Her Billionaires_ Boxed Set(103)

“Not email! Only our parents use email.” An old joke between them.

“I expect Dylan will find a passenger pigeon’s corpse and resurrect it.”

“Or worse—use MySpace.”

Bzzzz. Confused, Laura looked at her phone. It was definitely off. “That’s me,” Josie explained. Leaping across the room, she foraged in her giant purse and found her phone. Slide, tap, tap. Her face! The look on her face made Laura want to administer oxygen and call 911.

“Josie?”

“Dylan!” She shouted his name like she was screaming the word “fuck!” Flailing her phone to and fro, she added, “How in the hell did he get my number?”

“I never gave it to him or Mike. I swear!” Laura answered. He was this desperate? Really?

“At Laura’s work. She’s not here. Is she with you? Is she safe? We’ll keep searching.” Josie laughed, a barking horsey sound that registered extraordinary disgust. “Is that a promise or a threat?”

Sigh. “He’s persistent.”

“He’s a whackadoo.”

“Well...” That he would somehow track down Josie’s cell phone number meant he was serious about finding her. She had zero desire to see either of them right now. Zero. They really had shredded her life, and what she wanted most was to turn the earth backwards, like in that old Superman movie, and make all of this go away.

No. What she really wanted was two men who could be honest and open and tell the truth about themselves so they could all live happily ever after. Was that too much to ask? Jill had died and turned out to have gobs of money that she passed on to the guys. They hid that information from her because—

Her blood ran cold, stomach twisting.

Because they didn’t trust her.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. “Josie.” Her friend sensed the shift in her voice and came closer, curling her legs under herself on a small, faded, orange velvet chair.

“Yeah? What is it.”

“They—they,” she stammered, her chin quivering now, eyes filling with hot tears and throat salty and thick. “They never trusted me. They wanted the money and a woman but couldn’t tell me because they didn’t trust me. They just— I don’t know!” she wailed, her volume increasing as her pulse raced and her mind raced even faster.

“Oh, Honey,” Josie replied, reaching for Laura’s hand. “You are so trustworthy and so not into money.”

“I know, right?” Laura screeched. “It’s laughable.” Maniacal laugh. “They couldn’t have picked a worse thing to be worried about, right? I’m the girl who shops as much as possible at vintage and thrift shops to save money. I drive an older car and I put money in my stupid 401K every paycheck and I pay my student loans on time and I follow all the rules.” Her voice rose. “All the fucking rules, right? I do everything right. Everything! And this is how the universe repays me? Seriously. I feel like I got a galactic shit dumped on my head this morning.”

“You did.”

“A billion dollar shit!” Her voice was like a gospel preacher, the intonation more revival than revulsion.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“And if those two fuckers thought they could have the best sex ever with me but couldn’t bother to tell me the truth about something this big, then they don’t deserve me!”

“Indeed.” Josie sat back down and leaned forward. “Billionaire bastards.” Laura shot her a harsh look, wondering if she was poking fun, but she wasn’t. The words mattered, and they were true. Both men were such steaming assholes she couldn’t believe it, the urge to start hyperventilating competing with the desire to punch them both in the face, even if she’d need a stool to reach Mike.

“I can’t believe Dylan tracked you down like that,” Laura chuckled.

“Should I reply?”

Blinking, Laura came to a screeching halt in her mind, the question jarring. Should Josie reply? What would she say? What should she say? No etiquette manual was designed for this. Dan Savage needed to write one. How should your best friend reply when both of your threesome boyfriends turn out to be billionaires and one stalks you to try to make up?

That would be popular.

Laura smoothed her sweater over her belly, which pooched out enough to send some sort of a cat invitation to Dotty. She plopped down on Laura’s lap and turned into a furnace, which was great in January but horribly warm in August. Get used to it, Laura, her mind said. It’s the only touch you’re getting for a long time that doesn’t involve plastic and batteries.

For some reason, that made her finally break down and sob. Not the sheer humiliation in the work lobby. Not the rage that claimed her so easily on the staircase, her feet still aching from that howlingly stupid move. And not the thought that once again, as with Ryan, as with so many guys in high school and college, as with Dylan and Mike the first time they made love, she felt tiny and cheated and shamed and grotesque because nothing had turned out as planned, and her own blind naivete meant that here she was sobbing and racked with grief, her best friend stroking her shoulder and nothing had changed.