog in here."

"Don't be ridiculous," Bianca says, waving over the waiter. "Everyone here loves Edison, don't you, John?" She asks as our regular waiter appears at our table.

His smile is courteous. "Edison is a very well behaved dog, ma'am."

That's not the same as loving the dog, but everyone here knows better. And everyone here loves Bianca, so they put up with Edison.

"Regular please," I say to John.

He nods.

"I'm in the mood for something new," Bianca says. "What do you have?"

"The chef has recently added a Mediterranean pilaf to the menu."

"Oh, that's perfect. I'll have that and a glass of my usual white."

John nods again and disappears to put in our orders, and to bring me scotch. I rarely drink, but today I need it.

Bianca's purse is gaping open on the seat beside her, and there's a giant red candy box in there. I feel like I'm going to vomit, and that feeling is washed away with anger as she follows my line of vision and quickly rearranges her bag so it's not visible. I don't need to be coddled. I can hate this stupid damn holiday without everyone treating me with kid gloves. "It's from Mom," she says, answering my unspoken question. "She's really doing this?"

"Yes," I say. "Though I'm glad my invitation wasn't that."

Bianca rolls her eyes. "I would have preferred that it wasn't either, but you know Mom doesn't do anything by halves."

"No, she doesn't." And when she called me yesterday to tell me that she was hosting a Valentine's party, and that she expects me to bring a date, I realized that she hadn't told me until the last minute so that I wouldn't be able to say no. Sneaky, and also not very kind. "She wants me to bring a date."

Bianca groans. "She told me the same thing. I get her pressuring me, but she really needs to lay off you. I'll talk to her."

I laugh. "Don't bother. It's Mom. She's doing what she always does."

"But—"

"But nothing, Bianca. Mom is never going to accept that people heal at their own speed. The only speed she'll take is the one she goes at. That's just the way it is. You know what happens if it goes the other way." John sets down my scotch and I thank him.

Bianca is looking at me carefully. "Well have you found someone to take yet? Because if you show up alone that's going to be just as bad."

"You know what the office is like right now. I'll be there until midnight tonight, and tomorrow too, probably. I don't exactly have the time to go out to a bar and find a pretty girl who's willing to go to a party with me." And I'm not going to hire someone either, though the thought did cross my mind for the briefest of seconds. I could never do that. It's too close to home.

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