Page 11 of The Billionaire Invitation

“Crane Hotel.”

“Nicest place in town,” Zander said. “At least that’s what Reese says.”

Their cousin was CEO of Crane Hotels. Dante expected nothing less than a promise of “perfect” regarding the modern glass shrine overlooking the city.

Dante slugged back the rest of his scotch. “I should get going.”

“It’s only nine-thirty. Some vacation guy you are.” Brody put the cigar in his mouth, looking like he had nowhere to be. Hell, he was an author who set his own hours. He probably didn’t have anywhere to be.

“Let him go. He’s had a big first day back.” Zander crossed his leg ankle-to-knee. “Tell Honesty we said hello.”

“It’s not like that,” Dante said. “Goodnight.”

But as he turned to leave the restaurant, he ran through a long list of reasons he’d like to see her again.

Professionally, of course.

CHAPTER FIVE

Honesty had been poring over the internet to find answers but she’d only found more questions.

It’d been two days since the photos of her and Dante had surfaced. In that time she had lost the “Cinderella” moniker. She was now being referred to as “Crane’s charity case.”

Which was so much worse.

Once word was out about Honesty’s identity, one of her clients had called her private line. The founder of an all-natural, vegan, animal-friendly makeup brand wanted a seat on Honesty’s charity board.

“What’s the name of your charity again?” she had asked.

Honesty had clumsily recited what Dante had said about not being able to share because of trademark issues. She hadn’t had the heart to tell Beatrice Banks that the board she wanted to be a part of didn’t exist yet.

Since then she had researched how to create a board and accept donations, and then that had taken her down a tax rabbit hole, which was far less interesting than the one that took Alice to Wonderland.

After reading for what felt like hours, her eyes had crossed. Her overwhelm had kicked into overdrive after reading articles on year-one operating budgets, seed funding versus multi-year commitments, and compliance and scalability.

Sob.

“I am freaking out. The luncheon with Beatrice is the day after tomorrow and I have nothing,” Honesty, her fingers nested in her hair, admitted to Gabby via videophone. Thank God Gabby was a night owl and had been willing to hop on a call when she’d received Honesty’s desperate text.

“Okay. Don’t panic.” Gabby was holding her cell phone way too close to her face as she paced her apartment. “Just because we don’t know what half of those things are doesn’t mean we can’t find out. I can ask ChatAI.”

“I think this is well beyond ChatAI’s skillset.”

“Maybe you don’t need answers. Dante cleaned house at that event and he knows almost nothing about what you do.”

“Dante is a professional.”

“A professional what? Does he charge by the hour?” Gabby waggled her eyebrows before laughing at her own joke. “You should ask him for help. Maybe he’d sit in with Beatrice and you. He could run interference.”

“I need to learn to do this myself. He isn’t going to stick around to bail me out in the future.” That hit a bit too close to home. He hadn’t stuck around when it would have mattered most.

“The internet already believes you’re working together—possibly more. Beatrice won’t think a thing of him sitting next to you. That handsome mug of his couldn’t hurt your chances at a monetary donation. If you two could throw in some hand-holding or a cheek-kiss here and there, you could⁠—”

“Gabby, Dante and I used to date.”

Gabby was speechless. A first.

“In college. It was a long time ago.”