Return Billionaire to Sender: A grumpy hero - opposites attract romantic comedy

by Annika Martin

  True to form, she rolls her eyes, frustrated.

  “It’s called a business skill,” I add.

  “You tell yourself that. Just a business skill,” she says, ever hopeful. This woman, always looking at me like I might be a good person.

  “Is that a requirement of coaches, to be perversely optimistic about people based on no evidence whatsoever?” I ask.

  “You are amazing with people,” she says.

  “In negotiations. I’m amazing with people in negotiations. It’s a strategy. It’s not reality,” I say.

  “Maybe it is reality,” she says. “Maybe the real you emerges in the negotiation room.”

  “Is this something like, maybe the thing you dreamed last night is real life? And all of this waking life is a dream?” I say. “Spoiler alert—it’s not.”

  She shrugs.

  “Or maybe, the Hitler who was really nice to his German shepherd is the real Hitler? And the rest of the time he wasn’t the real Hitler?”

  “What?” She turns to me, face lit with shock. “You can’t compare yourself to somebody like that. You are not like that. Just…don’t.” She shakes her head, as if to shake out the idea. “You can’t talk about yourself like that. God!”

  Her passionate protest has my pulse racing. I don’t know what to make of this woman taking my side like this. As if she thinks I need a champion or something. Who does that?

  “It was an analogy; not a comparison,” I say lightly.

  “Oh my god!” she says, still staring out the window.

  I want her back. I want her to be back looking at me. “The first meeting should only take an hour or so,” I say.

  “An hour?” She turns back to me. “I don’t understand. What do I do while you’re in these meetings?”

  “Enjoy yourself,” I say. “Have the driver take you to a nearby bakery or a deli. My treat. Walk in the park. Go out boozing and blow off the lesson completely. You have my permission.”

  She snorts at this last option, and I wonder suddenly what it would look like—her blowing off her duties to indulge herself. What would she do, left completely to her own devices?

  “Or maybe you could use the time to think up more postal carrier quizzes. You know how I enjoy them. Or maybe there’s a hedgehog-themed boutique nearby.”

  For a split second, she looks surprised. Then she shakes her head. “We need to start,” she declares.

  I grab a sparkling water and take one for her, setting it in her cup holder, because Lord knows she wouldn’t take it for herself.

  Elle puts down the bolster between us and sets up her little iPad on the pull-down surface in front of us. She sips her water as the residents of 341 West 45th ramble endlessly—I’ve never seen a group more focused on the smallest details of an apartment complex and each other’s lives.

  Now and then she gets the sense that I’m not paying attention, and she seems stunned and surprised. “Malcolm!” she’ll say and she’ll give the screen a stern nod.

  There’s really nothing quite like the sound of my name on her lips. When she pushes against my resistance, she transforms in a way that is endlessly hot. Or maybe it’s more like her real character is revealed. She keeps her bravery hidden like a squirrel with a nut, burying it deep. Sometimes I think she keeps her bravery hidden even from herself.

  On screen the most insufferable painting party of the century drags on.

  “Will we also be watching the paint dry?” I ask. “Is that something I should be looking forward to?”

  She looks over with narrowed eyes. “Do I have to stop the video?”

  “I’m just saying, a few hours of paint drying would certainly go with the style of this documentary…or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Shut the bruschetta hole,” she says.

  I stifle a grin. “What did you just say?”

  She points at the screen. There’s some historical footage from the 1990s. After that, the woman who sometimes wears the delivery cat costume complains at length about pizza with caramelized onions. The building definitely has a lot of women in their twenties and thirties, and there’s a kind of fondness that comes over Elle’s face when they carry on about whatever they carry on about. Is she getting attached to these women who keep appearing on the screen? Is she the one developing empathy? Is she being hoisted with her own petard?

