The Billionaire Bargain #3(2)
to have some fake wedding. It would have been so much worse if I had gone through with it.”
Mr. Teddy did not gain the power of speech to respond to me, but that was okay. I had all my rebuttals ready in the form of a daydream that had been playing nonstop in my subconscious since the day I met Grant Devlin. Since the day I saw the way his suit hugged his strong shoulders, the way the light glinted off his perfect smile, the way his eyes looked like the answer to every question I’d ever thought to ask and a few I’d never dared to—
But it was stupid to keep dwelling on what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Grant clearly wasn’t. He hadn’t called or tried to see me once.
He must really hate me now.
That thought made another sob choke in my chest, and I bowed my head
Get over it, Lacey.
He obviously has.
? ? ?
The doorbell rang, and lifted me slightly out of my gloom.
“Oh, is that Katie?” my mom said from her downward-facing dog pose. “Can you get that? I can just feel my chakras releasing their tension, and I don’t want to leave them all spiritually clogged.”
“Sure, Mom,” I said, just barely suppressing my eye-roll reflex. “Wouldn’t want you to have to call that spiritual plumber.”
Of course, Mom and Dad don’t actually lock their doors these days—something about a lack of trust blocking their karmic energies—so Kate was already knocking the door open with her hip before bounding in, her arms full of shopping bags. “I come bearing the delights of the great city!”
“Is coffee one of those delights?” I asked. “Also, put that down and let me hug you.”
“The hug isn’t dependent on coffee?”
“Girl, if you did bring me coffee, I might kiss you.”
“Try not to, Stevie’s being jealous as hell lately.” Kate dropped the shopping bags and enfolded me in a back-breaking hug before diving back down to retrieve the bag of coffee beans and a grinder. “Ta-da!”
“You are a lifesaver,” I gushed as the smell of coffee wafted up toward my nostrils, my eyes practically leaking all over again with sheer gratitude.
“And there’s more!” Kate informed me, dropping to her knees and pulling out each item with a triumphant flourish before setting it on the coffee table. “Your favorite sweater! Burgers from the fast-food place next to work! Noodles from that fast-food place next to your apartment! Candy bars from that old-timey candy shop down by the beach! The latest CD from that band we saw last time we went out for margaritas! Shampoo!”
One of these things was not like the other.
“Shampoo? Kate, my parents don’t live in a mining camp in the year 1870. I can actually get shampoo here.”
“But can you get shampoo that doesn’t smell like eucalyptus and self-righteousness?” Kate asked, her eyebrow raised.
“Okay, point taken.”
“Girls, girls,” my mom said, shaking her head in a way that would have come across as more stern if she hadn’t been smiling fondly, and also doing a yoga pose that meant her head was upside down while her butt was sticking straight up in the air. “Eucalyptus has a very healing energy. And that shampoo company donates ten cents from every purchase to help preserve koala habitats.”
“Sorry, Mrs. N,” Kate said. “But koalas are on their own as far as I’m concerned. Did you know they have a huge chlamydia problem in zoos?”
“All the more reason to support them in the wild,” my mom said calmly, as if Kate hadn’t just forever ruined every cute koala picture for me forever.
The three of us chatted about various topics for awhile—my dad’s attempt to graft solar panels onto his Volkswagen Beetle, and Kate’s latest rejection from someone who had initially seemed interested in marketing her lingerie line.
Eventually my mother decided that enough negative energy had been released from her spine, and straightened up to head off to the kitchen and fix us up some kale-banana smoothies with extra whey powder. Kate could barely contain her excitement, and by “barely contain her excitement,” I mean that she shot me a look that could’ve turned a gorgon to stone.
There was a brief, awkward silence as my mom left and we both wondered if either of us was going to point out the elephant in the room.
Three seconds was about how long I held out before broaching the subject. “So…so I bet it’s been pretty bad? The fall-out?”
Kate waffled for a second. “Lacey, you don’t need to be hearing this right now—”
“Please,” I said, taking her hand. “Whatever everyone’s saying about me, it can’t be worse than what’s running through my head. I just want to stop wondering.”
She broke eye contact and tried to take her hand back. I held tight. “It’s probably best to make a clean break—”
“Katie,” I interrupted. I could feel my throat starting to choke up. I’d beg if I had to. “Please.”
Kate sighed, but relented. “The papers and gossip mags and blogs can’t get enough. The party line everyone’s trotting out is that Grant figured out you’re a gold-digger.”
I felt pain like a shard of glass stabbing into my heart.
Kate went on, staring straight ahead as she recited her news like she was reading it off a teleprompter: “He sent you packing, you’re hiding out licking your wounds. Meanwhile, Grant is a doing a Batman act and hiding out too, licking his wounds.” The faintest suggestion of a smile ghosted over her lips. “One paparazzi snuck onto his balcony. Grant almost threw him off before his butler intervened.”