Page 94 of Billionaire Bad Boy Auction

We finished our meal and walked back to her new office space. We tackled the remaining furniture—a bookshelf that refused to stand straight and two chairs that came with approximately nine hundred unnecessary screws. Portia knelt on the floor, her tongue poking out in concentration as she wrestled with an Allen wrench.

“Remind me why I didn’t hire someone to do this?” she grumbled. “Or just bought actual furniture.”

I tightened the last bolt on the bookshelf. “Because then we wouldn’t get this quality bonding time. I watched some show with a husband and wife doing home renovations. They fought and argued the whole time and then they would go home and act all lovey dovey.”

Portia laughed, tossing the Allen wrench aside and leaning back on her hands. She smirked, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. Her cheeks were flushed from the effort. She looked happy. Content. I liked seeing her like this, not worrying about what anyone else thought. Including me.

“Things are different,” she said.

“Different?”

She tilted her head as she looked at me. “Different good. Definitely good. It’s just when we were kids⁠—”

“You were a kid, and I was the older brother trying to make sure Seth didn’t do anything stupid.”

She giggled. “You never even looked at me. And now you’re actually noticing me.”

“I’ve always noticed you, Portia.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh really? Because I distinctly remember you ignoring me.”

I snorted. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was avoiding you.”

“Why?”

“Because you are eight years younger than me, and I wasn’t interested in doing five to ten by messing around with a minor. You were very distracting, so I had to stay away from you.”

She blinked, then laughed softly. “Distracting? Me?”

“Yes and it feels gross to even say how pretty you were.”

“What about that night?” she asked quietly.

“The island?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “You didn’t even talk to me. I thought you were mad at me.”

“I was furious with my brother,” I corrected. “And seeing you like that? Vulnerable. Alone. It gutted me. But again, I was way too old to be trying to comfort you.”

She studied me. “I didn’t see it that way then. I just thought you didn’t care.”

“I cared,” I said quietly. “Too much. That was the problem.”

“Well,” she said finally, breaking the tension with a playful shrug, “I guess I should thank Seth for being an idiot that night. If he hadn’t been such a jerk, we might not be here now.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought Seth hung the moon,” she said. “I had such a crazy crush on him. But that night, I realized he was a jerk.”

“I am sorry about that,” I said again.

“Don’t be. It’s in the past.”

She stood up, brushing her hands off on her jeans and surveying the room with a satisfied nod.

“Not bad for a couple of amateurs,” she said, gesturing to the assembled furniture. “Thanks for helping me with all this. I know it’s not exactly your idea of a good time.”

“It’s been a great time,” I said. “I like hanging out with you.”