  I’d googled her address in Newark, New Jersey back when I went to school on her background, and I studied her Instagram, too. You can never know too much about a person. Elle lives in a small, drab, dark basement apartment. I can’t imagine she likes it. With sixty thousand dollars, she could move somewhere nicer. Why not take it?

  What does this woman want out of life?

  I’m thinking back to what she said about moving to a more populous area, her desire to be around women her age where things were happening. I’m assuming she found that in her neighborhood in New Jersey—maybe that’s why she tolerates the shitty apartment. The building in her video program seems to be right up her alley. Too bad I’m knocking it down in a couple of months.

  “Are you even watching?” she asks.

  “They’re so friendly with each other. Is it anything like your neighborhood?”

  She stiffens. “What do you mean?”

  “That was part of your inspiration for moving out of the boonies—to find more women your age. Fun things to do. It’s like a goddamn sorority at 341.”

  “Those women do seem to love it there,” she says. “It seems like a wonderful place. A really nice place…”

  “Go ahead and finish the sentence,” I say. “A nice place that the big, bad wolf is going to knock down. Or Scrooge, rather. Can we have a big, bad wolf named Scrooge?” Just then my driver buzzes. “Ah, hold that thought,” I say. “We’re at the Ling Tower.”

  She frowns. “Wait, what? You’re leaving already?”

  I look at my phone. “Seventeen minutes down.” I slide out. “I’m expecting this meeting to run no more than fifty minutes. I’ll ping you and the driver when I’m out.”

  She looks affronted as I shut the door. Frankly, I’m glad for the interruption. Something about the proximity of her tends to put me off my game. The scent of her. The sound of her sighs. Her nimble movements.

  I stroll into the cool lobby where my accounting team awaits. They’re recapping strategy, but I’m thinking about Elle.

  What could she want beyond sixty thousand dollars? Presumably Corman paid her something to torture me with this footage. She took his money; why not mine? Is it possible she’s holding out for more? It doesn’t feel like her to hold out for more, but if it’s not money she wants, what is it? Is it love? Is it possible she’s involved with Corman? No way. She’d be loyal like that, but she’s not Corman’s type—not at all. Is it possible that she’s involved with one of Corman’s lawyers?

  The idea bothers me intensely. I tell myself it couldn’t be true, but there really is something that doesn’t add up about her.

  I hate the idea that she could be involved with somebody, but I can’t get it out of my head.

  My thoughts race back to her Instagram feed. I would’ve noticed if there were signs of a relationship. And then there’s the fact of our strange chemistry—chemistry as strong as ours would feel like cheating to somebody like Elle; she simply wouldn’t allow it. I don’t know much about Elle in terms of her life, but I know a loyal person when I meet one.

  We do another twenty minutes of video between my next two meetings. She’s not happy about the interruptions. I enjoy knowing that, when I’m up there in the meetings that she’s waiting for me down in the limo. I find myself looking forward to rejoining her, of once again resuming our strange dance. I enjoy her when she’s charged up, as if something essential emerges from her, as if she drops her guard.

  We’re finally heading home.

  “Twelve minutes left,” I announce.

  She’s frowning—stewing, really, and it stirs something in me. Honestly, I cannot get
enough of this woman.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  She folds her arms in a huff.

  “What is it, little country mouse?”

  “First of all, I’m not a country mouse; I am your coach. And second of all, from now on we’ll have dedicated sessions. You will not bend me around your schedule like a Gumby doll. You’ll bend your schedule around me.”

  I almost don’t hear her words or make sense of them because she’s doing her chin-up thing and it kills me. I want her so bad I can’t think. Maybe it was a bad idea to bring her in the limo.

  “Are you even listening?” she says. “No more chopped-up lesson time.”

  I say, “I don’t recall any stipulation that the lessons have to be held over one continuous hour.”

  “Well, they do have to be,” she says. “The interruptions ruin the whole flow of everything.”

  “I can’t do that,” I say in my most finalistic, nothing-to-be-done voice. “Some days the lesson will have to be like this.”

