Page 74 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Surgeon

I rolled my eyes when I saw it was him. “Hey.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Paolo, seriously? We just had a two-hour lunch because you kept having to leave to take calls. Of those two hours, I think you were with me for maybe thirty minutes. I was a little tired of it. If you need to talk to someone, just do it. But don’t make me sit there while you show me over and over again that I’m not as important as whoever it is who’s calling.”

“God, I’m sorry. I… didn’t realize it had been quite that bad.”

“Yeah, well, it was.”

“Listen, I have some errands to run, and then I want to make it up to you, okay? Get dressed and we’ll go out for dinner. I’ll come get you at eight.”

If I wasn’t contracted to have to be with himand do what he wanted, I would’ve said no. I was really not in the mood to go out again.

“Sure,” I said instead.

“Great, see you then.”

“Wait, where are we…”

“I have another call. Let me take this.” And he was gone.

“Of course you do,” I mumbled to myself.

I waited until the last possible moment to get ready and dragged myself through the process. I was finishing my hair when I heard him come in.

“Jelly? I’m home,” he called. “Are you ready?”

“Almost,” I called.

He walked back and leaned against the door jamb and watched me swipe some lipstick on. Our eyes met in the mirror. “Hey.” He was staring at me.

He smiled. “You’re so pretty.”

I tried to smile back, but I knew it was strained.

“Come on.” He held out his hand to me, and I took it.

We walked hand in hand down to the garage and got in his car. I mainly looked out the window as we drove. I didn’t know what to say, and I’d never been good at making small talk to make other people feel comfortable.

“We’ll be there soon,” he said.

I glanced over at him and saw that he was watching me somewhat nervously.

“Cool.”

I had no idea where he was taking me. We weren’t going in the direction of many restaurants. Then, before I knew it, he had pulled back into the neighborhood my new house was in.

“What are we doing here?”

“You’ll see,” he said with a big smile on his face.

He pulled into the driveway of my house, or at least I assumed it was my house. I was pretty sure he’d paid for it with Tiffani Grace today. I didn’t know how buying houses worked, obviously. I’d certainly never done that before.

There was an air of excitement in the car, and it was allcoming from him. I don’t know if he had a hard time reading people, but he wasn’t my favorite person at the moment.

“I thought you said we were going to eat.”

“We are. Here.” He handed me a set of keys. “I have to get something out of the back. Don’t open the door until I get there.”