Page 97 of How to Train Your Billionaire

“Frankie. This wine tastes like someone dissolved cardboard in grape juice.”

“You’re such a snob.”

“I’m discerning.”

“Same thing.”

We’re bickering. Like we used to. Before everything got complicated and I messed it all up.

After dinner, I clear the table while she sets up the Scrabble board. Her fingers shake slightly as she arranges the letter tiles.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” She doesn’t look at me. “Just ... this was our thing, you know? Mine and Charles’s. Playing games, talking about nothing. Now it’s just ...”

“Different.”

“Empty.”

I want to tell her it doesn’t have to be empty. That we could fill the silence with our own words, our own games. But that’s not what she needs right now.

“What was your first word with him?” I ask instead.

“‘Muffin.’ I got fourteen points, and he acted like I’d just discovered fire.” She traces the edge of a tile. “He bragged about you constantly, you know. Your tennis matches, your business deals. How smart you were.”

My throat tightens. “He talked about you too. I know you were the daughter he never had.”

Frankie’s face crumples. For a second I think she’s going to start crying again. Instead, she picks up seven tiles and studies them like they hold the secrets of the universe.

“‘Wizard,’” she says, placing the letters down. “Double word score. Twenty-eight points.”

“Show-off.”

I study my own tiles. Nothing good. A bunch of consonants and a singleE.

“‘Hex,’” I manage. “Eleven points.”

“Pathetic.”

“I’m out of practice.”

“Charles would have destroyed you.”

“Charles cheated.”

“He did not!”

“He absolutely did. I caught him looking up words on his phone.”

Frankie gasps in mock horror. “You take that back.”

“Never.”

She throws a tile at me. It bounces off my chest and clatters to the floor.

“Charles Winthrop was a saint.”

“Charles Winthrop was a competitive old bastard who hated losing.”