Tease (Cloverleigh Farms #8)(4)

“I’d call him up right now,” Millie said.

“He hates the phone.”

“Why?”

“Because it involves talking to people. He likes numbers more than words.”

Millie laughed. “Guess that’s why he’s a billionaire and we’re us. Somebody asked me the other day what he does—everyone is talking about him—and I didn’t even know what to say.”

“My answer is always, ‘He co-founded a cryptocurrency exchange called HFX.’ But don’t ask me to explain it.” I sipped my coffee. “Whenever he tries to tell me what it is, I get lost.”

“How can that be? You’re a math whiz too, Miss I Skipped First Grade. We all know you were doing complex algebraic equations when the rest of us were learning B says buh.”

I laughed, leaning back against the counter. “The kind of math Hutton does is way beyond algebra. You don’t get to be a billionaire solving for x.”

“Speaking of which, you’d think a billionaire would want to spend his summer vacation somewhere more ritzy than northern Michigan,” Millie said.

“Well, his family is here, and Hutton’s not really the ritzy type—although I assure you, the place he’s staying in is not your typical cabin in the woods,” I said with a laugh. “It’s got like four bedrooms, three decks, a gourmet kitchen, one of those indoor/outdoor fireplaces, cathedral ceilings, huge windows. When you look out, all you see are trees.”

“Nice.” Her tone grew playful. “Sounds like you’re there a lot.”

“We hang out a few times a week,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. Things between Hutton and me were still completely platonic, but there was something different about our chemistry this summer. Something simmering beneath the surface. Sometimes I thought about just going for it—kissing him to see what would happen.

But I always lost my nerve.

Hutton could have any woman in the world. I’d seen photos of him with actresses, supermodels, heiresses. Gorgeous, famous women I could never compete with. Why embarrass myself by trying?

“A few times a week, huh?” she teased. “That sounds like dating.”

“No dating, we just hang.” I rinsed out my coffee cup and put it in the dishwasher. “He doesn’t love going out in public, which was the case even before he was a celebrity, but now it’s even worse. People just stare with no shame. Women flirt outrageously. Guys ask for stock tips.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” I laughed as I went up the stairs. “He runs in the park super early to avoid having to deal with people, but there’s this group of old ladies who gather in the park to do their Prancercise, who call themselves the Prancin’ Grannies, and they adore him. They prance right up to tell him all about their single granddaughters.”

Millie snorted. “Stop it.”

“His own mom is even worse.”

“Does she still have the shop downtown? The one that sells all the crystals and candles?”

“Yep. Mystic on Main. She’s constantly trying to set him up on dates with her customers.” I entered my room and flopped back onto my bed. The glow-in-the-dark stars I’d pasted on the ceiling were still there, as if my parents had known I’d be back. “Like she’ll call him and say she has a computer problem at the shop, or she can’t reach something on a high shelf, and when he shows up to help, there isn’t really a problem, but there’s a woman she wants to introduce him to. He gets so mad.”

Millie laughed. “Does he ever talk about Zlatka?”

I ignored the little bolt of jealousy that always shot through me when I thought about Hutton and Zlatka, a stunning Lithuanian supermodel and the latest Bond girl. They’d dated for a few months this past spring, and the media had eaten it up. “No.”

“I wonder if it’s true what she said about him.”

My belly cartwheeled. “I have no idea, and I’m not asking.”

Millie laughed. “No, I guess there’s no way you can be like, ‘Hey, I heard you like to tie women up and boss them around in the bedroom.’”

“People just like to talk.”

“Especially about that stuff,” Millie said. “Although if you see any whips, chains, or blindfolds in his closet, let me know. It seems so opposite his quiet personality, but you never know what people are like behind closed doors.”

I was curious about that closed door but needed to focus on my problem. “Anyway, what am I going to do about tonight?”

“Why go at all? Just don’t show.”

“Because I’m catering some appetizers, which I had to beg to do, because the reunion chairwoman wanted to go with one caterer, and she didn’t want everything vegetarian. But I thought it would be good publicity.”

“Maybe you can just drop them off.”

“I don’t want to be that person, Millie.” My voice rose as I sat up. “I don’t want to be intimidated by people. I want to prove to myself that I can hold my head up in front of Mimi Pepper-Peabody, even with terrible bangs.”

“Okay, okay.” Millie’s tone was more gentle. “Who the heck is Mimi Pepper-Peabody?”

“She’s the reunion chair, a girl I went to school with. Beautiful, popular, you know the type.”