  “Surely you can find one uninterrupted hour,” she says.

  “Not on days like today, I can’t,” I say. “And there will be more.” And also, it’s just too enjoyable to annoy her.

  “We need an uninterrupted hour.” Her face is bright with emotion, just this side of pink. I imagine brushing my fingertips over her cheek; would her skin feel warm to the touch?

  She frowns, and visions of kissing that frown crowd my mind. “You have to find an uninterrupted hour. You have to find one.”

  “Or what, little country mouse?” I ask, pulse racing.

  She straightens, brow furrowed. “Okay, then,” she says, slipping a second iPad from her bag. She opens the hedgehog-themed cover, and fires it up. Deftly she punches in a code and navigates a few screens to some sort of grid hosted by Bexley Partners.

  “Do you see this empty square?” she asks.

  I’m barely listening.

  She turns to me, chin up, so fucking determined to hold her ground. Wildly, I imagine cupping that chin between my thumb and forefinger. Tipping her face to me. The idea has my blood racing.

  “Do you see it?” she demands.

  “I do indeed.”

  “That is where I put your check marks…when you earn them.”

  “Uh-huh.” Is she doing this again? I should probably be annoyed.

  She straightens up, seeking to occupy her full height. “If you can’t agree to uninterrupted sessions, I’ll be forced to give you an X instead of a check mark.”

  I swallow back a smile. She’s totally bluffing, of course—no way will she follow through on her threat, but it’s hot that she’s trying. “You wouldn’t do that,” I say confidently.

  “Wouldn’t I?” she taunts.

  I’m ready for her threat this time. I spoke to my lawyers about this. I inform her of what they said. “Companies like mine wouldn’t agree to use companies like yours if they had a history of flunking clients. My lawyers would’ve insisted on a different firm.”

  “Maybe that was true in the past,” she says, “but it’s a new day. And if you do not complete the lessons properly, and that includes not having them presented in a chopped-up fashion, I will put an X here. And then I will hit submit.”

  “And then your employer would fire you,” I say.

  “Maybe I don’t care about that,” she says. “Maybe this program is just that important to me.”

  I smile. So fucking unexpected. “A good girl like you? Not caring if you get fired?”

  “That’s right,” she says. “If you are unable to agree to uninterrupted sessions, you will get an X in this box. Once I hit submit, the X is sent to several parties. Do you know who those parties are?”

  She’s breathtaking—she really is; David to my Goliath—if David had been quietly sexy, and Goliath had been, let’s face it, a bit more competent. She’s standing up to me with everything in her, magnificent and vulnerable at the same time, and it makes me want to consume her—her lips, her skin, her neck. I’m a vampire, driven to devour her goodness.

  “No?” she asks. “Is this you not agreeing, then?”

  I give her the smug smile that seems to get under her skin.

  The air between us sizzles with energy.

  She reaches out her forefinger, the deft little finger that she uses to hit play but she’s hovering over something on the pad. She taps something and a large X appears in the box. I grin. She’s taking it all the way to the edge. She won’t hit submit though.

  She wouldn’t.

  She hovers her finger over the blue SUBMIT button, taunting me.

  “You won’t,” I say.

  “I will.” Her eyes flash. “Unless you agree to unbroken sessions.”

  “My day is too busy to carve out an hour, I told you that.”

  She taps submit.

  I gasp. “What did you do?”

  She taps again and the X disappears. “Aah. Retracted just in time.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Hitting submit on the X that you so richly deserve,” she says. “Now, is this an agreement on unbroken sessions? Or…” She lowers her finger, getting dangerously close to the submit button.

  I sweep in like lightning and snatch the iPad from her grip and set it on the other side of me out of her reach.

  “Gimme that,” she says.

  “No,” I say.

  She’s laughing. “Now you really are going to get an X!” She clambers onto me, trying to grab the device. “I’m so giving you an X!”

  “Not in this life,” I growl.

  She laughs, reaching for it. A wild rush of pleasure fills me.

  I hold the thing over my head, now, and she’s laughing, going for it with renewed energy. She’s practically on top of me, trying to reach across me, chest pressing against mine.

  She’s the perfect weight on my lap, and I breathe in her sweet scent, soaking up her soft curves with the unforgiving planes of my body. All at once she stills, color high, breath coming fast.

  I set aside the iPad and fit my hands around her waist.

  I expect her to maybe laugh and pull away with some snarky comment about giving me another X, but she stays. Her eyes gleam. Slowly, her gaze lowers to my lips. Heat rises between us.

  “An X,” she whispers. “Unless you can persuade me otherwise.”

  I blink. Did she just say what I think she said?

  She smiles her playfully witchy smile, and there’s no more guessing, no more hesitation. I yank her to me, taking her lips in mine with a hunger that surprises me.

  Deft fingers burrow into my hair. She’s warm and sweet, arching against me, and I’m devouring her, forcing the seam of her lips open.

  My tongue invades her mouth.

  “Nnng,” she says. “Nnnng.”

  I’m reveling in her soft nnnngs, in the desperate way she bunches my lapels into her fists, tightening and loosening as though her very fists are undulating under my wicked kiss.

  I slide my hand up her arm and cup her chin, repositioning her face for a gentle kiss, now—a simple brush of my lips over the center of hers, and then a quick kiss for my favorite freckle.

  She pulls away, seeming to come to her senses.

  I loosen my grip on her, watching to see what she’ll do.

  Her gaze falls to my lips.

  She sucks in a breath as I draw near for another kiss—her lips, her nose, her brow. Badly painted lashes flutter against my hungry bottom lip. I kiss her other brow.

  And then my driver’s voice sounds over the intercom, informing me that we’ve arrived at my next meeting.

  With that, the magic is broken.

  “I’ll make the uninterrupted hour,” I say.

  She gives me a wary look. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll consider a check mark for you. Today.”

  I grin.

  She leans over, snatches her iPad, and takes her seat just as my door is pulled open by my driver.

&nb
sp; I order room service in my room that night, but my attention is still in that limo; my entire mind and soul are still in that limo. I should be preparing for the next day’s session but I can’t stop thinking about the way she felt, eyes dark with desire, pulse a drumbeat in her smooth throat.

  Unless you can persuade me otherwise.

  I keep replaying the moment. Everything in her turned just then. Rose up, somehow. She was hot before, but shy Elle being sassy and demanding is mind-blowingly sexy.

  I grab my phone, telling myself I’ll review new intel we have on the Germantown legal team, but I find myself studying her Instagram again. I’m looking more carefully this time, reassuring myself there aren’t other guys in her life. I’ve officially gone mad.

  There are lots of pictures of a city—is it Newark? Manhattan? There are very few people in the photos she takes; she seems partial to colorful signs, ephemera on hidden corners, and random images of hedgehogs that she spots on street pole signs and so forth. What happened to the girls’ squad she was longing for? Did she not find one?

  I would find that incredibly sad.

  I use Google Maps to determine that quite a few of the earlier shots seem to be in The Bronx—did she visit there at one point? Did she have friends there?

  When you go even earlier, you get to her Mapleton roots. Rolling hills. Landscape panoramas that show rivers catching the light like shining slashes through wooded valleys.

  And of course, more postal-themed shots. Whereas most of her newer pictures are of things, these older pictures feature more people, including a number of shots of a woman in her late sixties with dyed white-blonde hair who could easily be a relative. Is this Elle’s mother? She plays a banjo in one of the shots. She’s rather frail in later shots—not entirely healthy looking, but she has Elle’s defiant green gaze.

  After dinner, I try again to crack into her locked-down Facebook page—unsuccessfully.

  And then I wake up. This was an evening specifically earmarked for negotiation prep, for gaining insight into Gerrold’s team. What am I doing?

  16

  Noelle